Oldal 12 [12]
10 | THe PuitosopHy or Eco-Pourrics
era. The current world order is not unsustainable, because it comes up
against the limits of nature’s carrying capacity. Rather, it reaches the
limits of nature, because it is unsustainable: its contradictions within
the logic of the given system are irresolvable. In other words, any
suggestions for the survival and renewal of our civilisation must of
necessity come from outside the system (and this determines their
reception).
But is there still an “outside”? Does the success of globalism not
entail the spread of the patterns of one single civilisation across the
globe, absorbing into themselves or destroying every other pattern? We
are faced, in radical Islam or the heirs of Mao-ce tung who have
transformed from communists into capitalists, with the same totalitarian
technocratic mentality that the modern industrial state forced onto its
subjects and enemies.
Still, it is worth knowing that the pursuit of empire-building and
the consequent hybridisation of cultural patterns does not characterise
our time alone. Thus has ended so far every civilisation that has passed
its sell-by date, exchanging its remaining energies for empire-building,
seemingly at the peak of its strength. The final days of Antiquity were
set in motion by the expansion of the Roman Empire which conquered
the known world and those of the feudal system by the development of
absolute monarchies and colonial empires. They are not swept away by
class struggle, not by external attack and not even by bloody revolutions!
They collapse under their own weight, when their internal contradictions
have become unsupportable.
And while the dinosaurs, consuming their environment and doomed
to destruction, are still fighting their murderous battles with each other,
terrified little beings are experimenting with survival under their feet,
the so-called mammals. They inherit the Earth. It should be noticed
that the new cultural patterns, which serve as the starting-point for
changes of historical proportions, emerge in like manner, usually from
the initiatives of small local communities who till them and keep them,
while fighting for their survival in faraway provinces and within the
walls of monasteries. Or, as was the case at the dawn of the Modern
Era, they rise from the tough everydays of urban communities
independent from the prevailing regime, gradually and at first almost
unnoticeably.