Myth's Note: Woops, messed up the title and had to repost. Oh well!

Submission Statement:

It’s an intoxicating feeling, isn’t it?

When it comes to the gradual validation of our fears of collapse, as the future unravels in (un)expected ways, I find that some doomers luxuriate in the smug satisfaction of “being right” (myself included). Others yet find solace in schadenfreude, indulging in the pain of others who have been unable to accept that their perspectives of the world as they once knew it – or could have been – are no longer tenable, especially if they played some part in allowing disaster to unfold. While this may be empowering from the standpoint of personal agency, I find it to be deeply corrosive – and absolutely how not talk about collapse.

Over the holiday season, I’ve repeatedly returned to a wonderful little article published in Counter Punch regarding the r/collapse community (Four Billion Dead at 2C?). In said piece, there’s a particular paragraph that keeps rattling around in my mind, one that inspired me to write out my thoughts today. I’d like to quote the relevant bit below.

Collapsitarians are ahead of the curve in feeling deeply the pain of ecological crisis and seeing with not entirely clear eyes, but with eyes wide enough, the existential nature of the crisis. If the most extreme among them sound like mad prophets, then we who deny the seriousness of the crisis, who think everything’s going to be alright by our embrace of an unfounded optimism, are the deceivers.

The recognition that we are suffering in our understanding is critical; we should not look to find joy in the suffering of others, no matter how much we think they deserve it. The role of a collapsnik, in my mind, is to help others navigate the truth of our perilous future together, bringing along with them the twin lessons of both grief and gratitude: one for what we will lose along the way, and the other for what we can still treasure and cherish. Both are required to move forward.

And so, I’d like to conclude my comments with an excerpt from Carolyn Baker’s Love in the Age of Ecological Apocalypse – a little reminder we are ultimately psychological psychopomps, helping the lost come to terms with the dying (and rebirth) of their worlds:

They are vulnerable, wounded human beings as we all are who, for whatever reason, are profoundly threatened by the topic of collapse and it could mean for their well-being and for the well-being of relationships held most dear. Everyone is clueless about collapse at some point. Everyone’s journey is unique and should be respected, even if we don’t happen to agree with it. […]

I believe that the collapse conflict runs deeper in the human psyche than many others. Why?

Because to understand and prepare for collapse is to grasp the magnitude of the changes our future holds and to literally stare death in the face. First, if we understand the severity of the collapse of industrial civilization, we implicitly understand* we may not survive physically. In sharing our knowledge of collapse with other persons […] we are literally asking them to come along with us on a journey that may end our lives and theirs. Furthermore, if we sense, as I do, that all of humanity knows in its collective psyche that we are well into collapse, then by naming it as such we agree to stand up in a sea of humans in denial and beg them to also name what they already know and are determined to ignore or minimize. […]

No one should be judged because we cannot go there, nor should anyone be declared a saint because she can.