Sometimes it is just hard letting go of a certain part of your life….

My time without power was actually rather pleasant. It has made me very much want to sever the cord, so to speak. My wife, however, has a very different feeling about the matter, and if I mention installing a new wood cook stove with a hot water reservoir, oil lamps, and a hand pump in the kitchen and a new well and hand pump in the barn one more time she might make me sleep in the barn with my new hand pump. There were large inconveniences having to do with water, light, and heat that made living without power for any length of time with our current set up rather onerous, but it did give me the opportunity to realize that with the proper set up, I think I would get along fine without power.

Regarding the matter at hand, I must say that for the first time, I am having trouble following your argument. I do not see how I have been starting from a position of bad mutual faith or how I have been impugning your motivations. As far as I am concerned, I have not started from the position that my own beliefs about what may happen and my attendant opinions are legitimate and that yours are tainted with a pornographic fixation — although, I readily admit that I believe my beliefs and opinions are legitimate, but I do not think they are immune to criticism or unproblematic. My arguments about your text are derived from an analysis of your text (an analysis tainted and directed by my own beliefs and opinions, of course). According to that analysis, I believe that an *unintended* consequence of the results of your analysis has been this sort of (to me) negatively productive (it incites fear and direct actions in response to this fear [see more below on the motivation for action]) gratuitous and banal fixation on the idea of a national trauma, and that furthermore this trauma has become such a deep analytical artifact for you that it looms wherever you turn. In other words, I believe that mine has been substantive and not personal criticism. If you feel otherwise, and you obviously do, I have failed to adequately express myself and for that I apologize.

As for my thoughts about your motivations about doing what you do, I have stated previously that I believe that you are sincerely motivated by a strong belief in the importance of seeing, thinking about, discussing, and acting in light of (the acting part is introduced here for the first time) the national trauma, and that this belief is based on some very serious and sustained analysis. I do not think you are acting in anything but the best interest of all of us.

Having said that, I agree with you that we are going to have to agree to disagree on the question of the national trauma. You believe it is coming (is likely to come). I believe I do not know if it is coming (is likely to come). Your belief inclines you towards a certain mode of thinking and action. My belief inclines me towards a certain different mode of thinking and action.

On the question of whether the national trauma will come, I am on the fence, so to speak — it may come, it may not come. Whether it will come is simply beyond my interpretive horizon, sort of like the question of the existence of God, and is therefore an uninteresting question for me. It either comes or it doesn’t come (God either exists or doesn’t exist) (I also do not rule out something in between or beyond the does or does not). I can analyze, interpret, and predict all that I want. The reality is that it either comes or it does not come, and it is chance, more than anything, that makes my analysis, interpretation, and prediction right or wrong. One could spend a lifetime learning to garden and care for goats, preserving food, stockpiling water and supplies, reducing one’s energy footprint to the head of a pin, and never have needed to do any of it in spite of every analytical sign pointing otherwise (the converse is true). Similarly, one could spend not one second in preparation for the trauma and find oneself cold, hungry, and shit out of luck when the trauma comes (the converse is true).

This disinterested agnosticism in the face of these questions whose answers fall outside of my (our) interpretive horizon, then, is my motivation, and it is the ground upon which I root my labeling of your text (note that this is very much *not* objective). The thing about the trauma is that if it has not come, it is, and will always be, yet to come. It can loom infinitely. The national trauma, in this sense only, is perfectly analagous to God. Within this framework, your (broad) text strikes me as an analytical overshot. It is a gnostic text; it makes definite, certain claims about something that cannot be known. Note that I recognize two things about the above: 1) you do acknowledge that you might be wrong, and you do acknowledge that it might not come, and 2) regardless of whether I am right, you seem to think it is an important enough possibility to make the Pascalian wager.

For me, however, acting as if the trauma is coming is just as bad as acting as if it is not coming. The trauma is not (to me) an appropriate ground for our actions, in the same way that (to me) God is not an appropriate ground for our actions. Rather than make the Pascalian wager and act as if the trauma is coming or as if God exists, I think we should live in the world in a way that renders the trauma (God) — the question of the trauma (God) — inconsequential, or, more grandiosely, undermines the conditions of possibility of the idea of the trauma (God). We should not live in the world in the ways that you advocate because the trauma might yet come, in the same way that we should not live a good life because God might exist. We should live a low energy, resource minimal, community-oriented life because it is a good way to live, not because we have an idea of the trauma, just as we should live a good life because it is a good way to live, not because we fear the consequences of our actions in a world where God exists. If we do so, then whether the trauma comes or God exists is of no consequence.

In contrast to my motivation for living in the world in the ways you advocate, your motivation for living in the world this way is (as I read it as an analytical object of your text) to stay ahead of (or to survive) the trauma. As I read you, the trauma is a necessary motivating force in reorganizing (“adapting”) our way of life. It is the root upon which grows the Astykian future. The trauma gives birth to and feeds that future; it is the air that that future breathes, and it is in this sense that I find the idea of the trauma gratuitous and banal — the trauma! the trauma! You would have us act out of fear and anxiety, in spite of the fact that you also seem to view the trauma as a source for hope and rekindling human experience.

Our major difference then is the difference between a negative and a positive life. The negative life is one of prevention, defense, and adaptation. The positive life is one of production, affirmation, and freedom from anxiety and fear of things that may be infinitely yet to come.

It seems to me that the interpretive problem that divides us is what the order of events are. To me, the sudden rush that takes out the Colbert Christmas special and the sudden rush that take out supplies of good vegetable seeds are mechanically the same, and because they are market responses to suddenly discovering a new object of desire, they are both reasonably likely – if enough people see that Colbert is really funny, they will want his DVD. If enough people see that they need to grow a garden, they will want seeds. The difference will be in the end result – since no one actually needs Colbert DVDs, a shortage thereof will not be a problem. Since one might actually need seeds to eat, a shortage there would be a problem.

For you, the apocalypticism of the prediction preceeds the events – my concern with seeds comes, it seems, from seeking disasters, and the very act of forseeing a supply problem is caused by a viewpoint that sees disaster everywhere. And that is a danger. From my perspective, the danger exists, whether articulated or not – and it is rendered more serious by not forseeing it, by not exploring the possibilities. To your perspective, focusing on the danger is gratuitous, to mine, it is a necessity created by events.

I don’t think we’re going to agree here – and I guess I’m brought up to wonder whether you consider your own motivations as carefully as you consider mine (note, I don’t doubt you may, I’m genuinely asking) – because the identification of something a gratuitous or pornographic implies that there’s an objective possible answer to this, that you are capable of assigning. That is, you’ve chosen to view this not merely as a difference of opinion about how to approach a subject we probably basically agree about (ie, we need more diverse seed sources), but as something someone (you, potentially) can put a label on and describe accurately – that is, an Astyk post is or may be gratuitous. But I don’t see you describing your own disinclination to view things through my lens in the same absolute terms – you do not, for example, choose to label your own perspective, much less apply pejorative terminology to it.

To you, I guess I’d ask “if the trauma is coming, do we genuinely improve anything by erasing it from the discourse?” I certainly don’t object to people who disagree with me, but I don’t think I’ve been anything but upfront and quite public about where my analysis has led me. Clearly, you don’t share my vision of the future – and there’s nothing wrong with that, lots of people don’t. But granting me my sincerity, do you sincerely think that if I’m right, we’d be better off not to discuss it? Because I think the question changes depending on what the anticipated reality is – that is you can ask “Could I do more good if I denied the looming national trauma that is actually going to happen” but I think that’s a less powerful and useful question than one that assumes I’m wrong about the course of events, and primarily electing to use the narrative of trauma to get my point across. To some degree, of course, even if we do descend to a Depression (again, I think saying that a situation that my grandparents and most other people’s survived and lived a tolerably decent life through is apocalyptic is overstating things quite radically, but we’ve agreed to switch terms – still I object to the substance of the idea that the trauma is so terribly unbearable that it becomes radically unlikely), you could make a case my analysis would be stronger if I denied or did not focus on the material circumstances of things. But would you? It truly seems to me that our difference is a difference of opinion – and that you do not want to attribute them to simply a difference of opinion about how events will unfold, but to either a gratuitous personal preoccupation with misery or a mistaken decision about how to influence people – that is, you want to attribute this to everything but what I sincerely believe it to be – the conviction that we are facing harder times than you expect.

You are entitled to your opinion, and clearly this bothers you a great deal – for that I’m sincerely sorry. Time will tell about events – I would prefer that your analysis end up being the right one, quite sincerely. I wish I believed it were likely – in some senses, I think I’d prefer your analysis as well. I do feel that your posts here don’t really grant me a lot of good faith – they get into complex questions of motivation when a simple factual dispute is really at the root of things. And I still sincerely find that objectionable – and I think it undermines your critique. Obviously, I don’t like what you say, but I like to think that I take criticism seriously. But I find it hard to take seriously a critique that ultimately begins from a position of bad mutual faith, that says “my beliefs about what may happen and the way that shapes my opinions are legitimate, while Sharon’s are tainted with a pornographic fixation.”

It is a pity, because I suspect that we do have a remarkable amount of common ground, and I find you an engaging person to argue with.

Cheers,

Sharon