A GUIDE TO PERSONAL SURVIVAL IN A WORLD GONE MAD, A Book Review of The Path Through Infinity's Rainbow, By Mike Byron

At the risk of sounding nit-picky, I must add that I personally do not want civilization to be renewed. I want it to be eradicated and relegated to the dustbin of human history as quickly as possible. I do have a vision, as I have written about repeatedly on this website, of what humans might create as an alternative to civilization, and I believe that this is also Byron's intention in writing this paragraph. No doubt this is a semantic issue, but I need to emphasize my repudiation of civilization and my commitment to the development of localized niches of eco-centric habitation and functioning which will do whatever it takes to ensure that civilization does not re-emerge on planet earth.

In Chapters 3 through 5, Byron takes us on a sobering journey through current reality, and I suppose that since I am already so familiar with its content, I most appreciated the opening quote of Chapter 3 by A.H. Almaas: If you haven't struggled with a question, you cannot digest the answer even if it is handed to you.

Each time I'm asked "so what do we do about collapse and its attendant catastrophes?" the essence of the Almaas quote leaps to mind. The current presidential election charade is nothing if not the antithesis of what these words assert. The culture of empire is one in which individuals refuse to think or feel deeply about anything unpleasant or that challenges them to venture beyond the bounds of narcissistic consumerism. Thus, the intolerance of the overwhelming majority of Americans for being present with the dilemma without immediately jettisoning into "solutions." And as my friend, Tim Bennett, writer of "What A Way To Go: Life At The End Of Empire", says, when people ask for "solutions", they fundamentally don't want an answer because an honest answer will require them to change everything about their lives down to their toenails. What the citizens of civilization desire instead, is some soporific, like a political candidate or a mass movement that will allow them to continue to live their lives exactly as they have been living them with the exception of perhaps a few minor changes that cause minimal discomfort.

I was relieved when I discovered that Byron ends his three-chapter analysis with a repudiation of national electoral politics by asserting that they "cannot be an effective means for regaining control over our corporate hijacked civilization." Here, I would want of Byron only one thing more--to lose the word "civilization" and perhaps replace it with "planet" because I believe that the fundamental assumptions and constructs of civilization must be questioned and eradicated. In fact, "industrial civilization" is itself a corporate hijack, and on one level or another, it always has been, even before the corporation existed.

I define civilization as Derrick Jensen does, "stories, institutions, and artifacts-that both leads to and emerges from the growth of cities." Industrial civilization has exploited and defiled the earth for the past 6000 years and is inherently based on hierarchy, inequality, environmental and human degradation, and as a result of a fundamental split between humans and nature in the European psyche, skillfully analyzed by psychologist and author Ralph Metzner, has developed a "use" relationship with the more-than-human world.

With this in mind it was reassuring to read Byron's unequivocal emphasis on the pivotal issue of values:

I can't stress this point enough: the ultimate source of civilization's crises arises from our own deepest values. If these are not changed-if we do not change-then no technology can do any more than briefly delay civilizational Collapse-at the cost of making the Collapse of even greater magnitude than would otherwise have been the case. (131)

From Chapter 8 ("Strategies For Survival") onward until the book's end, Byron offers options for those who are willing to stare down collapse and allow it to transform every aspect of their lives.  Consistent with the above quote regarding values, Chapter 8 begins with a section on knowing oneself and the assertion that individual survival first begins with critical thinking. "Clear critical-thinking abilities," Byron says, "in conjunction with physical health and robustness are the two fundamental essentials for individual and family survival. Hard times require sound minds and healthy bodies." (140)

But it is not enough to merely think; one must become an agent of change. Byron opens this section with a personal admission that he has reluctantly come to the conclusion that political change is not an effective means for bringing about the radical alteration of civilization's trajectory-this from a former Democratic candidate for Congress in 2004! In fact, he states that change at the top could only be brought about by revolution and that the only meaningful change that can occur must happen in local communities. Following his outline of Saul Alinsky's "Rules For Radicals," Byron emphasizes that revolution must begin within the existing political system, by which he means a local political system and that people must be willing to give up the existing system "before they will become receptive to fundamental change." (144)

As I ponder the last sentence, I feel nothing but pessimism about the facility with which the ruling elite has manipulated the masses into the national election chimera. In my opinion, until Americans have bought out of that delusion, it will be impossible for them to give up on the existing system and therefore comprehend that all solutions are local, and that if the "solution" isn't local, it isn't a solution. In fact, Byron states in a later chapter that "Simply engaging in politics as usual is an almost certain recipe for death during the Collapse-or, at the very least, impoverishment and curtailed freedom or outright serfdom for most of us." (179)

Consistent with similar advice offered by Dmitry Orlov in his new book Re-Inventing Collapse, recently reviewed by me at this site, Byron suggests residing in an intermediate-sized community that has adequate resources for food and water and that is detached from large urban centers. Although extreme isolation in a rural area may at first feel safer, both Byron and Orlov note the "safety in numbers" factor of which those attempting to navigate collapse must be aware.

A fabulous "Be Prepared" section (149-151) offers specific advice for survival and sustainability in real time, life-threatening situations. This section is a no-nonsense regimen that would make any seasoned Boy Scout proud and that one would want to post on one's refrigerator prior to collapse and carry in one's pocket afterward. Subsequent sections of the chapter include planting a victory garden, studying and implementing permaculture techniques, and familiarizing oneself with When Technology Fails: A Manual For Self-Reliance And Planetary Survival.

In Byron's "World Reborn" chapter, he states that he has come to believe that the universe is not without purpose and that civilization's collapse and renewal have great meaning. What I'd like to have read here, and I hope Mike will consider writing it, is an entire book that elucidates his sense of that meaning. My forthcoming book, The Spirituality Of Collapse: Restoring Life On A Dying Planet, attempts to do just that, but because Mike and I have similar, yet differing perspectives on this, I'm exceedingly curious to hear the details of his. In his "Letter From The Future" he summarizes the planetary initiation that collapse will provide which will transform the human species and allow it to realize its fullest potential, including the likelihood that the evolutionary leap produced over time by collapse will qualify earthlings to join the cosmic community of highly organized, vast intelligences-a community which pre-collapse earthlings are not yet equipped intellectually, emotionally, or spiritually to encounter.

In the book's final chapter "A New Direction", Byron envisions "a very quiet secession from a political economy that is dying, in conjunction with simultaneous alliance to another that is being born"-a process which he calls "the Renewal." In the section "Shackled Feet Can't Jump: The Human Rights of Women Are Essential", Mike emphasizes that the Collapse will eradicate the last vestiges of patriarchal oppression of both genders so that all human beings can make the greatest possible contributions to the Renewal. In this section I was humbled and honored to find a segment of my 2006 article "Post-Petroleum Woman" quoted in which I added from my perspective what may be a more gender-balanced approach to the Peak Oil issue than is generally offered by the preponderance of male researchers who overwhelmingly inform the conversation about that issue. To this I must also add an excellent blog post by Sally Erickson, producer of "What A Way To Go: Life At The End Of Empire" in which she takes to task the white male "man-date" of fixing the world in order to avoid collapse. The words of her very latest post "Orlov And The Wonderful, Terrible, Radical Simplification", resonate with Byron's with respect to the "meaning" inherent in the Collapse:

I see the collapse as a piece of the story of the human, a real live myth, a very big and very profound story. I see this time and these events in ways that I imagine Gaia or Mother Earth may see them. What all of this represents is a vitally necessary process of cleansing and balancing. At its best, what we are involved in, and witness to, is a spiritual initiation rite of the highest order for an adolescent species in sore need of such an initiation.

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