Like television, systems of government have myriad linkages across the range of different sub-systems that operate in order to keep things working as they should. Like television, especially in a social sense, systems of government are about maintaining a hierarchy. Systems of government utilise television to maintain control: it propagates selected messages controlled by various commercial and political powers. Television is just one tool, albeit a very powerful one, that Industrial Civilization uses to inculcate civilians with the greater aims of the civilisation.
The systems of control, as Mander alludes to in his "Four Arguments", demand complexity as a result of both the scale of the systems and because of the increasing levels of technology that have been utilised to achieve the desired outcome. There is an inevitable relationship between the two, as it happens: you could not have something as inherently complex as a television without large-scale systems of manufacture -- it just wouldn't be worth it. This is why the highest levels of systematic complexity are only seen within the largest systems; a localised tribe has no need for complexity when it's food is available to hand, or with a kitchen garden where the crops are grown or harvested solely for that tribe. If the tribe becomes "Westernised" then it will begin to attain Built-In Complexity, with its acquisition of imported goods, food and services, however small-scale: immediately the tribe utilises something from a more complex society, so it too becomes more complex.
On the other hand, if you start to divest yourself of television, shop-bought apple pies, and the trust you place in governmental systems of control, then you start to become less complex.
To Last The Whole Day Long
Simplification has so many benefits that it would not be possible to list them all here in detail, but I can outline four of them which I think capture the essence of simplicity, and show up the myth that complexity is a good, indeed an acceptable thing:
1) Simplicity requires less energy: This is self-evident, for the fewer stages there are in any process, the less energy will be consumed overall. You could argue that heating a house with a load of wood and a hole in the ceiling is more energy-intensive than a combination gas boiler, but -- taking aside the difference between renewable versus non-renewable forms of energy -- in order to manufacture the combination gas boiler in the first place requires similar number of processes as to manufacture a television. If you want more efficient heating, hammering out a rocket stove from a few sheets of metal is relatively far simpler. In addition, the more stages involved in anything, the less accountability is possible, and thus the more opportunity for energy wastage.
2) Simplicity is connected: Following on from the previous point, accountability isn't really about economics, it is about knowledge. If I were to buy a cord of wood that had originated from a forest far away, then it would have had to pass through a number of stages to get from the source to the user: the felling of the tree(s); the sawing and preparation of the timber; the movement to the port and subsequent transportation by sea and/or land to the point at which it is available to me, or at least the person who gets it too me. Through these different stages I have progressively lost connection with the origin of the wood; I have no sight of the trees, I cannot feel the soil, I cannot smell the air where the tree once stood. I do not care. That is the way of the civilized. Compare this to a person who cuts her own wood from a tree she felled, and uses it to build a shelter.
3) Simplicity is stable: As Thomas Homer-Dixon described so vividly in The Upside Of Down, complex societies are inherently unstable, for they rely on a multitude of different stages and processes connected by an equally complex set of linkages, any one of which can be critical to the efficient operation of the system as a whole. Bring down a major power line to a processing plant, shut down a distribution computer, or blockade a port, and the whole dependent system may break down, particularly one that is already under stress, as so many systems are in the just-in-time economy. If you grow your own food, or ideally are a member of a small growing community, then you may be vulnerable to seasonal aberrations or pests, but so long as you do it right then our food supply is safe, and not subject to the hazards of complexity.
4) Simplicity is democratic: As we have seen, complexity is used to enforce the systems of control that the Culture of Empire uses against us, to keep us subjects of that culture. One man with a sword can control perhaps half a dozen people without swords; one man with an agenda, and a military establishment under his control can control entire nations. Within a cooperative society, a simple society working on egalitarian principles, no one can wield power without challenge. You have a say, as does everyone, for there can be no ivory towers or impregnable fortresses in the simple society -- you need complexity to build them.
We have been sold The Complexity Myth, the idea that something is only good if it is a product of a complex set of processes, in order that we can be controlled. We are kept in check by this idea and do not question it because we have forgotten how to live simply; we have been brainwashed to love the world of the complex, and as a result we are prepared to defend the thing that is causing the collapse of the natural world, and our own basic humanity.
Unless we are prepared to once again embrace the simple then we have no future as a species...except, perhaps those few remaining people who still live simply.
The Underminers Network is part of the ongoing effort to undermine the industrial system of civilized control and disconnection. Please join up at network.underminers.org.
This article was originally published at Culture Change (http://www.culturechange.org)
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