{"id":1321,"date":"2005-06-24T14:52:00","date_gmt":"2005-06-24T14:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sustainablog.greenoptions.com\/2005\/06\/24\/final-thoughts-on-kunstlers-the-long-emergency\/"},"modified":"2005-06-24T14:52:00","modified_gmt":"2005-06-24T14:52:00","slug":"final-thoughts-on-kunstlers-the-long-emergency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/final-thoughts-on-kunstlers-the-long-emergency\/","title":{"rendered":"Final Thoughts on Kunstler’s The Long Emergency"},"content":{"rendered":"
I finished The Long Emergency<\/a> yesterday, and had planned to post my thoughts last night, but 1) life got in the way, and 2) I really felt like I needed to take a few hours (at the very least) to digest. Despite some of my reservations and criticims that I’ve already expressed, I do think that The Long Emergency is an important, necessary book.<\/p>\n As I got into the last few pages, it dawned on me that perhaps I was approaching the book all wrong. I do think Kunstler’s predictions on the future are incredibly bleak (think Mad Max or that Kevin Costner Postman movie), and I still think his use of entropy was problematic. At the same time, though, I don’t think Kunstler is attempting to play the role of prophet or seer (as it seems some have characterized him). Rather, I think the book’s purpose is to shock us out of complacency (and we’re all complacent) and get us thinking about how we’d live given the circumstances he describes. So, while I responded initially as a literary critic, and perhaps also as a good citizen of the oil economy, I think some of the most productive responses I’ve seen are those by fellow bloggers like Steve Balogh<\/a> and Kurt Cobb<\/a> who’ve sat down and considered “What does this mean for me?” (Kurt’s also taught a course<\/a>). Even while I think Kunstler’s characterization of the future is apocalyptic (a term he tries to refute), I think we are facing some momentous changes in the future, and all of us will have to deal with a simplifying of our lifestyles. As a teacher, I was actually encouraged by his thoughts on how education would change — his position is similar to that of Daniel Quinn in My Ishmael<\/a>, though a bit more direct, and I find this approach to education remarkably refreshing.<\/p>\n Back to my lit. crit. mode, it’s interesting how Kunstler has set up the industrial age as a sort of tragic character — I referred to Icarus earlier, but Oedipus might be an even better parallel, as, in Kunstler’s view, modern\/postmodern culture will be paying for its blindness. At the same time, there is a bit of the comic in his approach — we will survive despite our foolishness (if you haven’t read or seen Thornton Wilder’s play The Skin of Our Teeth<\/a>, do… it should probably become required reading).<\/p>\n Mostly, though, I’m thinking about what I can do in terms of preparing for big changes to come. Could I suport my family on farming and craft labor? Probably not at this point, and that’s good to know. Would St. Louis be a good place to stay? Maybe, because of our location at the juncture of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers. Or, will we need to prepare more like a second Great Depression is coming? Would Missouri be a region more like the Deep South or the Upper Midwest in terms of its response? As a native Southerner, I know exactly what Kunstler describes in terms of the fundamentalist religion and authoritarian tendencies in the South, but I also know that, surprisingly, these didn’t come out nearly as strongly during the Depression as one might have expected. <\/p>\n Ultimately, though, I don’t think it’s a good idea to take Kunstler’s words as a gospel, but rather to realize that we’re likely entering unpredictable times — preparation for that unpredictability is key.<\/p>\n OK, enough of my ruminating… What do you think?<\/p>\n