Stunning writing, Birgitte, powerful and darkly poetic that encompass far more than the daily horrors we are witnessing. Thank you for these words, which are both inciteful and insightful. I shall be sharing them.
Okay, now let's have a very good writer, as good as this one, give us over-the-top praise of the magnificence of humanity. Then put the two pieces out together so this horror show doesn't stand alone and drag all of us into a snake pit. As Sartre said, that I often quote, "Hell is other people." However, heaven is the ones who aren't hellish, and, for the best chance for humanity to thrive, lead with the praise and then add this piece, saying, "But watch out, there are other forces at work, too, that will drag you down, so be careful what you attach to."
A succinct yet well articulated answer to the question, "how on Earth did it come to this?"
There are more than enough people ideologically equipped to right-size this imbalance of influence. But it won't happen until we slay our false idols. It starts with turning off the TV and social media. It continues with ceasing to use currency as a proxy metric for success.
Thanks again for your words Birgitte and, in my case, for painting a minefield with the mines to avoid: greed, material rewards, comparisons, hierarchy.
There is a beautiful universe to explore and enjoy.
I encourage every young person to dissociate themselves from material things, live a minimalist life, and be thankful and appreciative of everything that goes right around them.
There is indeed an entire universe, layer upon layer, of wondrous and beautiful things sprouting all around us. We just have to see through the dirt they tend to be hidden beneath.
Great piece. It is the march of technology—promising progress but in many ways really just delivering mind control for the Alphas—that has accelerated the pace of consolidation. Where once charismatic demagogues would preach from a mountain to a crowd of hundreds, now they trumpet from a digital platform to an audience of millions. We need digital and civic education on a scale that our leaders seem incapable of providing in order to counterbalance this corrosive force.
Yeah but unfortunately I’m not optimistic about this country’s ability to do that. At this point, your home country—which seems to have come a long, long way since the days you fled for the “promised land”—may just be a better bet. So weird how history doesn’t necessarily repeat, but it does rhyme.
Ha—wish I could take credit for that phrase. Don't recall where I heard it originally but it feels all the more relevant today. As for chaotic waves, maybe there comes a day when the madness of the current administration does just cause it all to collapse in on itself. But I still don't have much hope for civic education and engagement among our fellow countryfolk. 😕
Beautiful, wonderful, brilliant….and so true…. We all are creators and users of this amazing world. It is up to us to care, to create, to do, think, and cherish, respect, embrace the good, builders, creators, thinkers…, not to be or support destroyers.
It's an excellent and eloquent rant, Birgitte, but I'm going to challenge your opening premise. Well, me and my occasional pal Claude, who "writes":
"This statement presents a dramatically oversimplified view of social organization that doesn't hold up well against biological and anthropological evidence. Let me walk through some key problems and exceptions:
**Mischaracterizes actual animal behavior:**
Many of the specific examples are misleading. The "alpha wolf" concept, for instance, has been debunked by the very scientist (David Mech) who popularized it—wolf packs are typically family units led by breeding parents, not dominance hierarchies among unrelated adults. Killer whales and elephants have matriarchal societies. Bonobos, our close relatives, have female-coalitional social structures quite different from strict dominance hierarchies.
**Ignores egalitarian structures:**
Vast numbers of human societies throughout history have operated with remarkably egalitarian structures. Hunter-gatherer societies, which represent the vast majority of human evolutionary history, typically featured fluid leadership, consensus decision-making, and active mechanisms to prevent individuals from dominating others. Anthropologists like Christopher Boehm have documented extensive "reverse dominance hierarchies" where groups collectively suppress would-be dominators.
**Conflates different organizational types:**
The statement lumps together hereditary monarchies, elected officials, corporate hierarchies, and mating systems as if they're all expressions of the same principle. These emerge from vastly different social, economic, and cultural conditions. A democratically elected president operates under completely different constraints than a pharaoh.
**Overlooks cooperative and collective structures:**
Many species thrive through cooperative breeding (naked mole rats), rotation of leadership roles (some bird species during migration), or essentially leaderless organization (many fish schools, insect swarms). Even in species with hierarchies, these are often context-dependent and flexible rather than rigid pyramids.
The statement seems to naturalize and justify contemporary hierarchical arrangements by projecting them back onto "Nature" with a capital N. This is a classic case of selective interpretation—seeing the patterns you're looking for while ignoring contrary evidence. Human societies show remarkable diversity in how they organize power and resources, which suggests these arrangements are more malleable than any simple law of nature would allow."
Me again: Brings to mind Graeber and Wengrow's The Dawn of Everything, which focuses on hum not other-than-human systems, but also asserts. much broader array of human experience and social structure than I 9and perhaps you) were raised to believe.
Stunning writing, Birgitte, powerful and darkly poetic that encompass far more than the daily horrors we are witnessing. Thank you for these words, which are both inciteful and insightful. I shall be sharing them.
Honored Geoff.
Okay, now let's have a very good writer, as good as this one, give us over-the-top praise of the magnificence of humanity. Then put the two pieces out together so this horror show doesn't stand alone and drag all of us into a snake pit. As Sartre said, that I often quote, "Hell is other people." However, heaven is the ones who aren't hellish, and, for the best chance for humanity to thrive, lead with the praise and then add this piece, saying, "But watch out, there are other forces at work, too, that will drag you down, so be careful what you attach to."
Balance is indeed forthcoming. :)
We eat to live
Must kill to eat
We let the best killers rule
Until we learn another way.
The only legitimate use of power is protecting those that can't protect themselves and the earth, always and foremost the earth itself.
Thank you for a beautiful essay.
Excellent. Thanks for the recommendation.
A succinct yet well articulated answer to the question, "how on Earth did it come to this?"
There are more than enough people ideologically equipped to right-size this imbalance of influence. But it won't happen until we slay our false idols. It starts with turning off the TV and social media. It continues with ceasing to use currency as a proxy metric for success.
Thank you Birgitte for being a voice of reason!
Thanks again for your words Birgitte and, in my case, for painting a minefield with the mines to avoid: greed, material rewards, comparisons, hierarchy.
There is a beautiful universe to explore and enjoy.
I encourage every young person to dissociate themselves from material things, live a minimalist life, and be thankful and appreciative of everything that goes right around them.
There is indeed an entire universe, layer upon layer, of wondrous and beautiful things sprouting all around us. We just have to see through the dirt they tend to be hidden beneath.
Great piece. It is the march of technology—promising progress but in many ways really just delivering mind control for the Alphas—that has accelerated the pace of consolidation. Where once charismatic demagogues would preach from a mountain to a crowd of hundreds, now they trumpet from a digital platform to an audience of millions. We need digital and civic education on a scale that our leaders seem incapable of providing in order to counterbalance this corrosive force.
The scale is mind blowing isn't it? As you say, we need a profound counterpoint to that scale. Deep education and critical thinking on a mass scale.
Yeah but unfortunately I’m not optimistic about this country’s ability to do that. At this point, your home country—which seems to have come a long, long way since the days you fled for the “promised land”—may just be a better bet. So weird how history doesn’t necessarily repeat, but it does rhyme.
That's beautiful... history rhymes. Makes me think of oscillating frequencies. Let's hope all these chaotic waves cancel each other out...
Ha—wish I could take credit for that phrase. Don't recall where I heard it originally but it feels all the more relevant today. As for chaotic waves, maybe there comes a day when the madness of the current administration does just cause it all to collapse in on itself. But I still don't have much hope for civic education and engagement among our fellow countryfolk. 😕
Beautiful, wonderful, brilliant….and so true…. We all are creators and users of this amazing world. It is up to us to care, to create, to do, think, and cherish, respect, embrace the good, builders, creators, thinkers…, not to be or support destroyers.
It's an excellent and eloquent rant, Birgitte, but I'm going to challenge your opening premise. Well, me and my occasional pal Claude, who "writes":
"This statement presents a dramatically oversimplified view of social organization that doesn't hold up well against biological and anthropological evidence. Let me walk through some key problems and exceptions:
**Mischaracterizes actual animal behavior:**
Many of the specific examples are misleading. The "alpha wolf" concept, for instance, has been debunked by the very scientist (David Mech) who popularized it—wolf packs are typically family units led by breeding parents, not dominance hierarchies among unrelated adults. Killer whales and elephants have matriarchal societies. Bonobos, our close relatives, have female-coalitional social structures quite different from strict dominance hierarchies.
**Ignores egalitarian structures:**
Vast numbers of human societies throughout history have operated with remarkably egalitarian structures. Hunter-gatherer societies, which represent the vast majority of human evolutionary history, typically featured fluid leadership, consensus decision-making, and active mechanisms to prevent individuals from dominating others. Anthropologists like Christopher Boehm have documented extensive "reverse dominance hierarchies" where groups collectively suppress would-be dominators.
**Conflates different organizational types:**
The statement lumps together hereditary monarchies, elected officials, corporate hierarchies, and mating systems as if they're all expressions of the same principle. These emerge from vastly different social, economic, and cultural conditions. A democratically elected president operates under completely different constraints than a pharaoh.
**Overlooks cooperative and collective structures:**
Many species thrive through cooperative breeding (naked mole rats), rotation of leadership roles (some bird species during migration), or essentially leaderless organization (many fish schools, insect swarms). Even in species with hierarchies, these are often context-dependent and flexible rather than rigid pyramids.
The statement seems to naturalize and justify contemporary hierarchical arrangements by projecting them back onto "Nature" with a capital N. This is a classic case of selective interpretation—seeing the patterns you're looking for while ignoring contrary evidence. Human societies show remarkable diversity in how they organize power and resources, which suggests these arrangements are more malleable than any simple law of nature would allow."
Me again: Brings to mind Graeber and Wengrow's The Dawn of Everything, which focuses on hum not other-than-human systems, but also asserts. much broader array of human experience and social structure than I 9and perhaps you) were raised to believe.