Anticipatory Victimization, Trauma, and Re-empowerment

TRIGGER WARNING: Discussion of violence

Disclaimer: My statements here do not come from ignorance. I suffer from PTSD, as I have been a victim of extreme violence.

-We cannot remain in a state of anticipatory victimization. Our extinction as a species should not have any bearing on how we view ourselves in the interim. To hold on to the identity of the victim, we sabotage the opportunity to make the most out of what very well may be our last decades on this planet. Our narrative is such that we are prone to falling into a Post Traumatic Stress (or perhaps I should say Pre-Traumatic Stress) reaction. Dealing with this reaction means that we must reclaim power over our lives, and re-frame our narrative to one of empowerment.

- The first step that comes to my mind is that we must not blame ourselves. A major tactic of corporate power, and one that the mainstream NGO environmental movement buys into, is to lay the blame for climate change at the feet of every individual who uses fossil fuels. This has a bi-fold effect. Number one, it removes blame from the powerful, who under this rubric only share as much blame as poor people driving to work at McDonald's and Walmart. Number two, it derails the environmental movement into a foray of useless spending habits, personal guilt, and at the extreme, suicidal grief and depression. In short, we must understand that this is not our doing.

- Overcoming trauma means re-framing the narrative of the traumatic event as to empower the victim. The traumatic event that we are dealing with is gradual and unfolding. This makes even perceiving the narrative as a whole very difficult. However, it also means that we have the opportunity to shift the narrative in real time, as someone fending off an attacker might do. Although our actions may not change anything in the long term, and our species will still be doomed to extinction, we can live our time left on our own terms.

- What does this mean for how we live? What would fending off our attacker look like? I don't make claims to know exactly. I know how it feels to be a victim, I know how it feels to shed that identity. I know that we will not be able to shed that identity if we do not call out those responsible. I know that not doing so is paralyzing, and that, we cannot afford. 

The Lag Effect of Climate Change, The Lag Effect of Violence

-The worst effects of climate change will be dealt to the world from greenhouse gases being released into the atmosphere now. The effects of climate change that are witnessed today are a result of greenhouse gases released 30 years ago. Climate scientists call this the lag effect, or inertia in ecological systems. Many scientists suggest that the worst effects of climate change will be witnessed by the end of this century, however, a growing number of scientists are not so optimistic, and place these effects at the middle of the century. This means that for people approximately 30 or under now, the prime of their life will be defined by climate change, systemic collapse, violence, and certain untimely death.

- We already know who is responsible. Oil companies who know damn well what they are doing, then pay for massive disinformation and denial campaigns. A financial sector that props up an increasingly nonviable fossil fuel economy. Governments that are so beholden to corporate interest that they would never dream of taking any action that would seriously curtail the use of fossil fuels. A rampant militarism (particularly the brand that the US has adopted) that brutally defends against any disruption to the oil economy, and resorts to extreme measures like invasion and occupation in order to secure energy supplies. Law enforcement that serves as a personal domestic army for the rich and powerful. Ad infintum.

- Those who are responsible for climate change are protected by the lag effect. They are free to orchestrate the burning of fossil fuels because they know that the victims won't know they have been attacked until it is too late. In this sense, any act of resistance towards the fossil fuel economy and those who run it can be considered an act a preemptive self-defense. I'm sure that many readers at this point will attack this idea as abstract and speculative, I would beg of you to consider the position of those who see their future being destroyed,and who feel that there is nothing left to lose.

Responsibility and Powerlessness

- The converging crises that are descending on our planet are the direct responsibility of the powerful that preside over civilization today. The political and economic elite of yesteryear would not have known about the effects of burning fossil fuels, but the elite of today have no such excuse. They know very well what the consequences of their actions will be, and continue regardless. In this sense they are very culpable for the future murder of billions of humans, not to mention the trillions upon trillions of non-human animals, and the extinction of trillions of species.
- If there is any doubt that the powerful know exactly what they are doing, this myth should be dispelled by the existence of luxury several million dollar condos built in an abandoned nuclear missile silo at an undisclosed location in Kansas (http://www.survivalcondo.com/). The powerful are actively preparing for the disaster that they have unleashed, while the rest of us will be left to die in privation.
- The mainstream environmental movement has been selling us a grand lie. The grand lie is the concept of personal responsibility among the powerless. They have sold the idea that we are just as culpable as the powerful because we drive cars, consume products, etc. As if we have a say in how civilization is organized! As if we have leverage against a self-perpetuating 12,000 year old system of slavery and exploitation! This is the grand dis-empowering lie that convinces people that they can avoid certain catastrophe by driving hybrid cars. To believe this lie is to excuse the powerful of their responsibility, and therefore never come to a clear understanding of what our future will look like.

No Hope

- What are we to do when our last glimmers of hope are dashed? Our soft animal bodies bound to be broken, starved,  and exposed to ever worsening elements. Our fates tied to a murdered planet, facing a runaway climate change that now appears all but inescapable. A civilization in a violent contraction, and headed towards permanent collapse. In this horror our Paleolithic ape bodies will be torn apart, and we will suffer unspeakably.
- The young now will never reach the ages that our parents and grandparents have. We will die early, many of us in a violent manner. We will die of diseases for which antibiotics are no longer available. We will be murdered at the hands of desperate people trying to find food. We will be those desperate people who will murder for food. We will die from exposure, ravaging heat, super-storms, bitter cold without heat, and floods that will submerge major cities. We will die of dehydration and malnutrition. We will die from cancer, toxicity, and nuclear radiation. We will inherit the toxic remnants of this toxic civilization. We have no hope, we are walking ape corpses with no recourse to change our future. What is left? What are we to do? Does it inspire in you anger? It inspires in me rage. I feel my animal self struggling to break through my civilized facade. That animal self wants to lash out, that animal self wants revenge.