Building Arks
How to Survive (and maybe thwart) the End of the World
In their recent article in The Guardian, The Rise of End Times Fascism, Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor offer a cogent analyses of the forces of annihilation we face, along with a prescription for how we might build resilience, fight back, and survive We need more of this kind of deep dive. They paint a terrifying picture that seems all too plausible and real, but also show us a hopeful path forward.
They write:
"The governing ideology of the far right in our age of escalating disasters has become a monstrous, supremacist survivalism.
It is terrifying in its wickedness, yes. But it also opens up powerful possibilities for resistance. To bet against the future on this scale – to bank on your bunker – is to betray, on the most basic level, our duties to one another, to the children we love, and to every other life form with whom we share a planetary home. This is a belief system that is genocidal at its core and treasonous to the wonder and beauty of this world. We are convinced that the more people understand the extent to which the right has succumbed to the Armageddon complex, the more they will be willing to fight back, realizing that absolutely everything is now on the line.”
To counteract the Right's depravity and destruction, Klein and Taylor exhort us to tell "a story not of end times, but of better times; not of separation and supremacy, but of interdependence and belonging; not of escaping, but staying put and staying faithful to the troubled earthly reality in which we are enmeshed and bound." It's a great description of my upcoming book, Kinship Medicine: Cultivating Interdependence to Heal the Earth and Ourselves.
My one quibble with their framing: I wish they hadn't used the word "ark" to talk about what the hard right is trying to preserve (themselves, their extravagances, their cruelties) at the expense of the real world and all its beings. I don't want to give that word over to the narcissists and supremacists. I think we all need to start building arks -- doing everything we can to protect and preserve all the precious communities and local ecosystems we depend on. Mutual aid, local conservation efforts, every kind of community building, are all metaphorical arks in my mind. They are the vessels we need to traverse these dark seas. There are surely more stormy times ahead, there will be more suffering and more death, but each of us can create circles of care and light and hope if we come together, and that will carry us to the other side.
Many have noted the power of stories and the need for many more of us to paint a picture of the world we can build based on compassion, cooperation, interdependence, and love. I am as certain as Klein and Taylor that a whole movement will coalesce around a hopeful vision for the future, and it will have the power to topple the white supremacist authoritarian nightmare we’re currently living.