Analyst of the human illusions about our place in the Earth System. Soon to be published: Holding It Together: Social Control in a New Era of Great Transformation. My eBook, HOPEFUL REALISM: A Climate Manifesto, is available on Amazon; free download via Kindle Unlimited. https://smile.amazon.com/Hopeful-Realism-Robert-MacNeil-Christie-ebook/dp/B0B52F18CX/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2LWKLZZGP6BB3&keywords=hopeful+realism:+a+climate+manifesto&qid=1656946028&s=books&sprefix=,stripbooks,428&sr=1-1
How to manage a societal crisis: that is the question. Or, is it a question at all? Why is it so difficult for a society of ostensibly free people to work together to make life better? To be accurate, we humans are in quite a pickle these days. With looming climate chaos before us, we … More Tyranny vs Leadership: Authoritarian Exploitation or Mutual Aid for Survival
The COVID-19 pandemic is so bad now that it is impossible to test and trace its spread, as some countries were able to do early on to knock it out. The number of new cases is growing so fast in some states that even if the US government tried to increase testing and employ people … More Here is the Plan to Control the COVID-19 pandemic, which will probably not happen, and why
At first, the “great debate” over whether people ought to be required to wear a protective facemask in public or maintain “social distance” in the interests of public health as the COVID-19 pandemic surges across the nation, surprised me. It should not have. The controversy is not really about facemasks or public safety. It is … More To Mask Or Not to Mask: That is NOT the Question
Recent calls to “defund the police” miss the point, yet they point to something important to both the public and police themselves. More than anything, such demands express the frustration that comes on the heels of not only the recent police killings but in response to decades of attempting to reform police institutions to purge … More Misunderstanding Police: Transformation, Not Mere Reform
“Culling the herd” may be a crass way of referring to what is going on in too many states and cities today. However, we may learn something by considering the parallels and differences. In the wild, large predators such as lions or cheetahs cull herds of gazelles, zebras, etc. by attacking the old, infirm, or … More Culling the Herd with Arrogant Ignorance
“Outside,” shouted one of the surfers on seeing a new “set” of bigger waves forming further out to sea than the small swells passing them but deemed not worth riding. Always, they looked for a bigger better-formed wave to catch. The world today is looking outside in the hope that a second wave of the … More Here Comes the Second Wave
Most folks assume that authority rests with some sovereign person or government entity and that its power flows from the top down. That’s what kings, princes, and wannabe dictators would have you think. They invoke all sorts of justifications, from the divine right of kings or other presumed blessing of power, right down to the … More How to Distribute Authority
Relative deprivation is a peculiarity of human perception and fact. The COVID-19 pandemic has hurt many people in many ways. As public health researchers study the virus and learn more about its behavior, they have learned that it attacks humans in many ways. However, it has become clear that in the US, Blacks, Latinos, Native … More Relative Deprivation in Black and White
In a recent post here, I asserted, “the title to Naomi Klein’s book, This Changes Everything, may apply to everything now, not least of which is the human behavior in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.” Well, as the current frenzy grows, that seems a gross understatement. As recent events and global trends grow more … More Frenzy: When Murder, Pandemic, and Eco-Chaos Collide
The globalized corporate economy of perpetual growth already produces too much and has done so for a long time. In the process, it excludes more and more people from participating in that production. That means growing numbers of people do not have the income to consume what industry produces. Certainly, something has to give. Not … More The End of Economism
Robert MacNeil Christie, Author 