Poor Little Oppenheimers

A reader writes about this piece:

By the “activists'” own definition, global warming is a systemic problem caused by the incentives and methods of industrial/consumer civilization. Yet the “activists” don’t want to alter the structure itself. They don’t propose radical changes to our methods of production or to our vision of necessary technological progress. They don’t propose altering our political systems to remove the disproportionate influence of capitalists (defined narrowly as those who own the means of production) on economic and trade regulations. They won’t blink at subtly advocating a holocaust of 30 million human beings. But the continuation of commercial air travel and constantly-obsolescent electonic devices (computers, video) leaves them unmoved.

What “activists” do want, and urge daily, is to control individual decisions within the existing structure. Britain has BAE and a whole military-industrial complex besides? No problem. But if Joe and Mary want three (or any!) children, their filthy breeding habits must be stopped by law. Financiers and industrialists set to make billions through jury-rigged “eco friendly” tax incentives? Sure, we have to save the planet! But we must eliminate the kulaks and their family businesses because they can’t pay millions for “eco friendly” technologies which, incidentally, belong to oil corporations and are available only to franchisees. Can the United States have an air force whose flights annually produce more greenhouse gas than the entire 19th century? Well, yes, if for no other reason than we’ll need help imposing “one child per family” on the wogs. But it is imperative that the government require your conversion to Hi-Def video and regulate the temperature of your home through central monitoring and remote-controlled thermostats. One suspects that it’s only a matter of years before a brave “activist” with corporate/state connections discovers that the communication of “improper opinions” produces excess greenhouse gas and should therefore be monitored and punished.

The “activists” no doubt tell themselves that temporarily championing the “megabusiness state” over human liberty and dignity is a regrettable byproduct of their true work, preparing a gobal consensus for the real systemic changes required to “save the planet.” They probably thrill to a vision of the day when, having convinced the world’s (remaining) people that total control of human action is required to avert imminent and total disaster, they can turn the people against their masters and impose the same consciousness on the powers that be, leaving the “activists” to say what is taboo and what is righteous. “Activists” like Porritt can, on that happy day, fly around the world (the only flight allowed) in giant silver machines, finally the Dictatorship of the Air they have always deserved to be, landing occasionally to bestow their blessing on semi-literate proles who eat grass and expose children.

Poor little Oppenheimers. They have no idea what they’re doing. Or who they’re doing it for.

Somehow or other, every movement for reform in the post-Christian world always has the net effect of concentrating power in the hands of a smaller and smaller group of oligarchs. In case you are wondering why, it is because God is in the business of casting down the mighty in their arrogance and lifting up the lowly. By ourselves, we are not at all inclined to assist in such a project–unless, of course, we get to be mighty and arrogant. We are a culture that longs to return to paganism ASAP. Judgement, as ever, will consist of our getting exactly what we want. Mercy (may it come soon) will consist of delivering us from what we deserve.