Reality: Resplendent, and Deadly

“As I’ve averred before, don’t be surprised if the 2020 election doesn’t even happen. The institutional damage may be too deep.”

Jim Kunstler can say that (and he has, not for the first time, in this shared post from his latest blog – “In Memorium: Reality”), and I can also say that.  I can’t remember if I said the same thing off the back of something Jim said or if it was also an idea of my own.  In the end it does not matter.  If such eventualities actually occur (and to me that becomes increasingly likely), who will care?

What does it actually mean?  Simply put, I hope, it means that within the next year (that is before said 2020 elections are due to be held), the western world – and perhaps the rest of the world too – is going to experience a crash (and that word seems hopelessly inadequate as a descriptor) such as never seen before in the entire history of mankind, with the effect that whole nations will incur a collapse of structural integrity, sufficient to make any of the norms of civilised life impossible to continue in any sensible manner.  How do I describe that?  Well, I can’t.  Not in a few sentences.  Use your imagination.

I don’t want to be picky, but on this occasion I think Jim got his (usually brilliant) titling wrong (unless I’m misunderstanding his meaning).  This is not a lament for the passing of reality but the emergence of reality – resplendent and deadly – arising from the dispersion of the fog of pretence brought on by the popping of the bubble of ‘unreal narratives’ that have so effectively confused and deluded us into believing that which is not real is real for so long now. 

I think we are not going to like that ‘reality check’ one bit when it happens.

So, are you prepared to contemplate that the charade of modern life likely has less, possibly much less, than twelve months still to run?

There are no guarantees of course.  You need to make up your own mind on that.  You are free to dismiss the prospect entirely.  You are also free to consider it, and how it would or will effect you personally.  

But no matter what you think or how much consideration you give to it, if it is going to happen, it will happen, whether or not you or I or anyone else has thought about it or to whatever conclusion our thinking led us.  

Read Jim’s piece again if you haven’t already.  And if you are not an American, think about what the fallout from that might mean to you, wherever you are.

I can’t offer you any better advice than that.