I am probably best known as being a sound-engineer (among many other things) for Triban's Solar Stage, and as the LGB (Little Ginger Bastard) fiddle player for KilnAboy. If you've got time, please *read* the lyrics, the music is just a backdrop! And now, to business (of the non-profit ilk, if such a thing exists!).
At best we are a startlingly selfish and obnoxious (and noxious) culture. And seen as most of us are born into this culture, few of us seem able to appreciate it objectively. Few of us actually consider the impact of our everyday choices. "Everyday" may seem insignificant, but if it's multiplied by a few billion peoples' ignorance (mainly due to a lack of information or intentional miseducation), you come right smart with the sorry global situation we have today.
We see the world with a big fuck-off pair of western goggles that efficiently filter out awareness, and actually enhance delusion! What am I talking about???!?!! I am presenting/posing my highly subjective antithesis on western culture, it is in no way a critique, but rather a scathing eulogy. And here we go...
So many see the 'fruits' of western civilisation as a birthright, as something that we are inherently entitled to, but in truth we are the spoiled brats of the world. Even today we continue to pray off the "once-a-colony-now-just-slaves-in-bondage" global South. We are the inheritors and benefactors of the oppressive, manipulative and abusive imperialistic, colonialistic and hegemonic legacy of human civilisation that has dominated the globe for quite a few thousand years. We continue to accept, and skim off the cream allowed to us because, realistically, civilized humankind has done little but wallow in primitive barbarism.
So what are we going to do about it? Are we going to continue passing it off as some natural by-product of natural selection? Are we really going to shun the notion that we are destroying ourselves and our home? Are we going to continue our blind, hedonistic faith in western science, where - in the mainstream - it's sole objective focuses on researching how to tackle certain problems without us having to reduce our consumption?? This is capitalist science in a capitalist world, and it is designed to protect those that are making a buck out of every aspect of our lives!!!
We have evolved little from the Romans, Greeks, or Egyptians. There are phenomenological differences (i.e. our technologies and cultures), but the mindset is still very much the same with regards labour, expansionism (neocolonialism), war-mongering and resource acquirement. And this is both intentional and evident in our heralding of these civilizations in our own architecture of official/governmental buildings. Even atop the White House you can see Persephone, Greek goddess of the underworld, whom most people mistake for Mary, mother of Jesus. The U.S. and U.K. even took the trouble of transporting large dynastic Egyptian obelisks to their respective capital cities... WHY???
It appears to be a symbolic celebration of the successful migration of this ever-dominating, dominator-style culture. And who did this?? I presume a group of people who know something that most of us don't, a group whose decisions and behaviour seem counter-intuitive (which when you look at the decisions our so-called 'leaders' make, this idea may make a lot more sense rather than it just being some sort of desperate speculation). This may be explainable in terms of secret societies... And to think that nothing goes on behind our backs can only attest to ignorance or lack of education, or even unwillingness to accept that the ball is actually in our court, and that we might actually have to get off of our arses and do something!!!
In this culture we are encouraged to buy, upgrade, dispose of, and buy again... There is no such thing as cheap, if such things exist, it is because the producers are losing out, it is never the middlemen. Free trade and the world bank were designed to keep the rich rich, and the poor poor.
Fairtrade is a farce. The poorer people of the world trade off their land in order to produce cash crops to satisfy the rich west's demands for luxury goods. Their freedom is little more that it was 500 years ago, European colonialism crippled Africa. Disease, war, provocation, and the slave trade all contributed to the tattered continent we see today. And it is kept there by free-trade 'agreements', the world bank, and primarily by our demand for the ever more exotic, be them textiles, crafts, or foods, all so they and their children can have basic (western) healthcare and (western) education ("west is best, west is best"). Whatever it is, we just keep wanting more, and somehow think this is alright!! Wake up!!! The vast amount of charity and international development simply acts to westernize, and look at the fucking mess it got us in to! The west is in an appalling state of denial. I love the way that we will give a bunch of wackos millions in order to come up with a way of stopping global warming, and the result? We should build a 1,000km fold up mirror that we would have to put in orbit around the sun so that it may reduce solar radiation by 2% For fuck's sake! Have we lost all sanity now? How about we all individually make a conscious effort to turn things off when we're not using them... That idea cost nothing (and required little more than a brain cell) and would be far, far more effective, do you see? It's about us and the choices we make every moment of every day, the little things that add up! "May I live simply, so that others may simply live" said Ghandi.
There is no mystery behind global warming, poverty, mental illness, cancer, infertility... We our causing these problems ourselves because of the way we live. We are in many ways a guinea pig culture - all these 'advances' in science have brought us for the first time in history - virtually simultaneously - herbicides and pesticides, GM, artificial EM radiation, bio-accumulant toxins, air pollution and nuclear winds. Add those to lack of exercise, water fluoridation, consumption of processed foods, unreasonable employment conditions, hormonal manipulation, daily broadcast violence... We also fail to see the interconnectivety and interdependence in the world, rainforest destruction and mass extinctions are on the increase day-by-day. We can't see how absolutely mad we have become because we're so entranced, it has become the usual, the normal... We seem incapable to see out of our own bubble and see the destruction and pain we are reaking across the globe. I for one am ashamed to be a) western, b) british, c) white, d) male, and e) a human being, the oppressive legacy I have inherited makes my skin crawl. I would liken 'civilised' humanity to a psychopath incapable of comprehending real emotion.
But the thing is... WE ARE NOT! WE CAN BE SO MUCH MORE IF WE JUST, FOR ONCE, DECIDED TO ACTUALLY GIVE A SHIT AND FUCKING DO SOMETHING!
I believe we can live in peace, and that the global elite and it's prescribed, mandatory diet of lies are leading us badly astray. We need to start thinking for ourselves... Which is another thing, there seems to be some sort of war on intellectualism, do you know that I.Q. actually decreases as you go through school. The mainstream education system has only ever sought to mold the young into the future workers, the tax-payers, and to fuel the zealous drive for a stronger economy.
Humanity needs to get back in touch with nature... I look like a bit of a hippy, yes, but this is a FACT. We need to learn respect for the thing on which our survival totally depends. If you ever learn to track animals, for instance, the outside world transforms into this enormous collection of stories, everything tells a tale of some sort, and you learn that other animals are in no way inferior, this is pure speciesism, and reflects our own fallibility and self-delusion. It is entirely possible to recapture that fascination of the world that you had as a child. This was drummed out of us early on in life, we were told the way the world worked, and ended up believing it, so that now these opinions are hard to challenge.
Don't allow yourself to sink in to ignorance or apathy, don't try and disenstrange yourself from your duty to restore balance, don't kid yourself that you're not part of the problem, and don't kid yourself that nothing can be done and it's too late. It's like tactical voting in this country, if we actually acted on what we believed something would come of it! If all those people saying "It's too late" became proactive there would be enormous change. If you're not going to do this then don't be as selfish as to have children, who will be the ones that will have to inherit our enormous orbiting ball of cancerous shit - the pinnacle of achievements by 'civilised' man, who in less than 200 years have managed to destroy this once vast and abundant paradise. Astronomers tell us that G-type planets capable of supporting life are extremely rare, wouldn't you think we'd take a little more care? "Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got till it's gone"... Joni delivers the answer in an apparently fatalistic statement, and that is you should make a conscious effort to be aware!
For anyone that has made it through this I thank you from the depths of my being for your patience. This planetary dilemma that faces us is meant to see us evolve as a race, we are going to have one last chance to make the right choice... This is it folks, this is really, really it...! "A choice now, between fear and love" (Bill Hicks). You don't need to grow dreads or go round hugging trees (although I would advise it! ha ha!! (zig hael, zig hael!)), but just develop some respect, for all organisms.
Educate yourself, seek the truth, exercise your intellect, love with all your heart, dance, sing, laugh, joke, make real love, make music, trust, forgive, share, be wild, be humble, be true, be kind, to others and yourself, and realise the true beauty of human existence. Enjoy yourself, roll down a hill, climb a tree, jump in a river, cake yourself with mud, have a shit in a forest, watch a patch of grass and the insects residing there, eat some dirt, cheekily stalk a squirrel or a bird, sense your surroundings, feel alive, awaken your spirit, heal that injured child within you...
Living in the city we train ourselves to ignore most of our sensual experience, our hearing, smell and taste etc. all suffer as these senses are constantly overloaded, we have to dull our senses in order to live there. When we escape out in to nature this has a knock on effect - we fail to appreciate the subtleties of what is going on all around us. We literally can't see the wood for the trees.
We seem to have exiled ourselves from nature, and almost solely interact with other humans, and human creations and technologies. This means that we understand little but ourselves - tentatively at that - and this is caused because we don't understand our place IN A WIDER, NON-HUMAN WORLD!We can change things and we must change things, have we come this far only to chop our nose off to spite our face?? Motivate yourself and encourage others to "be the change you want to see".
In the past I have played drums for Vibration White Finger, played fiddle in Angie and the Bear (R.I.P.), Impermanence ft. Paradox. Currently I am back-up drummer for Jesus Was A Gent, and fiddle player in the Salmon of Knowledge and KilnAboy. I have just pimped myself into Cosmo's new group, these bands can be found in my top friends if you want a listen...
Thankyou for listening.
Peace, Ystwyth Matt Morgan