The Myth of Complexity

It's just another distraction

Photo by Nikita Nikitenko on Unsplash

We have been conditioned to believe that modern life is complex, that issues are complex, that the threats that face us are complex, but they’re not.

As bipedal carbon based life forms we have basic needs, those being, in the physical arena, food, water, air, and shelter, and in the psychological arena, companionship with others that is oriented toward mutual survival.

That’s all there is really.

Everything else is complexity.

We have buried our basic needs beneath mountains of complexity.

“It is not a daily increase, but a daily decrease. Hack away at the inessentials.”
― Bruce Lee

By increasing the number of complex add-ons, we have managed to convince ourselves that our lives are hopelessly mired in endless levels of ever more complex situations.

We have done this by accepting, as truth, the lies that we have been told.

So completely have we immersed ourselves into the modern world that the thought of moving beyond is unthinkable.

Derrick Jensen, I believe, said that we are all suffering from cultural Stockholm Syndrome.

“Stockholm Syndrome is a psychological phenomenon where hostages or victims develop sympathetic feelings and positive attitudes towards their captors, sometimes identifying with them to an extent that they adopt similar beliefs.”

What else could our fascination, identification, and compliance with those who continue to oppress us be?

The culture we claim to be a part of has consumed us and left in its wake a hollowed out husk, mindlessly pursuing further degradation.

You and I did not create the system we are being forced to live in, but we did accept it, and in accepting it gave it the power to continue.

This monster can be killed, but it is too late to save anything.

There has been a lot of discussion about resistance lately, and I’m finding it to be a tad tedious.

It is well-meaning, but offers very little actionable advice other than pointing out how various groups used the techniques in the past to achieve a level of freedom.

The things that I haven’t seen are calls to action.

No one, so far, has suggested a concentrated campaign of disruption in the workplace, or on the streets.

No one, so far, has suggested a wholesale abandonment of the trappings of this life that keep us imprisoned.

It’s almost as if they think that posting things on Facebook, or Blue Sky, or in articles (like this one) that it will be sufficient to bring the structure crashing down.

If we were truly resisting, then the powerful would have fallen by now, if everyone who claims to want this system to change or fall had stopped participating in that system, then a change would have happened.

But it hasn’t.

Because no one who claims to want things to change really wants that. They just want it to go back to a time when they could ignore atrocities and degradation and oppression, a time when they could feel good about themselves by recycling, carrying a re-usable grocery bag, and driving a Prius.

It’s long since past the time when baby steps or trying to do a little better will help.

“Do or not do, Luke Skywalker. There is no try.”

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