Sustainability Is Not Optional

Eugene Weekly readers may not like what John Zerzan has to say (“From A to Zerzan.” EW 11/11), but mathematics, physics and geology don’t care what people think. This ill-conceived enterprise called “civilization” is on an utterly unsustainable trajectory. Instead of leaders (people who lead) we have delusional clowns and narcissistic sociopaths.

When you factor in climate change, resource depletion, population overshoot, etc, it is not an exaggeration to say that we need a complete, bottom-to-top restructuring of human civilization, and we need it right now. Any politician attempting to do 10 percent of what needs to be done will be committing political suicide. So a good, progressive, environmentally conscious Democrat will say, “Vote for me. I’m going to do 2 percent of what needs to happen and my opponent, the Republican, is only going to do 1 percent. So, vote for me!” So our “leaders” will keep putting duct tape, crazy glue and bandaids on this utterly unsustainable thing until it falls over and goes boom.

Remember: Sustainability is not optional. Whatever we fail to do voluntarily, we will do involuntarily. In the end, we may be close to the hunter-gatherers that Zerzan points to.

Robert Bolman

Eugene