or Why I’m not paying into my pension any more, in three easy steps

So what is postculturism? I promised you an explanation and, dash it all, you shall have one.

The Derrick Jensen quotation in the sidebar says it all, really: “The age of grotesque exuberance is over.”

You don’t have to empathise with Jensen’s anarchoprimitivist rage, or support his campaign to take down civilization by any means necessary, to agree with him on this. Like Richard Heinberg said, the party’s over.

Opponents of the current world order, have a nice cup of tea and a sit down. Civilization is taking itself down, brick by brick.

Here’s why:

1. The black stuff

We know Western “developed” countries are already post-industrial. Even more significantly, the world is also post-peak oil.

Our lifestyle depends entirely on plentiful oil. In simplistic terms, the globalised economy doesn’t work if we can’t transport goods, people and information round the world at will. And it doesn’t work if we can’t outsource cheaply the things we aren’t doing for ourselves.

For a start, we won’t send Scottish fish to be packed in China and returned to Scotland for sale any more. That particular species of commercial insanity is about to go extinct.

Nor will we be able to power a whole country on smoke-and-mirrors sectors like financial services, relying on other parts of the world for essentials like manufacturing.

Already, globalisation isn’t even working on a notional, ideological level. National food security must now be a high priority for state leaders, if only to stop the population rioting. Whereas: “Strawberries all year round, minister? Oh, I think we can manage without…”

The same is happening on a micro scale to individuals and households. Growing vegetables in the garden is the new hot hobby. Except it’s not really a hobby; people are genuinely concerned that they may not be able to afford to buy enough food in this recession/depression/apocalypse (delete according to own pessimism levels).

So post-oil equals post-globalisation. There’s no way round it.

2. The green stuff

Thing is, energy isn’t even the half of it. It’s also the financial systems in operation in the 21st century, namely fiat currency. About 96% of money in circulation is imaginary, i.e. loaned into existence by debt. Almost none of our money is backed by anything tangible, like the previous gold standard. The current financial crisis is the inevitable unwinding of this essentially unsustainable system.

(If any of that last bit is obscure, and you can spare 47 minutes to blow your own mind, I highly recommend Paul Grignon’s animated film Money As Debt, currently available on YouTube in five bite-sized chunks.)

Any one of these two factors would be damning for 21st century western civilization. Together, they amount to a walkover. The entire premise of neoclassical economics – that infinite growth is not only desirable, but possible – has been discredited.

3. The vague stuff

Where all this leaves us is unsure. But it has to be an entirely new paradigm, because we’re never been here before. The sun sets on all empires, after all, and it’s twilight in our culture right now.

I’m calling this 21st century condition… postculture.

And I don’t mean any of this in a pessimistic or negative sense. Whatever comes next might just be the making of us as humans. (It could also morph into Mad Max-style dystopia, but we won’t dwell on that here. Unless we’re having a really bad day.)

So this is where we came in. Welcome to Postculturist.

Art: Hirsute (2002) – Scrib