This article first appeared in Alan Moore’s Dodgem Logic #8

Toilets, at the very least those conceived by Western cultures, are a blindingly stupid idea. Civilization is full of incredibly stupid ideas, actually. But for the purposes of this article, I’ll stick to toilets.

Toilets a bad idea because flushing our sewage is stupid and because the sitting position is a stupid one to be in when you shit.

Toilet were an improvement at the time, don’t get me wrong. We do have to deal with our sewage. Ignoring it is poisonous, and any sedentary community of even a modest population density is going to have to do something with their shit. So yes, moving to toilets was a step in the right direction. But they were a half-revolution.

Continue reading Against Toilets →

This article first appeared in Alan Moore’s Dodgem Logic #7.

Anyone who claims to know much about the gods of the trash is lying. The lore regarding these deities is obscure and has largely been fabricated. This article is, of course, as guilty as any other.

But humans evolved to be scavengers, and we’ve been pantheists and polytheists a lot longer than we’ve been atheists. Metaphorical or not, there are gods of refuse and waste. Their whim determines when and what a scavenger may eat.

In the civilized world, we’re offered an order, a consistency in life, that one rarely gets outside of polite society. It’s also probably why so many of us are so bored and depressed. At the risk of sounding banal, civilization is god to most people these days; it is the single provider of all of their needs. It’s the illusory force that people have chosen to sink their faith into.

It’s fascinating to watch the atheist veneer peel away from people who choose or are forced to live off the excess of society. An ironic superstition turns to half-earnest prayer within months. Ask most us: whether or not we actually believe in the gods of the trash is immaterial. We still worship them.

Continue reading The Gods of the Trash →

Article first appeared in Alan Moore’s Dodgem Logic #6.

What do you call a city that’s not a city?

No idea.

But the label isn’t really what matters. What does a city that’s not a city look like? That’s where it gets interesting.

The settlement of cities is one of the primary traits that distinguishes a civilization from other forms of societal structuring, like a band or a tribe. And if we’re looking to move past civilization (which is the core theme of my column), we’d better take a closer look at cities themselves.

My dictionary told me that a city is a large town. That didn’t do me much good, so I turned to town: “an urban area that has a name, defined boundaries, and local government….” And immediately, a lot of the problems with cities are apparent.

Government is an easy one for me to dismiss: I’m an anarchist. I don’t believe in “the State” or what is traditionally construed as government. I don’t like the idea of one central body that makes all the decisions. And I don’t like being told that all I get to do is pick the person who makes the decisions for me. I’m much more interested in community and individual self-governance. There’s that old cliche: democracy is two sheep and three wolves deciding what to have for dinner. Well, at least that’s a cliche in the circles I run in.

Continue reading The City That’s Not a City →

Article first appeared in Alan Moore’s Dodgem Logic #5.

The first thing to know about surviving the apocalypse is this: you’re not going to survive the apocalypse. You’re not special. If everyone dies? That includes you. If the ecological crisis that triggers the collapse (my money is on runaway global warming, personally) doesn’t get you, then the further militarization of our society probably will.

If you want to survive, and I cannot express this strongly enough, you should not go run and hide in your little isolated cabin somewhere by yourself or with five of your friends! (Unless there are zombies.) If you simply retreat and wait for the world to right itself, you’re a coward and not even a very bright one; if you leave all of the work to other people, things aren’t going to come out so pretty. It is this sort of cowardice, this individualistic gusto, that arguably got us into this trouble in the first place. If you stand idly by and watch a fascistic army take control, you will, in the end, die. If you don’t try to organize with people to kickstart a permacultured agriculture to feed people, you will, in the end, die. If you live with two other people and never see another living soul again in your life? You might survive, but you might very well wish you hadn’t. When your appendix ruptures and whoops you forgot that your brother isn’t a surgeon? You will die.

Like it or not, humans are social animals. Our best hope to stay alive, and furthermore, to thrive, after an apocalyptic event is to discover social solutions.

Continue reading How to Survive the Collapse of Civilization →

This article first appeared in Alan Moore’s Dodgem Logic #4.

Congratulations! You’ve decided to reject civilization! There are so many reasons why you might have done so.

Maybe you’ve watched so many post-apocalypse movies or read so many books and comics that you really wish the world would hurry up and end so you can get on with living as you’d like to. Maybe you’ve intellectually come to understand the horrors of the modern political system, and have determined that its roots run all the way back to when some folks started locking up food and only giving it out in exchange for labor. Maybe you’ve looked to the world around you and decided that the monstrous evils being perpetuated against the natural earth really are unforgivable, and the complex of societies that has allowed that to happen ought to be destroyed—or at best ignored. Maybe you just like harvesting wild food but don’t see why we have to give up living in cities.

Whatever your reasoning, we’re quite happy to have you in the ranks of the post-civilized.

Continue reading So You’ve Decided to Reject Civilization →