Authentic Versus False Hope

Last weekend I ran across a reference to a new PBS series called Saving The Ocean. I frequently write about human destruction of marine ecosystems and species, so I was eager to take a look at it. The first video I tried to watch was the trailer for the episodes Shark Reef and The Sacred Island. Here's the opening voice-over, the very first words I heard—

Saving The Ocean — a new kind of TV series featuring good news stories about the environment.

Stories of hope, endurance and innovation.

Oh My God! Then I watched the first few seconds of the episode Destination Baja. Host Carl Safina is narrating—

On this edition of Saving The Ocean, we're petting whales in a Mexican lagoon.

JFC! Did that man say we're petting whales? I could see immediately what we were dealing with here. Saving The Ocean is the Greatest Whitewash In Human History, the Biggest Snow Job—Blow Job?—Ever Conceived. I went over to Carl Safina's website. I found the Saving The Ocean page, where I read the following—

Join host Carl Safina as he chronicles the unsung heroes who are hard at work inventing and implementing solutions to save the world’s oceans.

Most of us have heard about the effects overfishing, pollution and industry are having on the world’s oceans.

It’s time for some good news.

Join Carl as he introduces us to marine biologists, fisheries scientists, conservationists and activists who are helping fish populations to rebound, bringing endangered species back from the brink and… creating hope for today’s oceans.

There is no hope for today's oceans! Or rather, there is no Authentic Hope, as I will explain. I anticipated today's post in yesterday's post Hot, Sour And Breathless. I discussed the meaning and dire implications of a prediction made by Jean-Pierre Gattuso.

By the end of the century, said French biological oceanographer Jean-Pierre Gattuso, "The oceans will become hot, sour and breathless."

I am going to assume you read that post, and my previous writings on the perilous state of the world's oceans. Yesterday's post contains tips for finding those articles.

In a word, this PBS series is despicable. The intention is to pump people full of hot air, to inflate them with what I called False Hope. As such, it is a cover-up, it is an attempt to preempt, downplay or undermine the urgent, alarming messages of real scientists like Jeremy Jackson and Daniel Pauly, who agonize over the rapid degradation of marine ecosystems. It is a heinous lie. And to the extent that it succeeds in whitewashing the dire state of the oceans, this PBS series is Evil.

Here's the Big Lie in Safina's text—

Most of us have heard about the effects overfishing, pollution and industry are having on the world’s oceans.

No we haven't! Americans, for whom this PBS series is surely intended, are almost completely unaware that the oceans are being destroyed to foster endless growth of populations and economies which support unconstrained human consumption. Based on this false premise, the series will create hope for today's oceans because it's time for some good news!  In short, clueless Americans will be reassured about a problem they hardly know anything about! JFC!

I've often talked about obligatory hope on this blog. Well, this is obligatory hope on steroids. This is where false hope seamlessly morphs into Pure Denial. This is why some people think Homo sapiens doesn't deserve a future, that our species will get precisely the fate it has asked for, that our species will get its just desserts.

Let us contrast false hope with authentic hope. First off, authentic hope is the rarest thing in the world. Authentic hope demands self-knowledge from us. It demands from us that we acknowledge what we are doing to the world's oceans and all the rest of this wonderful planet, it demands a level of self-awareness which forces us to look at our behavior and change it. Authentic hope asks us to recognize and do the right thing. In short, authentic hope seems to make impossible demands.

In the context of the oceans, we have what Garrett Hardin called A Tragedy Of The Commons. Everyone sees it as being in their best interest to exploit ocean resources before others do the same. If a few people like the Mexicans Safina interviews have figured out that it's in their best interest to preserve whales in the Mexican Baja in order to exploit them for tourism dollars, then you can be sure that untold billions of other people have "figured it out" the other way—they will take from the oceans what they want or need, heedless of the consequences. They will consume energy which emits CO₂ as a byproduct, which is absorbed by ocean waters, thereby acidifying them.

Authentic hope requires that everyone—I mean every human being, from every nation on Earth—get together or at least be faithfully represented, figure out what they are doing, recognize the destruction being wrought, and make a genuine, concerted effort to put a stop to it. Every single human being on Earth must buy into this effort to save the oceans from increasingly certain death. Those who won't buy in must be forced to cooperate.

When we put it like that, we immediately see the near impossibility of authentic hope, for the very qualities which make hope authentic are also the qualities which make it rare, if not non-existent. Humans naturally lead unexamined lives, just like the other animals. That's simply who they are, as I said in John Gray In Conversation—

What is important for our purposes is the idea—I would say the observation—that human beings live in a self-constructed world of illusions. And they will fight to the death to maintain those illusions. Gray seems to be saying that we can distinguish between the essential illusions which make human life possible and less crucial illusions we can do without. Well, let's see. Is the illusion that humans can endlessly grow populations and economies on a finite planet an essential illusion? Or is it a subsidiary illusion we can identify and do without?

I know what my answer is: it is an essential illusion because the urge to have babies and increase our material comfort is an essential part of the human animal. That's why I believe our species is doomed, regardless of whether our self-destruction occurs sooner or later...

Clearly human beings are conflicted at their core. They won't acknowledge what they are—they seem to reject it as Gray says—but more importantly for me, at all times and places human beings are being exactly who they are, regardless of what they are pretending to be. This is the one jail from which there is no escape. Or as I like to say, with Homo sapiens, what you see is what you get.

You can recognize this Saving The Ocean whitewash in my remarks. Human beings live in a self-constructed world of illusions. At all times and places human beings are being exactly who they are, regardless of who they are pretending to be. Carl Safina and those who produced this PBS atrocity, standing in for all of humanity, want to pretend that a few "unsung heros" here and there on our troubled planet are somehow "saving" the ocean. Nothing could be further from the truth. Petting whales doesn't cut the mustard.

If false hope obliterates unacceptable truths, truths we must acknowledge in order to move forward, and such hope is thus the embodiment of Evil, which is certainly the case here, authentic hope requires us to be "Good" to the extent that is possible. But sad to say, authentic hope is the rarest thing in the world. Authentic hope has never been spotted in the wild, although it surfaces occasionally on the printed page.

 

Comments

[Alexander Ač]

False hope is everywhere... that is the only thing it has left, it seems, see:

http://www.skysails.info/english/power/

Not happy?

Alex

[PBD]

With regards to "human nature" and previous references to the "Myth of Human Progress" -

I happened to run into someone on the weekend who was twiddling with his iPad after having checked out a potental apartment for rent. He had just confirmed that it was acceptable, as his Feng Shui iPad app had given it the "AOK"! ( http://www.masteryacademy.com/ipad/ )

Note that we were on an elevator in a "modern" high rise with the (relatively) latest in "high-tech" elevator technology - including those fancy, body-capacitance floor selection buttons that cast a wonderful "Star-Trekish" glow at the slightest touch.

Of course, there were buttons for the 12th floor, and the 14th - but not the 13th!

"Human Progress" indeed!

[Dave Cohen]

@PBD --

Well, Paul, it sure look like this post went over like a lead balloon.

And I thought it was very important to say this stuff. This is it, the real deal. What would authentic hope look like?

Silly me. That's where I live, you know, on the thirteenth floor.

You can kiss our species goodbye. They're way too busy petting whales and filming it to do much of anything else. They simply don't have the time (or the inclination) to actually save the oceans.

-- Dave

[Wheelerlucas]

I a fellow resident on the thirteenth floor just got to read this post.

I am glad that you are posting on what the upscale propagandists at PBS are up to.

I just finished a neat book on Earth First! by Canadian Political Science prof. Martha F. Lee http://www.amazon.com/Earth-First-Environmental-Apocalypse.

No one has yet to review it at Amazon. Want to try and do so.

The reason I bring this book up is that Lee documents how the Earth First! movement split over precisely over this issue you bring up all the time: "can humankind change its ways? Can we be educated to be different?"

Dave Foreman and most of the original founders of Earth First! definitely believed the answer was no human nature is unchanging -- as you put it "with Homo sapiens, what you see is what you get".

As the movement grew in size there emerged another faction who Lee calls "the social justice faction". This faction unlike the original "biocentric" founders very much believed education can make a difference -- that humans could be even perfected.

I have come to believe that the stance one takes on this fundamental question is more than likely innate. I did not always believe that. I guess I have to a small degree lead an "examined life". This has not been easy given all my other problems.

Still if you are lucky life has a way of educating you. This education is unlike what those who believe in "improvement" and people becoming better hold is possible.

In my life terrible events have befallen me. When they happened I always felt "I must tell others of what has befallen me. I must help them learn from what I have learned from bitter experience". I look back now and just have to laugh. How could I have felt that way? What was I thinking.

Actually I was at my old ways until about a week ago. Of course, I thought these others would realize what I have to say came "the easy way". Yes, I thought they will gravely consider what I have to say. No of course not -- they believed what is suited to their own nature -- full stop.

I agree with you, I have no hope for salvation, for myself or for humanity. I would like to believe that the illusions no longer exist for me. Yet we go on. I do a little native forest restoration work here on O'ahu. I still talk enthusiastically about the work. But I have given up talking about "the big picture". I now believe it is more than likely within forty years the vast majority of remaining native species on and in the waters near O'ahu will be extinct.

And what of the human presence? All I can say is that I have got to chuckle at what they continue to "plan" for.

[Gail]

For what it's worth I emailed a link to this post to everyone I know who might be receptive (at least ten people!). PBS is an evil abomination, and so are the other sources of information whether media, academia or activists who pretend to care about the fate of humankind or the biosphere while merrily exploiting their position of power and profiting on the peak before the crash.

[PBD]

Well guys, what can I say?

I guess what I was saying in my comment was that despite having attained these "heights" of scientific and technological "progress" - we're still basically the same animal that came down out of the trees so many millenia ago (as Dave has documented so well).

Evidently you can teach someone how to use a high-tech device like an iPad - but you can't get them to "unlearn" their old superstitions.

Any more than you can get them to even comment, let alone substantively act to do anything about, the many atrocities Dave documents daily on his blog.

(I've commented on the oceans issue in the past - so made a different point today).

Then again - what have I done to substantively address these various issues?

Give a few bucks here and there, try to educate myself a bit (and maybe - maybe - vote accordingly).

It's not much - but more than most.

[Mike Roberts]

I would fully understand if you gave up this blog, Dave, after coming across that travesty of a TV series. Up against the corporations that rule our planet, there is no hope of turning people around (not that there ever was).

Speaking of hope, I'm reading Derrick Jensen's, Endgame. There is a chapter on Hope and this is a quote that starts the chapter (the quote is from Gringo Stars): "Hope is the real killer. Hope is harmful. Hope enables us to sit still in the sinking raft instead of doing something about our situation. Forget hope. Honestly and candidly assessing the situation as it truly stands is our only chance. Instead of sitting there and "hoping" our way out of this, perhaps we should recognize that realizing the truth of our situation, even if unpleasant, is positive since it is the required first stop toward real change".

Whoops; that looked like a glimmer of hope at the end there!.

Jensen gives a possible definition for hope: Hope is a longing for a future condition over which you have no agency. I'm not sure that's entirely right but it seems to fit most of what goes for hope in this world.

[Dave Cohen]

@Everybody

I have lost "hope" such as it is (false, obligatory). In short, I am increasingly unable to see the point of writing this blog. That's certainly true today, and will be tomorrow. I've got to say it-- my heart is not in it anymore.

The Big Brain is highly overrated. It is the the heart that matters. When the heart is gone, when you cease to care because you've seen too much already, it's all over.

-- Dave

[richard pauli]

Yours is great commentary.. have you considered re-mixing the video with your comments or with text over?

I agree, it is a terribly irresponsible piece of media. But PBS is the Petroleum Broadcast System - so, not surprising.

[John]

@Dave,
Say it ain't so. As much as you may have lost hope, it's reading your hopeless rants that keeps some of us hanging on every day.

[gretcheen]

Well Dave, my heart has been broken for 5 decades or better, but it still keeps beating. Been watching the people of Planet Stupid (my new favorite name...thanks!) and trying to understand others all my life, like why someone would step on an injured bird as I am reaching down to try and save its life, or why people keep having so many babies they can't take care of, or why they insisted on driving big vehicles when 53 mpg Geo Metros were first invented in 1986, or why people think whales or dolphins even want to be petted by filthy human hands. I don't know why humans are on a suicide mission, why crazy, heartless people are in power, why more people don't fight back, why money is so important, why destruction is the ideal, why humans think they are more important than any other living thing or place.
PBD, I understood immediately the thirteenth floor. I am a resident there too. :)
I would be very sorry if you gave up this blog, Dave.

[adam]

The saddest part is that we know what sort of things work - banning destructive fishing practices, creating a network of no-take reserves, those sort of things. They even work in miniature, surprisingly - I recently found out that Waikiki has a (very small) protected no-take zone, went snorkeling there, and saw more fish and more big fish than at Lanikai despite that fact that Waikiki fronts the biggest city with the worst runoff and pollution problems in the entire Hawaiian island chain... Lanikai has healthier coral, but no fish bigger than a few inches.

But there just isn't enough protected, and any attempt to bring up more protection runs right into resistance from people who think they should be able to do whatever they want (and they almost can - Hawaii doesn't even require fishing licenses!). They make any and all excuses - "humans are part of the ecosystem" "the real problem is runoff". Yup, true enough... But fishing is why there aren't any fish on the reef, or Waikiki wouldn't have so many fish and Lanikai would have a ton.

Ocean acidification will just be the final blow. But we might have something left, even with climate change, if we hadn't trawled, fished, polluted, and destroyed everything. And if we stop now... But we won't.

As for Baja, the biggest problem there is that the Colorado no longer flows to the sea - a once very rich delta that fostered a much richer marine environment is gone. The water is growing crops in the desert and flushing toilets, almost all in the US.

[Oliver]

Dave - when Gandhi was eliminated by dark forces, a light went out. Martin Luther King was similarly removed by the State, a light went out. When Kurt Vonnegut Jr passed on, a light went out. If you stop writing here, one of the last lights will go out. That's about all I can say on the matter.

Except that I echo Gretcheen's comments.

There's no hope, but there is a certain sense of camaraderie on death row.

Best, Oliver

[john c. wilson]

Hope has survival value. Without hope the human organism withers and dies.

For most of human history hope was entirely functional and often enough reasonable. No more.The best and clearest thinking among us will be the first to go. It's getting to be like a bad movie with a predictable ending, you don't need to stay in your seat to watch the credits roll. The only question is when you walk out of the theatre is there still something in your life that makes you want to keep going. For me there very much is. At least for now. Knowing the end of the story changes everything.

[P.S]

Hi Dave

I really hope (..) you decide to keep the blog going. Truth is such a precious commodity these days. After reading your blog and digesting the wisdom therein, I feel like I am merely swimming in bullshit, rather than drowning in it. Thank you for the swimming lessons.