On the topic: The Storm and the Day After. Afterword. Part One. The Hypothesis (or was it the hypotenuse?)

Oct142024

On the topic: The Storm and the Day After. Afterword. Part One. The Hypothesis (or was it the hypotenuse?)

On the topic: The Storm and the Day After.

Afterword.

Part One. The Hypothesis (or was it the hypotenuse?)

You will excuse me for not addressing specifically, just in general, the people, groups, collectives, organizations, movements and indigenous peoples of the Declaration for Life. A large part of these people not only already know, and suffer, the Storm firsthand. Also, and for a long time, they resist, work and fight to create the foundations for other worlds. They have their own analysis of the storm and their alternative for the Day After. From these people we hope that they share their perspective, their diagnosis and, above all, their practice. We know many of them. But not the majority. And we believe that their history and their present actions would greatly enrich other efforts, if not alike or similar, then in the same endeavor: the fight for life. In fact, there are special dates for that sharing. Having clarified the above, let’s look at the sciences and the arts.

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Do the arts and sciences depend on the technologies of modernity? That is, if there is no internet, applications, cell phones, tablets and computers, Artificial Intelligence, energy from fossil fuels, etc. Is dramatic art possible? Painting? Music? Dance? Sculpture? Literature? Cinema? Sciences?

Oh, I know. The arts were not born with the system that now strangles all of humanity. But perhaps it has already become a “change of paradigm” (an alibi par excellence for giving up struggle), and the system has convinced the “majorities” that, without it, without capitalism, humanity is impossible.

And can sciences prove that the earth is spherical without the Internet, aerial photos, etc.? Can they explain planetary movements? Can there be Physics and Chemistry without laboratories or tutorials? Is there Mathematics beyond apples and pears? (of course, with how expensive everything is today, even without pears or apples).

Because it could be, it is a suppository, that in a situation of catastrophe someone appears who posits that the earth is flat and square, that climate change and global warming do not exist, and that they are just an invention of corrupt and ugly environmentalists (the ‘corrupt’ part, well ok, but the “ugly” part, I mean, is unforgivable -especially with the infinite number of cosmetic products and digital applications that can remedy it-), that everything is fine, that nothing is happening, that they are isolated events, that it was like that before but now everything has changed, that we are not the same, that everyone is happy, happy, happy. Oops! I wasn’t meant to talk about politics, a topic that usually makes scientists and artists uncomfortable (or sometimes prompts them to talk nonsense).

But suppose that, in those moments of desperation and chaos, when the different governments consult polls and popularity ratings to decide whether or not to assist a place in trouble, and whether or not to send help, someone appears as a “prophet” of salvation and “explains” that everything is divine punishment, the fault of conservatives, liberals, radicals, right-wingers, leftists, and so on and so forth.

I am not talking about the current situation in any of the Mexican states; nor in the southeastern states of the American Union, nor of the destruction – with right-wing or progressive geopolitical alibis – in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Haiti, the ten, a hundred, a thousand times rebellious Wallmapu. I’m talking about all that, but in a big way, global then, in the parts and the whole.

Would the world end for you, as an artist or scientist (or both)? I mean YOUR world. Yes, I know, arts and some sciences appeared since ancient times; and graphic design applications owe something to, for example, the paintings in the Altamira caves; mathematics and astronomy to the ancient Mayans; dramatic art to the descriptions, with gestures and sounds, of someone who, millennia ago, described how he had managed to escape from a saber-toothed tiger; architecture owes something to Stonehegen in blonde Albion; and sculpture to the Moais of the Rapanui people.

But… to what extent do the technologies of modernity already control, or not, artistic creation and scientific research?

No, this is not about redirecting, with the explosion of a nuclear device, an asteroid so that it crashes and destroys the Hubble Telescope: or about setting fire to or looting scientific research centers (organized crime turned into governments and those who jump from science to politics are already taking care of that). And in that case, I’m sure the entire scientific community would unite if anyone even tried to break down the research structure; threaten its members; file criminal complaints against them; or hook scientific research to a political party project, right? (ah, isn’t my sarcasm subtle?)

I am talking, instead, to an extreme situation, where these resources are impossible to obtain, or there are many difficulties in accessing them. What will happen to the sciences and the arts, as well as to the people who engage in them?

Now, you may think that this scenario is not even possible, and that it is nothing more than a bad script for a bad science fiction movie – “science fiction”: an oxymoron, like “honest politician” -. Ok, okay, continue on your stage, easel, 8k screen, digital platform, laboratory, academy.

I am sure that you have hard data – proven studies, simulation models, counts of non-renewable resources, consumption and replacement tendencies – that this scenario is “very unlikely” – along with global warming, climate change, the wars of reconquest, environmental pollution, genocides like the current one in Palestine; and that you have access to completely reliable surveys that show that people are satisfied with their current standard of living (so the possible emergence of uprisings, riots, insurrections, protests, looting, revolts is also unlikely).

Ok, I’m not contradicting you. You have renown and position in the Arts and Sciences, and I am just a poor infantry captain, now assigned to the area of »Wedding Invitations, Baptisms, First Communion, Divorces, Arrejuntaciones, Sweet Sixteens and… Meetings.»

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But then, suppose you are presented with a challenge: imagine that you are going to be in a community. More specifically, in the assembly of that community… and the day after. Without electricity, without prepaid cell phones or rental plan, without “internet for all”, without Elon Musk and his small local equivalents of small subscriptions, without private vehicles designed to withstand riots and uprisings of the plebs (the extra armor on the cybertruck is charged separately), without fossil fuels to start the other vehicle and go look for a signal (while cursing the governments and companies in power), and without the possibility of buying a ticket on a modern interstellar rocket that will place you on another planet “all included” (that is, it includes the labor force that lives, reproduces and dies while serving you – notice how I elegantly avoided any reference to “exploitation” -).

None of that is possible anymore. Of course, in this hypothetical scenario in which you are in an assembly of a community isolated from everything, because ‘everything’ no longer exists.

There are several people who are with you and, to start that germ of society, in an assembly of that community, each of those people will say what they are, know and can do, and they will propose, discuss and agree on how to do it. they are going to organize. Well, actually I’m describing what is currently happening in a community assembly of indigenous peoples.

And, just as in a community assembly of indigenous peoples, the meeting sets an objective and proposes, discusses and agrees on what needs to be done, how, who is going to do it, where, when; in this hypothetical assembly, in which you are forced to be by circumstances, the objective is… to start over.

So let’s continue with the challenge that you imagine and place yourself in this situation and, for whatever reasons, the world as you knew it has collapsed.

So let’s go back to the assembly:

There are those who say that they know how to work the land and they only need their hands and they can make something that, that person says, is called a “coa”. Everyone seems to know what that is, so you don’t ask for fear of making a fool of yourself. There are those who say they know about plants and can make medicines. Some say they can identify fruits, mushrooms, and vegetables (yuck!), grow them, and preserve them. There are those who say they know some carpentry and can make tables, chairs and, of course, beds. There are those who say that they know how to mason and can help build houses. There are those who say they know mechanics and can try to start that old engine from that old abandoned vehicle, or transform it into an engine powered by air, water, heat. And so, each person presents their skills, highlighting, in that situation, the so-called “manual skills”.

And then your turn comes, what do you say?

Do you say you are an artist as if you were confessing a sin of youth?

Do you say you know science as if you regret having belonged to a fanatical sect or a political party – it’s the same thing -?

While your turn to speak arrives, you are a moderately intelligent person and you have realized that the most valuable people for this germ of society are those who, thanks to their skills and knowledge, can obtain – with their work -: food, mobility, health, education and housing for those who live in that community.

That being the case, you may have to face more than one dilemma.

To be continued…

From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast.