Amerika

“We still have a chance to be cruel, but if we are not cruel today, all is lost.”

Pentti Linkola writes about the apocalyptic climactic changes that will soon effect us here in humanityland, but he doesn’t take the easy way out that most authors do.

Most “environmentalists” (greens, conservationists) emphasize a strategy of limiting first-world consumption and reproduction. This ignores the vaster problem underlying our environmental dilemma, which is that every human requires a certain amount of land which displaces the natural systems that replenish air, water and food sources.

Instead, Linkola chooses to be brutally honest and suggests that we’ve already missed our chance to curb our damage of the world, so what we must do is to begin the elimination of human and technological excesses now by limiting population and opulence worldwide.

This naturally clashes with the ideology that has assimilated the environmental movement, liberalism. Instead of shying away from this conflict, Linkola styles himself as an ecofascist, or one who would impose unpopular truths on a population addicted to pursuing popular illusions and deferring consequences until later.

“What to do, when a ship carrying a hundred passengers suddenly capsizes and only one lifeboat? When the lifeboat is full, those who hate life will try to load it with more people and sink the lot. Those who love and respect life will take the ship’s axe and sever the extra hands that cling to the sides of the boat.”

“Any dictatorship would be better than modern democracy. There cannot be so incompetent dictator, that he would show more stupidity than a majority of the people. Best dictatorship would be one where lots of heads would roll and government would prevent any economical growth.”

“The most central and irrational faith among people is the faith in technology and economical growth. Its priests believe until their death that material prosperity bring enjoyment and happiness – even though all the proofs in history have shown that only lack and attempt cause a life worth living, that the material prosperity doesn’t bring anything else than despair. These priests believe in technology still when they choke in their gas masks.”

“That there are billions of people over 60kg weight on this planet is recklessness.”

Linkola adopts a number of controversial views for how to save our environment — and ultimately our own future as a species — such as:

If the present number of Earths population is preserved and is reduced only by the means of birth controll, then:

• Birthgiving is licenced. To enhance quality of population , genetically or socially unfit homes will be denied offspring. So that several birth licences can be allowed to families of quality.
• Energy production must be drastically reduced. Electricity is allowed only for the most necessary lighting and communications.
• Food: Hunting is made more efficient. Human diet will include rats and invertebrate animals.
• Government: There would not be any democracy anymore. More power to government would allow it to restrain the population, and laws would reflect need and not want. Individuals would not be allowed to make some of their decisions for themselves.
• Agriculture moves to small un-mechanized units. All human manure is used as fertilizer.
• Traffic is mostly done with bicycles and rowing boats. Private cars are confiscated. Long-distance travel is done with sparse mass transport. Trees will be planted on most roads.
• Foreign affairs: All mass immigration and most of import-export trade must stop. Cross-border travel is allowed only for small numbers of diplomats and correspondents.
• Business will mostly end . Manufacture is allowed only for well argumented needs. All major manufacturing capacity is state owned. Products will be durable and last for generations.
• Science and schooling: Education will concentrate on practical skills. All competition is rooted out. Technological research is reduced to extreme minimum. But every child will learn how to clean a fish in a way that only the big shiny bones are left over.
• Mass immigration is terminated.

“The biggest threat to life is too much life,” Linkola has famously said. Expressing sentiments similar to those from Ted Kaczinski, Linkola says that industrialization has been a disaster for planet Earth and its inhabitants. “The most central and irrational faith among people is the faith in technology and economical growth. Its priests believe until their death that material prosperity bring enjoyment and happiness — even though all the proofs in history have shown that only lack and attempt cause a life worth living, that the material prosperity doesn’t bring anything else than despair. These priests believe in technology still when they choke in their gas masks,” he writes.

“Employment isn’t a good reason enough to explain some projects that are going on. We could employ all the people in Finland and over the world to dig a tunnel under the ground to China. The problem isn’t about employment and unemployment, the question is, is it mindless, unnecessary or harmful. Unemployment is always better than doing harmful work.”

Not a fan of the inclusive society, which he sees as conducive to both growth and lowered quality of humankind, Linkola dislikes liberal democracy. “The US symbolizes the worst ideologies in the world: growth and freedom,” he writes.

Tags: conservationism, crunchy conservatism, deep ecology, ecofascism, environmentalism, pentti linkola