Topic: Myth

[ Episode #34 // Why America Failed ]

Twilight is on the horizon for American culture. After spreading an ideology of endless economic growth around the world, the definition of modernity has been defined by the United States. American values are now written into the cultural textbook for nations across the globe. Now that America is failing, what does it feel like to look back and what did we achieve? Was the collapse written in the opening chapters? What if our technological legacy comes with a terrible dark side?

In Extraenvironmentalist #34 we speak with author and historian Morris Berman about his recent look back at the history of American values as chronicled in the book Why America Failed. We ask Morris why American culture has dominated the globe despite so many dark aspects within its technology and values. Our discussion covers the ways in which people can seek meaningful lives as part of a counterculture and why our ideologies of technology and infinite growth were born on the landscape of an endless frontier. Is there a way to avoid the culture of hustling by channeling the alternative values that have arisen from those discontented by capitalism? Is it best just to become an expat?

Check out the new Extraenvironmentalist blog edited by Louisa, the newest member of our team.


 

// Music (in order of appearance)
Marvin Gaye - Sunny (Mercury II Edit) via Pigeons and Planes
FM Belfast - American  via Iceland Music Maffia
Electric Guest - This Head I Hold via Blahblahblahblahscience
Cheerleader - Do What You Want via Turntable Kitchen
Buddy Holly - Slippin' and Slidin' (Jacques Renault Remix) via RCRDLBL

// Extended Clips (in order of appearance)
Chris Hedges - Brace Yourself for America's Collapse
Detroit Savaged by Economic Problems
America's New Poor
Judge Napolitano
Frank Zappa on Schools
Ray Kurzweil on Technology
Kevin Kelly on Technology
Terence McKenna on Western Civilization
Jiddhu Krishnamurti - Why Do We Live With Stress

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[ Episode #32 // Apocalypse Never ]

Even though we live in an age of economic decline and collapse, do our expectations for the future act similarly to the thought patterns of religious faiths expecting the end of the world?  For the last 3,000 years, our species has used the meme of apocalypse to create the expectation for a utopia that never arose. Beginning with the Zoroastrian religion, the monotheistic faiths have contained the notion of an end to the world. Our historical record contains many events where a date was set and nothing happened. How did it feel to be one of those that had sacrificed everything to be swept away by a deity that never arrived?

In Extraenvironmentalist #32 we speak with John Michael Greer about his latest book, Apocalypse Not: Everything You Know About 2012, Nostradamus and the Rapture are Wrong. We ask John about the historical context of monotheistic religions, where the apocalypse meme began and its implications in our expectations for the future. We ask if the world is going to end in 2012 and JMG explains how David Icke's evil space lizards are involved. Did Seth really see George W.Bush metamorph into a lizard? If he didn't, what happens when we reach the end of the current Mayan calendar long count?


 

 

// Music (in order of appearance)
Feist - How Come You Never Go There via Pretty Much Amazing
Jagwar Ma - Come and Save Me  via Pigeons and Planes
Gruff Rhys - Post Apocalypse Christmas via Some Kind of Awesome
Nadastrom vs. Echo - Church via Chorus+Echo
Coldplay - The Scientist  (Demitri Vangelis and Wyman need Howie's thin mint cookies remix) via Mufasas Revenge

// Extended Clips (in order of appearance)
Alex Jones: David Icke is the turd in a punchbowl
Austerity hits the Dead and Santa Alike
A Recession Christmas
Is China's Economy Collapsing?

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[ Episode #25 // Saving Money ]

Is it more practical to learn permaculture than to earn a business degree? As financial markets sell off around the globe and world leaders scramble to prevent national defaults from collapsing the global economy, today's youth are certain to live through a massive shift in the monetary paradigm. An education system that prepared us to receive jobs in a consumer economy injured our ability to truly learn and now we face the insult of entering a bleak job market. Is money real or is it based on societal myths? Can a monetary system built on collaboration rather than competition create a society that amplifies the positive aspects of human nature? As Mike Ruppert says: until we change the way money works, we change nothing.

In Extraenvironmentalist #25 we speak with Charles Eisenstein about his new book Sacred Economics which explains how to save the concept of money from being subject to our outdated understanding of human nature and simplistic mechanistic models of the physical world around us. While the social unrest sweeping from Cairo to Athens to Barcelona to New York is disrupting monetary dynamics can it also create an applicable positive vision? Charles explains how a negative interest currency and an economic model that integrates equity and ecology can end what we perceive to be the human nature emphasized by our current currency. Can we accept that the failure of money isn't the end of the world but that it is an opportunity to reorganize?


 

// Music (in order of appearance)
Zeds Dead - Coffee Break via The Music Ninja
MGMT - All We Ever Wanted (Bauhaus Cover) via Stereogum
Michita - November via Earmilk
HEALTH - Goth Star (Pictureplane Cover) via Gorilla vs. Bear
Beatles - Eleanor Rigby (Butch Clancy Remix) via Dubtunes

// Extended Clips
Fiat Money via Renegade Economist
Trader Interview on BBC
Occupy Boston

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