By order of the commissar
The war with Russia
has been going on for almost 10 years,
there are battles big and small
the land suffers from raids,
the hands of bloody deeds –
those cursed Muscovites.
The Ukrainians fight for their land,
their serving in an army style,
on the graves flags and various flowers,
nothing will awaken patriotism in the gray mass.
War as a sacred duty,
everyone will pick up a machine gun,
once by order of the commissioner
the Military Commissariat will call all to the front.
Lightning courted Grom
Faded, tarnished, blackened,
where the sun parted from the sky
thunderstruck and it brightened,
and the wind follows the steppe.
Demonstrating the power of muscles Thunder,
he noticed the female gender,
hit the neighbor's house,
the owner goes to patch the antenna.
Blue-haired Lightning laughs,
attract’s Thunder by eyes,
Grom’s heart is beating wildly
kisses are not wasted in a coma.
Thunder approaches the Lightning,
he doesn't know how to start a conversation
he doubts his strength, love is life,
and words are half of it.
Taking the king forward with his feet
Taking the king forward with his feet
the boyars wanted to do this the last time,
military headquarters in Rostov
met with the first ray.
Among the rebels, in Panama hat
the Bald Leader drags his feet,
collection of prison customs
he has a reliable rear.
The Bald called after him and to the weapons,
looters, prisoners, murderers,
thousands of rapists, folk bloodsuckers.
Columns of criminality army
were went to Voronezh
Roshvardiski's defense units
crushed and demolished.
The Wagnerites shot down 8 birds on the road,
set fire to the oil depot and trucks,
Prigozhin longs for Moscow,
using the weapon of the Ptura’s air systems.
The «descendant of Pugachev»
was walking, taking the capital Moscow,
he lacked courage,
the Leader of the rebels should tell the truth
to himself and to people
Vyacheslav Konoval is a Ukrainian poet whose work is devoted to the most pressing social problems of our time, such as poverty, ecology, relations between the people and the government, and war.
His poems have appeared in many magazines, including Anarchy Anthology Archive, International Poetry Anthology, Literary Waves Publishing, Sparks of Kaliopa, Reach of the Song 2022, Diogenes for Culture Journal, «Scars of my heart from the war», «Poetry for Ukraine», «Rhyming», «La page Blanche», «Impacted», «Military Review», «The Lit», «Allegro», «Innisfree poetry journal», «Antunes Galaxy Poetry», «Ekscentrika», «Mere Inkling», «EgoPhobia», «Fulcrum», «Omnibus», «Lothlorien Poetry Journal», Revista Literaria «Taller Igitur», «Tarot Poetry Journal», «Tiny Seed Literature Journal», «Best American Poetry Blog», «Quilled Ink Review», «Chronograph Poetry Journal», the Appalachian Journal «Dark Horse», «Agape», «Mascara Literary Review», «Gray Sparrow», «ArLJo», «Ekstasis», «The Bloom Litarery Journal», «Novus Litarery Journal», «Lyrical Somerville», «Charleston Poets», «Briefly Zine», «Varied Spirit», «Taos Poetry Journal», «The Skinny Poetry Journal», «Academy of the Heart and Mind» Journal, «ARIEL CHART» International Literary Journal, «Poesia Ultracontemporanea», «New Ulster 124», «Revista Cronopio», «Gotic Nature», «WordCityLit», «TSaunders Pubs», «London Grip New Poetry», «Mill Valley Literary Review», «Zeitglass», «The Coin», «Coal Literary Journal», Orenaug Mountain Poetry Journal.
Vyacheslav’s poems were translated into Spanish, French, Scottish, Italian, and Polish languages.
His poems also have been read at meetings of various poetry groups, including Newman Poetry Group, Never Talk Innocence, Voicing Art Poetry Reading for Ukraine, Worcester County Poetry, Brussels Writer’s Circle, and Poets Anonymous May Middle-Met, Brett Show by Andrea, the Manx Bard group, Allinghman Art Festival, Versopolis Poetry Expo 2023, poetry readings «Poetry of Struggle and Solidarity», «Poetic Voices», Coal Literary Journal’s Eve, presentation at Albert van Abbehuis Fling.
Vyacheslav’s poems were presented at War Art Project.
He is a member of the Federation of Scottish Writers.
Reality from Imagination
No more waiting for the apple to fall,
though the branches bend low
to the ground, as if ready to yield
to wind and gravity.
No forward motion in the suspension
of disbelief. Only retreat
into defeat after defeat.
Weathers
i
This is the weather the crocodile adores
When the tropic sun bakes
the midday mud
And two million termites dislodge two tons of sod
ii
This is the weather the wildebeest abhors
When the tropic sun scorches
the savannah crossing
And lioness and cobra hold court in the curly leaf
and weeping love grass
iii
This is the weather the crocodile adores
When the tropic sun bakes
the midday mud
And two million poets surrender two million hearts
Open the door to the autumn gales.
Above average temperatures.
Precipitation anomalies.
Dry fuel moisture alignments.
Wild fires scorching the High Sierra.
Sacramento. San Jose. Salinos.
Open the door to the brown and cream
Laguna Mountains skipper
(whose mottled wings have not been seen
these twenty years past)
near the mountain that carries its name.
Open the door to philosophy.
Poetry. Descriptions of the natural world.
Aesthetisation. Politicisation.
Pesticide poisoning. Loss of habitat.
Open the door to the scholiast
underlining Pound’s personification
of Jefferson e Mussolini,
in the latticed shelves of Langson Library.
Open the door to anaesthetisation.
Patronage. Personal interest.
War. Perhaps then, we might see,
how nature ends in art, and art in nature.
As the age of digital reproduction
redacts both. Accelerating towards the sale
of the century.
After the Dreaming
Did the Gundungurra people see
the coming of the British colonialists into their world,
the chicken pox, small pox,
influenza and measles, or were they taken
by surprise as they fled for their lives?
Did the Dharawal people see
the events of the Appin Massacre
where men, women and children were forced
by armed men on horseback
over the cliffs to their deaths at Cataract Gorge?
And what of the other massacres
veiled in secrecy,
the Black War in Van Diemen's Land,
the Waterloo Creek Massacre,
and 'the war of extirpation' at Gwydir River?
Should we, if we could, still mention the cultural war
against our distant cousins,
the bloody history of dispersal
and dispossession,
the ongoing exploitation and maltreatment,
every European massacre and genocide?
Should we don the black arm-band
and cry into our cups
at the back of the lecture theatre,
or, might we join ourselves to the disquisition
and call it like it is: The Great Australian Silence?
Dead Dog Paradox
Was the dead dog man's best friend?
Did the dog deserve to be set on fire?
Did the dog deserve to be beaten with an iron bar?
Did the dog deserve to be hanged in the street?
Who set the trap to cut the dog in half?
What was the dog’s name?
Why was the dog skinned alive?
Had the dog played ball in the park?
Had the dog gone AWOL ?
Had the dog run amok in the town square?
Who threw the first stone?
Who wielded the knife?
Who shouted the orders?
Was the dead dog man’s best friend?
Mark A. Murphy has published poems in 18 countries. When he isn’t writing, he spends his time editing online poetry journal, POETiCA REViEW www.poeticareview.co.uk
Contrary To Your Synchronisation
On an opposite-word-
in-your-heart day
I stravaig, my consciousness
enunciating 'Darkness'.
It is mere a word.
The sunny day highlights
an army of ants locomoting
a green yellow leaf
up the tired stones of a temple,
another century for the deity
waiting for that single leaf full of glow.
My tongue hopscotch the word.
A crow turns its head.
"It's mere a word." I explain.
The Ecosystem of Faith
On my palm the circles
of perforated clouds
highlight myths and illusions.
The future, I read, chokes
in the red smoke. It began
even before past was conceived.
I trowel in ripe soil at the base
of a rescue-plant. It is my support tree.
It is the excuse to live, read my hands,
yawn and stretch my summer arms.
The fingers reach for the sky, lies,
and the promises of a cleansing dream.
Goose
1
This, a good place to begin
the circle, dear jogger, opens up
the park and the morning.
You should not stir the goodness
or the goose.
The skein of the waterfowls are scattered
in the pasture.
Today's mood made them shells holding
a hollowness and a howl for the sea.
2
When the exotic wings glide in
the park the goose fights for her
boundary at first.
Zen eventuates. She settles between
the flocking birders and the winter's
slaty sun.
We, the local walkers, already gave her
pet names. The goose stare hard
with its hundred names, native pride,
doubting vigilance.
Kushal Poddar, the author of ‘Postmarked Quarantine,’ has eight books to his credit. He is a journalist, father, and the editor of ‘Words Surfacing’. His works have been translated into twelve languages, published across the globe.
So got to = after turning left on the daily morning’s walk across town to the great big mysterious quasi-archaeological dig-site, onto which we volunteered a year, there’s a mile or three left to go /pins & needles/ over here where everyone coming and going so often remark of the slight smell over here. So slight, that some when first smelling it, stop—to see, then to say, What is that smell? But now, no. Now there’s nothing. Then, when they start walking again, there it is; again; ‘e again; a nag of a smell, so faint it can’t be, and so odd that to smell it, one needs to stop trying to, but that’s not enough, no no no NO. Can’t even be thinking of it. Got to ignore it, but that’s hard to do, because once its been smelled, it’s remembered as the worse smell ever and gets connected in tight with this—eh, how’s it best characterized, yes—this metallicly tasting looking and smelling rot of a place we go past daily, here. And, so. There it is. Just a smell but that’s ‘lso more than a smell. It’s a taste. And a feeling. All up down and up. ‘nd each day got to rush past there several blocks. Trying not to look over ‘cross ‘ll the slime-baked formerly Main street flowing at the black squares and rectangles which used to be storefronts before time piled up, broke down, and rolled in and over smothering this whole town’s Main street neighborhood down. Can’t run stores in this smell—what smell, we smell nothing—oh just wait for it wait, and they wait—no no no, we smell nothing—can’t place it can’t touch it just walk faster past it—sorry, we don’t get it ,why’d all these stores shut down—never mind! Turn around, move away, shift gears toward what’s next, that’s the dig-site no not the smell hitting out from behind no, the dig-site, yes. Reaching there’s what’s important b’ slow down hey now, no—there it is ….. turn around =+= no—yes—oh, at lastarriving at the site where the dig’s ongoing, forget everything now that = There’s Crockett, u’re partner. Get your scraper. Get your tools, and, go down next to Crockett and start in on the scraping of long-buried but not no more so boards, rock, steel plating, and big tables down what they say they’ve learned of by all the scrapings done already before {or after? What? Before is after? And after is before? Pity the language the way we torture it down so unjustly, class. Pity it pity. God {sign o’ the cross please} pity it it’s been murdered down so what torture what torment = do experience those + + who never experience to die :plaster: } So thus once back in place thus thus scraping down th’ ‘eelactical dig, say mildly the usual t’s, what’s always to say, o’er to; Crockett.
Crockett.
{eh, scrape. Eh scrape eh scrape and—eh}
Eh, Crockett! Another day another fifty cents, eh? Good morning.
Hey.
The walk down I rushed it over. Rain looked up there like it’ll be-being to come down hard today. Do not like to be drenched. You?
Nope. Do not like to be drenched.
Yah (in time with the soft scraping o’ both o’ theirs raspertools) It was one of those—no, but more properly said say it is one of those days where looking out says back, umbrella today—no, yes, uh? You know?
Yes.
And its like—hey yes bring an umbrella the sky’s really up saying that but what if its not needed and then after arrival it just this “cumbersome nuisance”’s got to be stored up for the day someplace. Know what I mean?
{scraped dust pellets drop steadily to the catch-tarpaulin, below}
Sure. But it didn’t look like it might be raining today out o’er my sky. But I start in from that different direction from you. Guess that’s why. Eh?
Yah. Guess so. Any findings yet today?
Who knows. gasp /cracker/ who knows /yes/ who can ever know and /switching fast to say something else that’s not leading to the same old why are we bothering with all this when we know damned well that that that th/{cut} gasp /crackers/ thank God for the holding back of the back on which it’d be written/like it always/gasp gasp awkward suddenly yes next to the Crockett scraping out of unison with their scraping gasp because as it does gasp as it always must + being a law of nature as it is + gasp gasp it becomes silly in the extreme to be scraping in unison when we the big boths of all of the uses here volunteering at this site know it’s just based on some myth of the jungle upon which no sane person would generate so much sweat so much strain of the jungle after about a half hour gasp some’s saying telephone pole lot up there where :those flats where they tore down what the say was a factory you know /gasp/ how much money’s locked up in those poles /damn/ : I was reading up on that you know it really gets to me somehow look at all /that waste/ all those fallen scrape scrape scrape trees its a field of corpses don’t think so well think about it a field of the corpses what dies for no reason /strain/ in the belly of the break tent a little after ten /sitting/ with that my same partner all the morning {spouting hall off ‘bout a’ noosed up all nooooosed up noooooosed up ‘n nooooooooosed up some big sweet Willy gotcha! /f’ter all mem-mebra zats woosh it got ‘lready approximated woosh / sat down finally at the bench by the door to the tent, and immediately felt a mild breeze waft o so cooly over their clammy arm-sweat so they pushed over a bit to get out of the flow of it and having successfully milded all this down they chatted brightly over some crackers in bags, and two full-up waters.
plank
So. Got any plans for the weekend? Or just taking it easy.
I don’t know. I usually don’t plan out ahead that way. Y’know?
Ah. Guess so. /bag chips-crisp back, swallow bag chips-crisp back back back, swallow back unless they come get me say we got somebody in need of a good scare—come and see me—you know /what the hell what/ I’d go get that done if the pay’s right {don’t ya know} or if /what the hell wait/ they came ‘round saying come quick, right now—we got somebody held down needs a big hot flat spanking /huh/ I’d go and do it and probably a bit faster than when I went just to scare the crap out of someone /what the hell wait wait what the hell hell wait wait wait/ cause this time they pointed out they got somebody held down and you know as well as I do that when they say they got somebody held down the one held down’s most likely fighting to get up and the pressure from th’ under-one trying to get up ‘gainst the up top trying to hold down can’t go on forever nothing like that can it’s a knife-edge of balance, its like a new element so exotic, it’s like seventeen baseballs stacked with no props at its like falling alive hey, there’s not much time left so so, no. I don’t have any plans for the weekend. I usually don’t plan out ahead that way. Y’know?
As always I went to school merry. I entered to the gate and I greeted with my classmates . The bell rang . We entered to the class. Our teacher who taught us literature came. We started the lesson as usual . After teacher checked our homework she told us:
-Today I’m happy, because my lovely pupil Ann earned second place in competition. She is very clever and she did the test very well. -Who? -I asked, shocked. -Ann ,- she told again. -What about me ? -I asked again. -Yeah, what about our classmate Alina ? She had gone with you too…- all of my friends agreed with me. -She didn’t place . But she also did a good result. -Congratulations for Ann…- I replied sadly. At that time , a drop of tears flowed from my eyes. -May I go out? -Yes, go out . She looked to my face and ask: – Are you fine? -I’m okay. I ran to the school yard. Hatred and envy covered my heart. I lost myself. -Can it be really? Is it possible I lost ? I was cried. Because in fact incident was like that: Two days ago we went to a competition which in this competition a special test from various subjects is given and we work on the test. The three students with the highest scores would receive a certificate. The judges distributed the test. Ann and me sat down at a desk. I worked the test exam immediately. But Ann couldn’t . And she begged me: – Alina, please also work my test . I couldn’t work it. I got confused . I’m getting excited . Pleasee… I couldn’t refuse to see that she begged . And I took her test sheet and started working . There was a little time left for the exam. Finally , I finished . But time ran out. I worked out her test but I didn’t get around to working out the last five problems on mine. Exam sheets were received . I was a little upset, but more happy. I thought Ann would thank me for my help. But she didn’t … Now I’m going to classroom. Just now Ann pointed to her certificate in her hand and went to the school hall. She was arrogant and as usual she didn’t express gratitude . As if she achieved success with her own knowledge and hard work.
ABDULLAYEVA FERUZA HIKMATULLAYEVNA was born on May 27, 2006 in Surkhandarya region Sariasia district of the Republic of Uzbekistan. She is studying at secondary school number 12. A number of her poems , stories, articles has been published in international collectings such as ” Synchronized chaos “, ” Kavya Kishor”, ” Raven Cage “, ” Mt Kenya times”, ” Classico opnie ” and in Moldava , Kenya , Great Britain, India, USA and other countries.
“My dearest daughter, I know you are fast becoming of age. As you approach the age of 18, I want you to please, when you want to settle down, marry a man who is at least ten years older than you. You can see how happy your father and I are living for the past twenty-one years.” the thoughts of Monica passed to her seventeen-plus, daughter Sandra, during a one-on-one counselling session at Nike’s place, friends with Monica, Sandra’s mother.
“Dad, I have found a man whom I would like to settle down with. Now, I’m hitting twenty and would like to settle down with him”, said excited Sandra who couldn’t wait to introduce her intended ADAM.
“Who is this man, if I may ask?” Roberts asked, feeling eager to know who had brought his daughter that kind of joy.
“He is Edward. Educated, skilled at his construction works, loving, dedicated and mature…these are the qualities that had made me fall in love with him. He was raised in an orphanage home. But dad, he is well-groomed man…maturity-personified!”
“Can do you me the favour of asking him to see me? I can’t wait to see this man who perfectly fit into this description”, Roberts noted, in excitement.
Exactly three days, Edward came visiting at the family of Mr. and Mrs. R.M Green at their Kimberly residence. With Sandra sitting next to her future husband and after being offered some snacks to munch, Roberts opened the floor of discussion by asking him: ‘Who is this August visitor who intends taking away my precious jewel away from me?”
“My name is Edward Jade, raised in an orphanage home. Your daughter is well aware of it”, he replied staring affectionately at Sandra’s face. Having being satisfied with the answer given by Edward, Roberts, pitying him, held his silence.
Monica continued from where her husband stopped: “How old are you, Edward Jade?”
“I’m 30-years old.”
She went further by saying, “all these while, I have been taken a critical look at you and I can intuitively tell that you’ll make a good husband. Considering the ten-year age difference between you and my daughter, I know, your marriage, just like ours, will not only last but be very successful. My dear husband, I think we should engage them right away. This rare gift is a must-keep for us; we mustn’t let him slip our hands to be caught in another woman’s arms. Pardon our manners…My name are Monica and his is Roberts. However, we are together addressed as Mr. and Mrs. R.M Green.”
“My dear,” Roberts reasoned, agreeing with what she said while Sandra happily looked on, “I think you’re right! At this point, Edward, I want to ask if you have any thing that could act as a symbol of engagement between you and Sandra.”
“I think I do have, sir”, replied Edward, who surprisingly brought out from his pouch an encased gold-coated engagement ring. Sandra couldn’t believe her eyes that she could help but to cover her mouth with her two hands. She had no control over the tears of joy that rolled over her cheeks to the state-of-the-art German marble.
“Edward”, remarked Roberts, “I want you, in the presence of my wife and I, to formally engage Sandra, sitting right to you”
Edward stood on his knees, removed the gold-coated engagement ring from the casing, with all his fingers of his right hand glued to it and somehow, supported by his left hand, asked: “Sandra, I present to you this engagement ring. On my knees, I ask…will you marry me?”
Sandra was lost for words for a while. But with tears rolling out of cheeks and in the presence of Roberts and Monica who was shedding tears as well, Sandra voiced: “Yes! Yes! Yes! I want to spend the rest of my entire days with you” Edward inserted on the ring finger of Sandra’s left hand.
“Bravo! Bravo! Bravo!” remarked Roberts who saluted the courage displayed by the intending duo of Sandra and Edward. “As you all can witness, my lovely wife is not in the best frame of mind to speak…she is full of tears of unexplained joy. I’ll have to speak on her behalf. Whatever you hear from me, just accept that it’s coming from the mouth and Monica and i. From now on, treat each other as man and wife” Roberts addressing the newly engaged Edward and Sandra.
Two years and five months later, Edward informed Sandra that he would be going for a six-month training programme in Japan. “As part of our company’s developmental policy plans, five of us, including me, were selected for training’’. Edward informed Sandra who, at first, was reluctant to accept the development but would give in since it was, according to her, “our marital progress”. Edward left for Japan and Sandra informed her parents about Edward’s movement.
Discussing with our friends, Anastasia, Marilyn and Magdalene, Sandra affirmed to them: “I specially invite you all to my wedding which is coming up in the next six months. Please, Marilyn, Anastasia and Magdalene, come to my wedding. Although my Edward was raised in an orphanage home, his maturity is far better than most of us who had been nurtured by our parents”.
“Indeed, you are in love with Edward”, reacted Marilyn. “Though we ladies would love to be present on your wedding day, it’s quite unfortunate that we won’t be around because of our final year project defence in school. You know, you finished before us. Though we are age-mates, your level seems to be higher than us. But we’ll send you presents…” Anastasia and Magdalene nodded their heads in agreement with her.
“Okay”, Sandra said, feeling a bit down. “It’s all good. I wish you all the best with your individual projects!”
Edward, after returning from a six-month training programme in Japan, got married at age 32 to his 22-year-old sweet-heart, Sandra. A ten-year difference ought to be an obvious mark of maturity and Edward’s keenness to embrace responsibility in the day-to-day sustenance of his marriage. However, the reverse was the case.
Until quite recently, Edward, before he met Sandra, was a hardened chain smoker, junkie and chronic womanizer. During his courting years with Sandra, he withdrew these habits from Sandra’s notice only to showcase them after having two issues with her.
His negligence of responsibility as the man of the house and husband and immaturity in handling sensitive issues of his family have somewhat created a total disorder in his household ranging from dysfunctional psyche of his now-grown children to the incessant insult on his wife. Sometimes, Sandra regrets marrying him; sees him as irresponsible and not matured enough for marriage.
What can we do? And when I say “we,” I mean you, my readers, and me: a tiny few among the eight billion human beings treading the earth.
Little enough, you might say. And I would agree. But not nothing. And even if we can do little to save humanity from its collective blind stumbling toward the fields of Armageddon, we can at least refuse to add to the insanity that seems to govern our world.
We can each of us begin the long retreat – and a retreat it will be, either controlled or uncontrolled, relatively pain-free or catastrophic. Our civilization is heading for a crash landing, but it can be either guided landing or explosive collision. The first way may be fatal for some; the other way could be fatal for all. But I am sure of one thing: I would rather control it than have it control me. I suspect you may feel the same.
To give a modest example of what I am doing. First, I don’t pretend to myself it will have any calculable effect on the tragedies ahead, but it does at least assuage the guilt I feel as a human being partly responsible for our grim prospects. I am philosophically an Epicurean (technically, a Platonist Epicurean) and therefore base my ethics on my own personal happiness in this life. I believe I have one life, in this world; I do not believe in an afterlife (if there is an afterlife, I will deal with it when I come to it – and any perceived flippancy is altogether intentional!) And although I argue against liberalism, I am, congenitally, “liberal” in my own attitudes: I believe in the fundamental decency and peaceableness of most human beings as long as we are neither threatened nor tempted, both of which are the most aggressive triggers of human evil. I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt, and have no time for the reflexive paranoias of the conservative mind.
I laugh when I hear the definition of a liberal as someone who does not take his own side in a quarrel, because I sometimes see that impulse in myself, though I admit I can usually subdue it without causing myself too much pain. And, though I believe in the existence of evil – that force in the world that seeks destruction for its own sake, examples of which run from cancer to psychopathology – I also believe in the existence of good – in affection, kindness and love – and in their ultimately sovereign power: goodness is the heart of existence because it is existence, just as evil is destruction. I have what amounts to a religious faith in existence itself, though I have yet to meet an organized religion I can believe in.
As part of that faith, I believe I have a moral mandate to face the truth as I understand it and achieve peace of mind through moral courage and right action. I also believe that sereneties are mutually reinforcing: the more that you have peace of mind based on truth, moral courage, and right action, as you understand them, the more I will have it as well, and vice versa. (The careful reader will note that a keynote of liberalism is struck here; this is a moral truth of liberalism that can be, and I believe must be, kept. The individual will always be essential – whether it is an individual human being, ladybug, or blade of grass. But an individual can be essential without being sovereign; making the human individual sovereign is where liberalism made its greatest mistake.)
I believe I cannot achieve that peace if I know I am contributing to suffering in the world, which is why right action is essential. If I cannot stop contributing entirely, I can at least reduce it – and so I have set myself the goal of reducing my contributions to the world’s suffering in ways that do not contribute to my own suffering (which would, of course, defeat the purpose; becoming a self-flagellating saint is simply another way of contributing to the world’s suffering).
It is clear that the global economic system is endangering much of life on earth, including our own; therefore, I am reducing my participation in that system. And how do that better than by reducing my purchases? My overall goal is a modest one: to reduce purchases by two percent per year. At the end of ten years, that will mean an overall reduction of over 20 percent, since the percentages will be progressive. I already have an unusually small carbon footprint for an American, largely because I have never owned a car, I live in an unusually temperate climate, without either central heating or air conditioning, and I rarely travel by plane. All of these were accidental, so I can claim no personal merit, much as I would like to.
But what I buy for myself I have some control over, at least of “discretionary” purchases. And by binding myself to the two-percent commitment, I can at least feel I am not contributing to the unfolding tragedy of human life on earth.
This is a modest commitment I believe many above a certain level of income in the industrialized countries can make.
I call it “The Two-Percent Club,” and I welcome anyone who wishes to join me.
There is a saying that the single flutter of a butterfly’s wing in the Andes can affect the stock market in New York City. Perhaps the single refusal to purchase that little item in the supermarket you don’t really want or need may prevent the Arctic from melting in the summer, a fire from raging across the Amazon, or a winter polar vortex from icing states from Michigan to Texas. And when it is tens of millions of butterfly wings, a single breath might become a hurricane.
Social Individualism
At the heart of liberalism is a great emptiness. Though it has a definition of “right” (as in “human rights”), it had no definition of the good; it claims that the “good” is basically whatever liberated individuals believe is their good. But this has led to the greatest evil of all: if I pursue my good in the present, even though it threatens to lead to the murder of tens of millions after I am dead, liberalism has nothing to say in response. It even defends it, by pretending the future will take care of itself. Its faith is blind. It disdains Christianity, but answers naïve faith with a gullibility that is both breathtaking and potentially suicidal for our species.
The existential evils we face have been caused, at least partly, by following the liberal ethos of letting individuals do what they want. Human beings are naturally predatory, and we are preying, at will, on one another, on earth’s other species, on earth’s resources – on the earth itself, with little or no sense of commitment to the future, because the only thing we know is that in the future we will be dead and after we are dead, we won’t care what happens because we won’t be there.
The idea that people care about the wellbeing of their children and grandchildren is questionable; once you have emancipated the individual from life on earth, the result is a nihilistic concentration on the present and personal, on me, on my satisfaction, here and now – and the devil take the hindmost. And the hindmost is the future of life on earth.
We can say, definitively, what evil is: the pursuit of destruction and death – and the greater evil yet is not of the individual but of humanity, and beyond that the genocide of species, when these are the result of our actions, actions that are free and therefore morally responsible.
Since we now can define evil so clearly, it has become easier to define the good.
The good is the whole. Existence is the good; life on earth is the good; the existence of human society is the good; the individual working within society, which exists within the earth’s ecosystem, which lives within the universe as a whole, is the good. Not at war with, but in cooperation with nature is the only way we have survived and, with luck, have thriven and flourished. Nature is our parent, we are her children, however rebellious. The delusion of our separation from, our conquest and our domination of nature will end – or we will end. And it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that, if that happens, we will have deserved it. Perhaps, despite what the physicists and evolutionists proclaim, there is a moral order in the universe after all.
Liberalism is based in the idea of human rights, with an emphasis on “negative liberty” and the refusal of an overarching definition of “the good” beyond the choices made by individuals, as discussed by John Stuart Mill in his classic essays on liberalism, in particular the much-quoted “On Liberty.” (Note one of the central self-contradictions of liberal philosophy: it stipulates that there is no way to define “the good” in general terms – then proceeds to do just that: “the good” is allowing people to make free choices as to what they think is “good”! And what if they choose to give up their liberty to choose? Oh no, we can’t have that! They must be forced to be free, as Mill himself states without blushing – even defending the use of slavery to force societies to rise to the economic level where “choice” will be materially possible. Whoever realizes at this point that liberalism is a totalitarian ideology – as all ideologies are – will win my deepest gratitude.)
But there is another possible political philosophy that incorporates many key insights of liberalism while redirecting its central thesis; it is a philosophy based on a balance of rights and responsibilities and a definition of the good that does not place individual choice at its center: the good is the flourishing of the ecosystem of life on earth. And we know what that looks like from our experiences of two things: the extreme fragility of monocultural ecosystems (which we are creating through our dominance) and the adaptability and resilience of climax ecosystems, such as can be found in the Amazon and old growth forests.
Since we now can define the good, we can begin to construct a social and political order based on it and not on rights alone. The extremities of the liberal order – where “My freedom is your death” – are over. We can claim “No rights without responsibilities, and no responsibilities without rights” with a good conscience.
This is the basis of “social individualism,” which I propose as a successor to liberalism.
It is not a new idea – some claim it is the basis of the political order in countries such as Denmark, which has been called social democratic by Senator Bernie Sanders, though Danes deny the sweet aspersion. It is based on the idea that human beings are social creatures above all – though every human being is unique, with a unique identity, purposes and history, we are also interdependent within both society and the wider ecosystem of life on earth. We are born from other human beings into a living culture itself built across generations and centuries.
Everything we have, we have borrowed from others, from our DNA to our language, customs, education, to the food that nourishes us and the air we breathe. We are dependent beings living within networks of other dependent beings. Life on earth is an immense ecosystem of which we are only a part, though an essential part, both as species and individuals. We are not and cannot be completely autonomous beings absolutely separated from other people or other living creatures. The attempt to do so for an individual is suicidal; for a species, it can lead to ecocide: the destruction of our home, of the only place where we can live.
In social individualism, individual responsibility is coupled with a network of social supports, for which we, as individuals, are responsible just as we are their beneficiaries; the supports cover education, health care, unemployment compensation, retirement, and the like. They are paid for through taxes, including a progressive income tax. No individual is solely responsible for his success, just as none is solely responsible for failure; the wealthiest, who have benefited most from society, also pay the most back.
Yet each individual acts as if what he does is the most important thing he can be doing at that moment. When he votes, his vote is the only one that counts.
There is a famous story about a rabbi who was asked by a student what was the most important thing he did. He paused and considered for a moment, and then said, “Whatever I am doing right now.”
The individual is expected to take as much responsibility for his life and his society as he is able to. He does this with the understanding that every individual will at times be dependent on others, beginning with childhood and including periods of illness, injury, and financial distress, old age, and the ultimate dependency of mortality and death.
The motto of social individualism is simple, if deceptively so: “No rights without responsibilities; no responsibilities without rights.” No one gets a free run, no right is absolute, and no one bears an exclusive burden – no one may be crushed at will beneath another person’s freedom. This overturns the liberal notion of both the primacy and equality of rights.
When rights conflict with obligations, obligation wins. Corporations would lose their identity as legal persons; shareholders would share in their company’s legal and financial liabilities; if you can take its profits, you can also take its punishment. Voting would be a legal duty rather than a right. No one would be allowed to trample on your rights because he employs you; just because you have a job and receive pay, you do not become a second-class citizen – or rather, not a citizen at all but a part-time slave. No one would be allowed to deprive you – and you would not be allowed to deprive yourself – of your rights, for example to free expression – by the same token, your right of free expression would not give you the right to destroy another person’s reputation or career. Non-disclosure and non-competitive agreements would be abolished. No contract would be legally binding that deprived either side of either obligation or right.
Such a legal and cultural regime might lead to changes in American society that would make it unrecognizable, I believe largely for the good. Note that I refer to “American society,” not the “American economy,” which is the fashionable way of avoiding the entire question of whether or not “American society” exists. Under social individualism there is no question: individuals exist within a network of other individuals, a network we call society, which lives within the broadest network of living creatures we call living nature or life on earth. Individual members of all species are existentially interdependent within these larger ecosystems: neither ecosystems nor individuals can exist without the other.
No-fault divorce might be abolished when children are involved: the obligation of taking care of children would override the rights of adults. There may be a need for the consent of a husband or parents for a surgical abortion. The inauguration of new technologies such as AI and machine learning and reasoning would have to be vetted for possible harmful effects on humanity and on the global ecosystem and constantly monitored for unintended consequences; in no case would the market be allowed as the final arbiter of humanity and life on earth. And, after detailed medical and psychological screening, assisted suicide might be available for anyone who is above a certain age and has no overriding legal obligations; no one should be forced to live a life that has become a torture of hopelessness and pain.
The anti-social individualism that has marked the hardest core of liberalism, especially in the United States, must, I believe, be defeated if we are to survive as a species. I believe this to be incontrovertibly true, but I am pessimistic how it will happen.
In the United States, whose cumbrous political machinery makes it difficult to handle national social crises or emergencies efficiently, major social changes in the past have only happened after disasters or threats thereof: the Civil War, the bloody labor strikes of the Gilded Age, the Great Depression, the two World Wars, the Cold War, the crises of the 1960s, the climate crisis‒caused wildfires and polar vortexes of our time. Thus, I am afraid that, until the civilization built on liberal capitalist principles collapses, causing enormous suffering among the innocent, it will not transform into a society that has any chance of future survival.
Too many, both in the United States and in the globalized neoliberal economic order, are benefiting in the short term from a system that cannot ensure its own long-term survival. As humans – culturally and perhaps even genetically predisposed to living according to the short term and trusting the long term will take care of itself – we are sleepwalking toward catastrophe, laughing at the Cassandras when we hear them, and enjoying our dreams of security until the sun rises to display the abyss at our feet.
Yet we are free to prevent this catastrophe foretold, to transform our world, society, and ourselves, as humanity has done in the past countless times in countless lands and eras. We are not locked into our fate. The glory, the terror, the uncanniness of humanity is that we are free.
The question remaining to us is this one: how will we make use of our freedom? We can continue doing as we have, we can change some things, we can change many things, or we can change everything.
Or everything will be changed for us.
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Christopher Bernard is a novelist, poet and critic as well as essayist. His most recent book, The Socialist’s Garden of Verses, won a PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award in 2021. He is also a founder and co-editor of the webzine Caveat Lector.
