Morris Dancing at the Gates of Mordor: A Prayer for Peace

We are approaching a period of global conflict whose consequences could exceed anything humanity has previously experienced, while extraordinary concentrations of wealth and power remain invested in preserving the arrangements producing this instability, profiting from their continuation, exploiting the insecurity they generate, and converting even the prospect of catastrophe into another commercial opportunity, all conducted so openly that corruption scarcely needs concealing, merely explaining away through the familiar machinery of political language. Asking for peace in these circumstances feels rather like Morris dancing at the gates of Mordor as they swing open, waving little white handkerchiefs while the forces of destruction assemble beyond them, although the recent arrival of flying cars should provide some consolation when there is nowhere left worth visiting.

The underlying problem is that political, corporate and institutional organisations reproduce themselves through relationships of dependency, competition and control, increasingly excluding the independent minds capable of helping them change, while frightened populations seek refuge in simplified explanations and political identities that reproduce the insecurity they promise to resolve. Anger and opposition become part of the same destructive organisation when they perpetuate its antagonisms, yet we possess the knowledge to begin restructuring our social and political arrangements before catastrophe makes reconstruction unavoidable, and I find it profoundly sad that a civilisation capable of understanding so much should remain so thoroughly captive to its own inventions that asking for peace has become almost absurd, while preparing for destruction is considered perfectly sensible.