The Choice is Ours

By Wayne Brown


A note from Chillyfinger to the Venus Project (creators of the documentary):


"I viewed your recent documentary "The Choice is Ours" with interest. There is not much new in it. The facts are actually a lot worse than what you portray. The problem I have with the documentary is that it lacks a broad theoretical understanding of what is going on. Without some truly new and deep understanding of our situation, it's unlikely that we will make any more progress than we have for thousands of years. After all, all of the problems in your documentary have been with us since the dawn of civilization.

The hidden message in your documentary is that the answer somehow lies in a better understanding of human psychology. I respectfully disagree on this fundamental point. For the last few weeks, I have been working on a blog http://dragontheory.blogspot.ca. This blog views world affairs and the problems you address from a different perspective. It assumes that Nations and Corporations have a life of their own, independent of the humans that make them up. You may regard this as a useful metaphor or a new theory in biology, or perhaps just a different way of explaining what is happening to us. The blog originated as a reaction against the prophets of gloom and doom who attribute all the problems of the world to human immorality. There are nasty people out there but there is nothing new about that.

I urge you to take a quick look at my blog. My efforts complement your own. At the very least, "dragon theory" could make your presentation of world issues clearer to many viewers. I do not regard "dragon theory" as essential- just a piece of the puzzle. For example, people need to understand the effects of "neoliberalism" and the shift of political discussion to solely economic issues.  On the other hand, we will not break the control of corporations by treating them as humans and assessing a fine here and there (as your documentary points out).

The perspective in my blog is totally missing from your documentary. You slip into the usual trap of blaming a few hundred people for the suffering of the rest of humanity. The fact is that in a few years a few hundred different people will be in the same position. In the same time period, a few hundred nations and corporations will be running the world as they have for centuries.

Just as a body is more than the cells that make it up, a nation is more than the humans that control it. Evil people don't "run" evil corporations or start wars. They are "assimilated" by these giant collective entities that have a life of their own.

Assimilation itself is the danger, since most of us are assimilated by needing "jobs" that serve to make the corporations richer. The goal of the "dragon" is simple survival and (if possible) growth and the death of competing dragons. Dragons are powerful and scary but stupid, like diseases. The fact that smallpox infects humans does not make it human, nor does a nation become human because it assimilates millions of humans.

As I have investigated "dragon theory" for the blog, I have surprised myself at how many ways there are to weaken or kill the dragons. They are scary but stupid and vulnerable. The insights gained from this perspective can help to create practical strategies to reverse the situations you deplore in that documentary.

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