This is low key for Kunstler.
And the book he is referring to is not the first to make the comparisons and illustrate the disparities which he describes.
Basically for an analogy the U.S. is a mono energy industrial nation. We have to have enormous quantities of petroleum oil products to continue to function as a society with a living standard beyond any experienced by any society past or preseant.
Their is no gentle settling down into a slower less energy dependent pastoral society. That is not and option that we have if this high energy high tech abstract machine runs out of fuel or even significantly short of fuel.
The personal transportation fuel needs are way down on the necessity list when we look at what would be needed to keep this all going in high gear or maybe any gear. We need to look deeper.
It's our almost incomprehensible national electrical grid and our production of a complex food supply that just will not tolerate a petroleum energy/fuel shortage.
The USSR disassembled because of both external and internal contradictions. The USSR was never a true empire in my opinion as it's expansion was stifled in the late fifties. And of course for a number of other very well documented internal reasons.
The U.S. is an Empire and has continued to expand but has now hit the wall on all significant fronts and issues. Even it's most lethal ...weapons of mass destruction are nolonger exclusively paramount.
Assembling complex societies takes time and trial. Disassembling needs neither and the results are just as total.
'Going up' we experience arrogance.
We are conquering nature which we have feared. Coming down it is more than humbling as we have to relinquish our false reality that we where ever 'in charge'.
And then we look for answers which are based on supernatural intervention. As all contracting societies assume they have offended the God(s).
The earth is not here for us nor is it an abstract or a vengeful entity.
It's rhythm is it's purpose.
And at some point maybe we will finally accept that our relationship with the earth can only be one of harmony if we are to be tolerated by the round sphere which is our precarious home.
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