Conversations on Collapse

B. Woodside writes:

Regular listeners to KMO's C-Realm Podcast will know what I'm talking about. On Wednesday of every week for the past few years now, I've been religiously checking my iTunes podcast inbox for the latest installment out of the C-Realm (the "C", as fellow podcaster Black Beauty occasionally reminds us, standing for, among other things, Consciousness), and I can't think of an instance in which I've been disappointed.

As I write this review, KMO is currently up to podcast number two hundred and twenty-seven, and there hasn't been a bummer in the lot. Somehow, through tech glitches, bad phone connections, intermittent Internet service, aging computer malfunctions, and domestic upheaval, he has managed to not only remain true to his schedule, but has steadfastly maintained a level of intelligent, courteous, and thoughtful discourse with a succession of remarkable contemporary authors, artists, pundits, lecturers, scientists, philosophers, theorists, and even an Archdruid, asking the pointed questions you want him to ask and then stepping aside to graciously allow his interview subjects the freedom to respond at length. It's a rare thing these days to experience, in any venue, conversations that seem to flow along so effortlessly, despite the fact that the participants are seldom in physical proximity. And, at least for this listener, there's a sense of privilege - that one gets to sit in, like the proverbial fly on the wall, listening to thoughtful people talk about things that matter.

This first volume of transcripts, "Conversations on Collapse," manages to capture the flavor of the podcasts without trying to somehow reproduce the experience (which accounts for the absence of the roosters, who punctuate the beginning and end of each recorded episode with a cry that's like a zen wake-up call or a slap upside the head.) Better still, the transcripts follow the thread of the "collapse" theme, sending it in any number of different directions, building on and amplifying the subject as one proceeds through the book, touching on the crucial concerns of food security, economic dislocation, and cultural re-evaluation.

There's a method to their placement that is more than mere chronology; you can sense the intellectual curiosity that is driving KMO to interview these particular guests and ask them these particular questions, guiding them back towards the subject when they threaten to stray too far afield but at the same time allowing them to take the random turn into an interesting byway (the conversation with blogger Joe Bageant is a fascinating case in point.) You get a sense of where, at any particular point in time, his sympathies may lie, but he is not there to score points at his guests' expense. When he presses them, his aim is always in the service of clarification.

Dan Krotz writes:

The transformation of citizens into simple consumers is a prevalent theme though out the interviews, summarized by Bageant as "the Stockholm syndrome of the soul," where people become willing hostages to corporations and political parties that con them into acting against their own best interests. This allows people to believe that we are, for example, "supporting our troops" by waging war in the Middle East at the cost of $100 million dollars a day with money borrowed from the Chinese.

KMO's intent and the intentions of the people he interviews is to create awareness that "this time" things are different: bad things are going to happen if we don't throw off the shackles of consumerism and our enslavement to party politics.

Whether we throw off shackles or throw rascals out of office ultimately depends on whether people are willing to change how they live. We've done a poor job of accepting change, as a people and as a civilization, for most of our history. But if KMO is right, we should get ready.