Parallel Culture, Part II

Note: this two-part series is intended as a thinkpiece and is acknowledged as highly speculative and theoretical. But I encourage the debate to be continued should sufficient interest be generated.

In part I, I suggested at least the consideration of gravitating toward existing traditional towns in order to reestablish the settlement pattern that existed prior to World War II. At that time, suburban sprawl was just a seedling with early planned residential developments like Radburn, Shaker Heights, and Greenbelt still encompassing some pedestrian and transit elements and automobile-oriented shopping centers like Country Club Plaza few in number. I suggested several ways to approach this including new development, redevelopment, and resettlement.

Another nagging problem is political. And I do not necessarily mean strict democratic-republican dichotomy or even conservative-progressive (although these questions do tend to sort themselves out fairly close within the confines of those labels). Our political system has evolved into a broad but confined range of acceptable outcomes that is occasionally tested at the margins (e.g. evangelicals at one end and social service advocates on the other....more on that later). But at best, policy swings within a range and rarely ventures beyond these acceptable boundaries. If a solution to a critical problem is located outside of this margin, it will not be solved, not until it manifests its outcomes and must be addressed reactively anyway. So issues like global warming will always be addressed too late and too modestly to be effective. In addition, our public discourse is often muted by concerns over fears of being considered uncivil or impolite, losing our job, having old friends or acquaintances drift away, or even having slashed tires or maybe worse. So if we can't even discuss our concerns as emphatically and spiritedly as we wish, these concerns will never circulate in the public domain enough to impact policy. And I believe that this is intentional to some degree.

And thus we coexist uneasily with our neighbors and fellow citizens, our lives growing more difficult and less productive personally (while we churn out more productivity for our workplaces). Largely unsatisfied with our circumstances and fearful of the future, many of us slog along and wait for something to happen. At some point, instead of holding out some hope or confidence that a substantive enough shift will occur and in sufficient time, we must ponder more drastic alternatives.

Since I read about an effort by South Carolina evangelicals to purposefully recruit out-of-state evangelical Christians to the palmetto state (see Christian Exodus) for political strength and about Vermont's interesting succession movement (Second Vermont Republic), it struck me that perhaps these efforts, while dichotomous to the extreme ideologically, were essentially the same thing, an effort to disengage with a community set of values and leadership direction that are seen as unacceptable. Perhaps support of these efforts, while unquestionably leading to the dissolution to the Union as we know it, may result in a number of better states (as in state or condition).

First of all, it may result in two or three new nation-states that could pursue new directions and compare efforts to accomplish general goals (e.g. alternative energy use, poverty, income equality, incarceration rates, carbon footprint, balanced budget, etc.). It may also dilute the effective military power of the Union as a whole and render each no more powerful than a Britain or Spain (don't worry, I can anticipate the counterarguments...). Most of all, it would give each an opportunity to rest from the useless energy spent on fighting across the deep ideological divide. It frankly may also provide some momentum to the bioregionalist state model or may facilitate relocalization better since the state would be more aligned philosophically with the goals and objectives of citizens.

From a global perspective, creating two or more more ideologically homogeneous states could conceivably exacerbate global environmental and energy problems. But I am intrigued by the idea of a single nation-state committed to addressing climate change to a person and making alternative energy their Manhattan project. Beyond that, it may provide a rich sociological proving ground that would not be feasible anywhere today (Sweden may come close). Use a new constitutional model, hire Paul Hawken as Commerce Secretary, and let's see what can be done.

Again, I welcome the discussion at: http://newresettlement.blogspot.com/