Clinging Desperately to a Metaphor (2011)
Its hard to imagine a calm, reasonable, informed person with any degree of empathy reading this depressingly eloquent piece and not agreeing, at least with its broad outlines.<p>Yet we are ten years later and the interim period didn't just see no alternative metaphor make any inroads, its been regressive in very visible terms. At some point there is a need to understand what is going on? There are several possible scenarios:<p>* psychopaths really do rule the roost. a tiny minority of well placed individuals hinder any chance of systemic change, essentially sacrificing the majority (and future generations) so that they maintain their current status quo for a few more decades<p>* there is positive change but its imperceptibly slow, dominated by "noisy" short term regression. the timescale of change is simply too slow to satisfy the impatient activist. the tumor is ultimately under control, too bad for the current generations, just keep persisting<p>* there is no change, because there can be no (controllable) change. the system is trapped in its own logic and sources of legitimization. Like a Jenga game we are at the point where removing any piece will bring down the whole. Like a runaway tumor, the faulty DNA will keep expanding until the organism is dead.<p>Maybe there are other narratives that better explain the situation or maybe its a combination of things. But we need to start understanding what is really our true condition.