No new frontiers

A thought occurred to me the other day. There is no new frontier.

This, of course, is the principle for Star Trek, right? The only frontier that is available for us is outer space. But the truth is that we can’t access that frontier in the way that we have already colonized the planet.

And when I refer to ‘we,’ I mean the West, really. I don’t mean humanity, because humans aren’t colonists. This is where sci-fi movies get it wrong: there is no human spirit; no single thing that we as humans share that will allow us all to survive in the face of a greater threat. The truth is that this is a Western position. This is the position of colonists, imposers, and dominators that seek to steal in an effort to better themselves. This is what we have done since Constantine. This isn’t the way of the indigenous peoples whom we have exploited. This isn’t the way of The Global South, let alone the East. This doesn’t truly represent the true North American. This is the proto-New Roman people that we are in the United States and Britain

and the worst of ourselves that has infested Eastern and Southern cultures to mimic and take up these same models.

But the truth is, the Roman, then British, then United Statesian (I refuse to call it ‘American’, since we share our continent with others) Empires have been created with a colonial mindset: growth, expansion, and increased productivity are the hallmarks of empire. Constantly trying to control the every increasing land and water around oneself, infects the individual’s sense of place. Our continued fascination with ‘the Wild West’ should prove to even the most skeptical this desire to colonize and expand personal possession beyond articles to land, water, and access to water, minerals found underneath the land, and trees and animals that populate the land.

The fundamental principle of colonization is the creation of a market where there wasn’t one before. In the West, this is claiming ownership of land that wasn’t owned, but was essential to the lives of many people, plants, and animals. In modern times, it is the creation of markets (insurance for instance) and markets within markets (building SUVs instead of reclaiming the original auto market).

We see the same issues of colonization influencing our understanding of human behavior and of systems. Today’s top economists and political scientists operate under a principled indifference to existing systems and methodologies in favor of one that most benefits the haves (and therefore tends to exploit the have-nots). A prime example of this is the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which has a 0% success rate in strengthening 3^rd World countries, but a 100% success rate in exploiting them in the creation of new markets for American and European companies.

The imperialism that we studied in high school history classes (maybe college: we don’t want to be too controversial by teaching teenagers facts, do we?) is alive and well: it just doesn’t need armies or direct supervision; enslavement to ‘free-market’ economics will do well enough on its own.

The only means of salvaging ourselves as a species (and to save our planet) is to eradicate our tendency toward imperialism and colonialism. We don’t need to grow and own to prove ourselves. As much as you don’t need to buy a new car every year, Ford shouldn’t have to sell you one. There are currently 96 cars for every 100 people in the U.S. alone; that is more cars than there are people capable of driving; so why this slavish dependence on selling more? Our economy wouldn’t fall if it were diversified and we moved away from consumption and exploitation. It would just be different. Wouldn’t you rather make the change by choice, before it is imposed on us by external circumstances?