Consumption junction

The story of Cassandra, the Greek prophetess cursed with being able to see the future yet never having anyone believe her, was always a curious one to me. How bad a curse, really, could that be?

But the Greeks described Cassandra’s plight as being one of endless pain and frustration—and I understand this sentiment a little better lately.

Over the past few months, perhaps after reading the Wall Street Journal’s dismal headlines daily, I’ve had many flashbacks to a meeting I attended in Portland in early 2008. The guest list included Paul Hawken, the author or “Ecology of Commerce,” author Barry Lopez and a group of about 25 local businesspeople, academic leaders and policymakers. Portland is a very cordial place, and for the most part, people—even famous ones—are overly deferential. This created a strange setting, for Hawken’s remarks were nothing short of apocalyptic.

The economy would be ending soon, he said. Sorry, there wasn’t much to be done about it. He proposed no solutions. There was no uncertainty in his voice. And there really was no hope whatsoever in his remarks. Lopez added that we would find out soon whether the capitalist system provided evolutionary advantages for our species or not.

People in the group nodded politely. But very few people believed Hawken or Lopez. And at the time, I was quite angry with Hawken. The leading sustainability guru of our time appeared to have all but given up.

I now realize this was only the latest of many Cassandra-like moments for Hawken. I recently dig up an early 1980s issue of Mother Earth News magazine in which Hawken, during our country’s last great recession, talked in detail about the “de-massification” of society. Subtitled “Finding Your Way in a Turbulent Economy,” the Hawken Q&A was focused around the necessary evolution of our economy toward manufacturing things containing more information and design and less energy and material substance.