Spectacles are rooted in who we are and what drives us, our collective
mythology, and our fears.  They often enforce ideas we depend on.  They
touch us individually and collectively.  They rise from the instance
when everyone realizes the power in cooperation and collaboration.

Burning
Man and Critical Mass are examples of this type of spectacle and both
have the human relationship to our planet as core principles.  For
Burning Man it’s about a community of thousands surviving in a place
that mother nature seems to have forgotten.  People at Burning Man work together to live for a week in the desert, at the same time acting out
something at the heart of their individuality (creating art, trading,
dressing up, etc).  Critical Mass, though effectively shut down by the
police in New York City, is gaining popularity throughout the world.
Once a month, bicyclists get together to have fun, to support the
environment, and to advocate for alternative forms of transportation.
People gather for different reasons, but they use their collective
power to take the streets back from automobiles.

The Green
Imperative, an interesting book that shows the part designers must play
in protecting and promoting the environment, reminds us that no matter
how we identify ourselves, we all have a role.  We can all incorporate
sustainability into what we do, as individuals, for the collective
good.  It’s the same sort of idea that drives an ethical spectacle.  It
defines a perspective from which we should view the rest of the world.
For example, as a software engineer who depends on powerful, energy-eating machines for my livelihood, what can I do to support
sustainability?  Whatever it is I do, it should be something that is
unique to my position and my special set of skills as an engineer
(simply recycling my garbage is not enough).  It is in this way that
sustainability should be built, from the bottom up, into future
spectacles.

The internet as great collaboration network has the seeds for many emerging spectacles:  The free software movement a la Linux, GPL, sourceforge, and so on; The DIY movement which is manifesting itself to the masses via Make Magazine, Etsy, Instructables,
and the like.  Both of these movements have sustainability and
especially re-use at their core.  When a Make Magazine reader sees an
Altoids box, they think "What can I make with that?" The subtext is, "I
could throw this away, but I will use it for something new" and so,
without even realizing it, the inventor is promoting sustainability.
For her, it is hard-wired.

To have sustainability as a core part
of a movement and to have that movement become spectacle is my hope.
With Al Gore’s work, we have already seen the beginning.  The free software movement is growing, as is the  DIY
movement, Critical Mass, and Burning Man.  As ideas of sustainability
capture more of the public eye, there will be a snowball effect and
more spectacles will emerge that will incorporate both our individual and collective connection to the earth.

The title is a snippet of the article entitled "Freeing the Mind: Free Software and the Death of Proprietary Culture" by Eben Moglen.  I highlight the second half of the title because I believe we tend to overlook the fact that the whole spirit of open source extends far beyond Linux, the GPL, and all the other software applications and activities.  It’s really more about information where ever it is and how no one has the right to restrict access to it.  It’s a huge message.  Read the article and I think you’ll be enlightened – as I definitely was.

I was cruising some environmental websites this morning and I stumbled across this article about greener electronics.  Batteries and the electronic devices they power do bad bad things to the earth once they are thrown away.  Electronic devices also consume power which usually means carbon-dioxide emissions.  And many of us don’t think about the resources used to make something like a cell phone–For example, Taiwanese chip manufacturers put a huge burden on the country’s fresh water supply.  Who, even among residents of Taiwan during a drought, realize the impact of electronics on water supplies?

Luckily there is quite a bit we can do as consumers of electronic devices to help the situation.  Greenpeace ranks electronics companies’ "greenness" based on a number of factors.  The results are surprising: "Lenovo soars, Apple bombs."  Consider this the next time you’re choosing a new laptop.  Treehugger has an entire guide about what you can do to "green your electronics".  What do you do with your batteries when they die?

Industry giants are realizing the consumer-driven trend toward green.  In an NPR piece I heard this morning, members of the Green Grid are meeting in Denver today to discuss industry standards for power conservation.

As consumers demand greener electronics and greener practices from electronics manufacturers, companies are falling in line.  I hope things continue to move in this direction and I believe they will.

It’s only a matter of time before you see headlines like this for virtually every product category – digital and physical – User-Generated Content Is Top Threat to Media and Entertainment Industry, Accenture Survey Finds

Al Gore’s next ethical spectacle will take place on 7/7/07.  The event
has it’s conceptual roots in Live Aid, a cross-continent rock concert
held in 1985 to help raise funds and awareness about the famine in
Ethiopia.  This new event, 22 years later, is called Live Earth.  Live
Earth is a massive, 24-hour, multi-venue, global concert to raise
awareness of environmental issues and in particular those issues
related to climate change.

This
is truly an ethical spectacle, yet it is very different than the
spectacle of An Inconvenient Truth.  A rock concert, first of all, can
never be as didactic as a documentary film.  However, little in the
world is so deeply rooted in spirituality than music.  Whereas you’ll
never learn a whole lot from a music event, it will probably touch you
at a more fundamental level than a documentary ever could.  A music
event alone, however, doesn’t constitute spectacle.  But one on this
scale surely does.

Besides the largeness of the event and the
spiritual significance of music, there are other aspects of Live Earth
that are promising.  The event will be held in 7 continents on a date
represented by three sevens.  The significance of this seems entirely
manufactured, but the effect is as if there was some deeper meaning
than just dates and numbers.  There will be over 100 performers and,
judging by the marketing from Live Earth’s partner MSN (unfortunately), viewers will be able to watch any of the acts live on the internet.

The
upshot is we have a spiritual event of mythological proportions (has
there ever been anything so big?) where individuals get to participate
at their discretion from their own homes.  It’s nearly the perfect
synergy of myth, inclusiveness, and connectedness that a fully-realized
ethical spectacle calls for.  Perhaps this is the type of thing that
only someone like Al Gore can pull off, but in my search for more
spectacles in support of sustainability, I see the beginning other, more bottom-up movements that have the requisite mythological undertones,
promote inclusiveness and individual control, and advance
connectedness and sustainability.  I will discuss these movements next time.

Last week in Slate there was an article about a book called Dream, by
Stephen Duncombe, which looks at the
failings of the contemporary progressive movement. According to the
article, Duncombe argues that modern-day progressives need a
"spectacle" rooted in "story and myth,
fears and desire, imagination and fantasy."  Bush’s "Mission
Accomplished" aircraft carrier show is used as an example of
conservatives’ understanding of this need.  Similarly, progressives of
the past seem to
have understood this idea.  The author discusses Rosa Parks for
instance–how the act of disobeying a racist law had myth-like
consequences.

Al Gore and his documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, are also mentioned
in the Slate article.  In a way, Al Gore’s personal story is similar to
the
hero myth–The underdog suffers a humiliating defeat and disappears
from the public eye for a
period of time, presumably to reflect and learn, and then returns to
share what he’s learned in the hope of helping the world.
His documentary is a true example of the type of spectacle Duncombe
describes.  The film juxtaposes Gore’s personal story with the story of
the planet.  The shared mythological undertones demonstrate the
connectedness of
the planet with human life and the uniqueness of humanity.  Yet, for
better or for worse, the film plays on our darker emotions such as
fear.  How powerful fear is!  A point reiterated by the chilling
spectacle of Gore raising himself up on
a lift to show us how carbon dioxide levels are literally off the
chart.  He shocks us with before and after pictures of receding
glaciers and then asks us to imagine what will happen if our sea levels
rise 20 feet.

Clearly, spectacle can be a
powerful way to promote whatever ideas one wishes to further, provided
that in some way the spectacle is tied to
mythology and our collective dreams.  Duncombe might call a spectacle
like one that promotes sustainability and environmentalism an ethical
spectacle, one that furthers inclusivity and openness as opposed to
hiding the truth, one that perhaps removes fear from the equation.

I sometimes feel a mythological and dreamlike connection to the
natural enviroment which I attribute to growing up in the foothills of
the
Adirondack Mountains so I feel there must be a better way to affect
change in the way we live without resorting to scare tactics.  Fear
seems to add fuel to the political fire for an issue that I would like
to see less politicized.  Perhaps the ends justifies the means, but I’m
looking for signs of a different kind of spectacle.