How to Uncivilize

Uncivilize steps outside our modern perspective to expose how our belief in growth and our acceptance of global industrial society as the pinnacle of civilization get in the way of imagining an approach to confront the numerous crises that humanity faces. Uncivilize poses a positive narrative where we stand to gain much more than we give up while effectively addressing the challenges in front of us. It provides a clear strategy to gradually change our mindset, actions, and behaviors, that fit your pace and needs.

Our Spiritual Crises

the problem with capitalism

We're going through a deep spiritual crisis—feeling disconnected from nature and out of touch with ourselves. Our belief that more stuff brings real happiness has left us feeling empty and anxious. The race for material wealth has made us forget what really makes us feel alive—like the wonder of nature, genuine connections, and creating things with our own hands.

This belief in growth not only brings money problems, burnout, and all the stress of modern life, it’s also wrecking the planet, bringing with it a whole new set of mental issues. It's time to rethink our beliefs for a more fulfilling life that doesn't harm our home. Let's get back to what truly matters, find balance, and make choices that respect the world around us.

Our Material Crises

Fuel to Fire

Our Material Crises

fuel to fire

Our fixation on continuous growth has led us to exploit both the natural world and human resources, resulting in harm to people, animals, and the planet. The transformation of the natural world into an artificial one not only jeopardizes our survival but also perpetuates a destructive cycle of disconnection. Fueled by, once cheap and abundant, fossil fuels, our blind pursuit of economic growth has ignored the adverse consequences of waste and pollution. What was once the source of our prosperity now threatens our it. At this crucial moment, we face a choice: either continue down the risky path of extraction or recognize the unnaturalness of perpetual growth.

Not my Kind of Future

The way we imagine the future is shaped by the progress narrative we inherited from Enlightenment thinkers that defines civilization as a sequence of evolutionary stages inevitably culminating in a superior society, deeming everything lower on the ladder as exploitable. These foundational ideas persist in shaping our contemporary perspectives. This may clarify why in public discourse we are only offered a limited set of options:

1. Go Galactic: Tech billionaires propose an all-in approach—mining space, advancing technology to replace work, cure diseases, and lengthen life. This accelerates resource depletion, ignores spiritual crises, and risks widening the wealth gap between intergalactic billionaires and those left displaced on depleted wastelands.

2. Try our Best: Leaders acknowledge the need for action, but these efforts remain solidly grounded within the global industrial capitalist system that perpetuates the issues it tries to confront. Trying to balance economic and ecologic interests, sustainability plans are aligned with growth without addressing the spiritual crises that’s at the root of our problems.

3. Opt Out: Faced with civilization's decline, some distance themselves, while nostalgic nationalists promise a return to a history from before the crises, ignoring the fact that such a return is now impossible. Opting out by creating a personal refuge or collectively ignoring realities get in the way of the collective action that is essential to face our challenges.

None of these options are particularly appealing to us. Trying our best seeks solutions within the capitalist system, perpetuating the lifestyle that caused our crises in the first place. Going galactic puts that same approach in overdrive, gambling our planet for growth and material wealth. Opting out means giving up, denying everything we learned and our potential to thrive together.

There is a future where we gain more than we give up, but we need to look outside the frame of our global commercial society and redefine ‘prosperity’.

Redefining Progress

What if we did not dismiss earlier stages of society as backward? In fact, modern science debunked the idea of stages altogether and shows that people always applied a mix of available modes; a bit of herding mixed with hunting, some gardening mixed with seasonal agriculture complemented with foraging and so on. Despite our dismissal, these ‘primitive’ modes are where we go to find solace from modern life, with activities like camping providing a break from the pursuit of material wealth. In these modes, we tend to feel more involved, rewarded, connected, and peaceful. Each of these modes offers a more sustainable way of living through distinct economic models, energy sources and tools, and is capable of addressing our spiritual crises by offering different mindsets, relationships to nature and social constructs. Even though they’re obscured from modern life, they are kept alive by enthousiasts and continue to be practiced in many cultures. This isn't a call to return to the past but an invitation to understand these alternatives modes through a modern lens, as modern science validates ancient ideas, revealing the complexity of nature, and acknowledging that hidden truths may lie in ancient beliefs and practices that simply work. We propose applying a mix of all the available modes, reimagined through modern insights and adapted to current state of the world.

Mixing modes

Healer

While a hunter-gatherer lifestyle may seem as alien as living on Mars to many of us, its roots run deep within our very beings. We experience this connection when we swim in open waters, hike through mountains, or gather berries in the forest.

Acting as a healer is not about mimicking a hunter-gatherer lifestyle; rather, it's about seeking activities that rekindle our bond with nature. These experiences foster a desire to reciprocate nature's gifts, cultivate humility, and instill an appreciation for all living things.

We must actively restore nature. By now man made materials outweigh the total biomass on earth. This trend is a direct threat to our own survival and that of all other species.

Unseen makes unloved, and in our modern habitat’s we’ve made sure to rule out nature. It’s wild, scary and dirty. But this distance blinds us to both the negative effect our actions have on nature and to experiencing nature’s ingenuity, beauty and cycles.

Only through a renewed appreciation and understanding of our place within the natural world can we begin to create a sustainable future where joy and beauty flourish alongside our own well-being.

Producer

We can imagine life as a herder or gardener, when we use our own hands to shape our fate by tending to our animals, nurturing crops, and shaping the landscape to our benefit. All these activities put you in touch with your survival and provide a sense of pride and accomplishment.

Acting as producers, we adopt new skills that promote self-sufficiency and instill a sense of accomplishment and independence. These experiences foster a deep knowledge of your direct surroundings, promote skills to work with nature and it’s cycles and rely on yourself as a producer. By living a more self-reliant lifestyle, we develop a deep understanding of the things we produce and use. We invest our time, effort, and resources in creating and maintaining these items, cherishing their value and repairing them when necessary. This intimate knowledge allows us to minimize our environmental impact and live in harmony with the natural world. We embrace the rhythms of the seasons and the cycles of nature, adapting our practices to ensure our well-being and that of the environment.

Self-reliance nurtures valuable skills, fosters a deep connection with nature, and enables sustainable living. Through hands-on involvement, we gain a profound understanding of our surroundings and learn to work in harmony with natural cycles. This approach minimizes our environmental impact and promotes well-being for both ourselves and the planet.

In our modern lives, we are discouraged from engaging in hands-on activities. Convenient products and services take tasks out of our hands, depriving us of the opportunity to find pride and accomplishment in doing things ourselves.

This approach allows us to live in balance with our surroundings, deriving sustenance from the bounty of the land while respecting its delicate balance.

When we imagine a mode akin to herding and pastoralism, it’s about securing a comfortable life with low tech tools using simple techniques to shape the world around us with muscle and animal power.

Acting as creators we adopt new skills that promote autarchy and instill a sense of accomplishment and independence.

In our modern lives we are discouraged to do things ourselves. There are convenient products we can buy that take things out of our hands and deprive us of the opportunity to do things ourselves and find pride and accomplishment, making us less dependent and allowing us to help others.

Home economy. We completely understand the things we do and make. We invest in them, cherish and repair them and fully understand the impact on the world around us. Through this knowledge we can/are inclined to minimize impact. Human scale

We go with the flow of the seasons and cycles of nature and develop techniques to live of what surrounds us

Contributor

Agricultural society is easier for us to imagine. It’s in pre-industrial farming and artisan practices we might get a romantic glimpse of a simpler life when we pass through remote villages on holidays or when we shop at the farmers market.

In this mode we must examine our role in society

Most of us have a highly specialized job in support of commerce and industry. These jobs can be extremely abstract

Find job that contributes to what you can see and influence in a meaningful way at a local scale. That means replacing global complex commercial structures (that make money flow to shareholders) to local intermediate tech structures where value resides in local community. New forms of organization etc.

Local economies

Consumer

We live in a global industrial society facing the crises that result from this very system, but we find it hard to imagine better ways forwards because forward to us still means growth and more material wealth.

Our role as consumers is strictly separated from our job, or our role as producer which has become ever more abstract and specialized. In this mode we can use our power as consumer to vote with our wallet.

Appreciation for what you have, don’t compete

Consume less, understand impact

Less dependent on job (BS job)

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Our current global industrial/commercial society has led us to our current crises. And obviously we need to make changes, but there may be things that work well on a bigger scale???

There may be things we find hard to give up. We want to transition away from this mode but not abruptly. We can keep bits that make sense and reimagine them in more sustainable ways.

We could still travel the world, but maybe we do so in efficient modern sailships. We need to move away from the idea that material wealth equals happiness and that we need to continue to exploit people and resources to grow the economy.

There are many great initiatives in this mode, in fact this is where all our capital and talent is focused. We need to balance that better with other modes.

As consumers we can vote with our wallets and activism. There are some simple rules on what to avoid. But mostly we need to try and be grateful for what we have rather than being seduced to always want more and continuing to add to the divide and exploitation.

We can address both our Spiritual and Material Crises by realizing alternatives ways of living are readily available to us.

So rather than thinking of progress as more material wealth and continuing down our path of growth and consumption. Instead we propose we shift our activities

Shift from just consumers to consumer and producer

Become less dependent on just a single job for your survival/wellbeing

Apply a mix of activities that allow you to contribute to your community, become a producer of your own and start to heal what we’ve exploited

This mix of modes provides an alternative for the options we are presented where we can gracefully scale down consumption on our own terms while moving towards meaningful activities that provide a future that addresses both our spiritual crises as our material crises.

Insert graphs showing evolution of society?