Review of “Can Life Prevail?”

Book review by Chess

Can Life Prevail?

by Linkola, Pentti

Inner Traditions, 2009.

"One should also bear in mind that the difference between a terrorist and a freedom fighter is a matter of perspective."[1]

Is Linkola's philosophy as radical and disruptive as his critics and fans make him out to be? To assess this, we will be reviewing Linkola's most notable work: Can Life Prevail? and compare it to the works of other esteemed critics of technology. Can Life Prevail? is a collection of Linkola's essays and thoughts on environmentalism, technology, sustainability, and the future of humanity. Linkola is known for his controversial and extreme views, advocating for radical measures to address overpopulation, resource depletion, and environmental degradation. His work is well-regarded and has gained traction among eco-fascists, deep ecologists, and even some "anti-tech" circles. From his perspective as a fisherman with a deep connection to nature, Linkola offers much food for thought on the problems plaguing modernity, especially in relation to their impact on the biosphere. However, there are serious issues with the solutions he proposes at the end of the chapter, whereas more practical and realistic solutions can be found by exploring the works of even more radical critics of technology, particularly Ted Kaczynski.

The book begins with Linkola recounting his experiences as a fisherman in Finland. He delves into his critiques on the insane state of the fishing industry, most notably nonsensical government regulations such as mandates for unnecessarily covering fish with ice during transport, gutting fish before selling it to customers, and using artificial ice chips on the grounds that natural ice chips contained more bacteria. Consequently, fishermen either go out of business or have to pay extra expenses on buying an expensive ice chip maker, which in turn increases the costs for consumers who buy fish. Linkola seems to blame the hygiene hysteria on people's abilities to over rationalize, remarking towards the end of the chapter that "the only great difference between people is their brain capacity: they either have the room for a vast number of thoughts, beliefs and delusions, or they don't."[2] Eventually, the chapter expands into a broader critique of society as a whole, essentially expressing his scorn for the overall materialist zeitgeist; he expresses disappointment in the declining physical fitness of lumberjacks, the rising costs of pursuing hobbies, and magazines flooded with food advertising, which he attributes to people's overreliance on technology, the current system of democracy, and rampant journalism.

Linkola's challenge to conventional thinking on issues related to economic growth, consumerism, and the environment are quite provocative, which have allowed him to win praise and sympathy from disenchanted, radical environmentalist types and made him a sweetheart of right-wing traditionalists. These discussions on issues are relatively superficial, trivial, and reformist in comparison to Kaczynski's discussion on the ever-narrowing scope of human freedom and the fact that the logical conclusion of the technological system is biosphere collapse. Although the issues that Linkola touches on are no doubt a consequence of the technological system and impact the average person, they are ultimately only trivial symptoms of a much larger problem: the autonomy of technology, it's inevitable march to control all aspects of the living Earth, eradicating human freedom and ultimately dooming the biosphere to collapse, wiping out all complex lifeforms in the process.

Linkola outlines what he calls a "model for a controlled future,"[3] which is a nice way to say a set of authoritarian policies to force everyone to subjugate all of their behavior in service of a "common good." He divides his model into several categories, including demographics, energy, carbon dioxide, farming, transportation, foreign trade, construction, and the educational system. He believes that the implementation of several programs, such as establishing a one-child policy, abolishing fossil fuels, shutting down the forest industry, discontinuing the construction of new buildings, and restricting transport to public means only, would solve the problems of modernity. The ultimate issue here is that Linkola cannot escape from the confines of his conventional idealistic political thinking.

First, it's important to note that Linkola's criticism of society and government overreach contradicts his own brand of eco-fascist philosophy. Linkola criticizes government overreach in certain areas because they apparently are inefficient, or counter-productive, at solving his goals. Secondly, he mistakenly attributes environmental destruction to human freedom as the root cause, not the technology that both enables and compels human organizations to disregard environmental integrity and enhances the scale and scope of environmental impact. He emphasizes that "when individual freedom reigns, humanity is both the killer and the victim,"[4] and criticizes democracy for being "the most miserable of all known societal systems."[5] Apparently, if it were necessary to completely eliminate all human freedom and autonomy to achieve his environmental goals, there would be no reason for him to object–at least he hasn't established any reason. For anyone who might buy into Linkola's line of thinking, beware: it may be determined that in order to save the environment humans will have to be reduced to the status of domestic house pets–if it isn't determined that they should be eliminated altogether. If such a "utopia" envisioned by Linkola is ever to be realized, the scope of human freedom would be narrowed down to a level even worse than North Korea's. In order to carry out all of the policies set forth by Linkola, especially ones (such as recycling, scrapping, waste disposal, etc.) that aren't backed by economic incentives, everyone would have to be forced to take their role as a community service volunteer–effectively becoming a slave, and it is unclear how long they would have to work before all of his policies are successfully implemented. Perhaps, his policies could go on indefinitely, prolonging the duration of human suffering, just for the sake of a futile cause.

More importantly, it's all naive wishful thinking: all of the negative social aspects he seeks to fix through policy are ultimately determined by objective material conditions. Furthermore, it incorrectly presupposes that it is even possible to rationally predict and control society over the long-term. For example, as a part of Linkola's demographic plan, he proposes a one child policy, which he acknowledges has been implemented in the past in China. Supposedly, the policy was put in place in China as a way to control population growth. However, it's not even clear whether the policy had a noticeable effect on China's population. A few years prior to the implementation of the policy, the birth rate was more or less the same as the rate after its implementation.[6] Needless to say, China currently hosts a population close to two billion, solidifying its position as one of the top two most populous countries in the world, alongside India. Furthermore, the consequences of the policy have been disastrous, leading to an imbalanced population with a higher male to female ratio and a higher proportion of older people. In turn, this has contributed to a breakdown in traditional social values, particularly ones related to elder care and abortion.

Even taking for granted Linkola's ideological worldview, and assuming for the sake of argument that it is even possible to effectively manage and control the development of a society, a major issue with Linkola's plan is that no movement would be able to achieve all of these highly controversial goals, let alone a small fraction of them. On the other hand, in a well-regarded anti-tech manifesto "Industrial Society and Its Future," its author, Ted Kaczynski, proposes a much more realistic strategy of a non-political revolution to end the technological system.[7]

To eliminate modern technology, Kaczynski suggests that a planned, coordinated effort to take down the "system" may be necessary to achieve the anti-tech movement's goals. The solution proposed by Kaczynski is much more straightforward and realistic: (a) destruction is far easier to accomplish than construction and (b) the worldwide technological system is both highly complex and tightly coupled, such that a relatively minor disruption, or series of minor disruptions, could spell its destruction.

The main problem with Linkola is that his policies are reformist in principle. As Kaczynski explains in his manifesto, the technological system cannot be reformed, which he goes on to justify by examining historical trends.[8] Among other examples, he highlights that "a reform movement designed to clean up political corruption in a society rarely has more than a short-term effect; sooner or later the reformers relax and corruption creeps back in"[9] and that "among other things, the system has failed to stop environmental degradation, political corruption, drug trafficking or domestic abuse."[10] The fact that people have failed to solve simpler social problems such as drug trafficking is enough to refute Linkola's plans to significantly alter several major economic sectors and systems. Since Linkola is a reformist, Linkola's solution is nowhere near a permanent solution, let alone a sufficiently long-term one.

Linkola explores pertinent and sometimes controversial topics, such as the possibility of reducing the human population, the detrimental effects of modern technology, and the need for humanity to return to a harmonious relationship with nature. His views are divisive, with many viewing him as a crazy extremist. Though his views present the veneer of visionary radicalism and diehard environmentalism, they are ultimately doomed by his naive understanding of the dynamics of society. And thus, in spite of his bravery for confronting these social issues, he falls drastically short on proposing a realistic solution to solve the environmental and technological crisis.

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NOTES:

[1] Linkola, Pentti, Can life prevail? Arktos Media, 2011, p. 105

[2] Linkola, Pentti, Can life prevail? Arktos Media, 2011, p. 22

[3] Linkola, Pentti, Can life prevail? Arktos Media, 2011, p. 119

[4] Linkola, Pentti, Can life prevail? Arktos Media, 2011, p. 110

[5]  Linkola, Pentti, Can life prevail? Arktos Media, 2011, p. 109

[6] "China Birth Rate 1950-2023." MacroTrends. https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/CHN/china/birth-rate.

[7] Kaczynski, Theodore John, "Industrial Society and Its Future," ¶¶ 1-4

[8] Kaczynski, Theodore John, "Industrial Society and Its Future," ¶¶ 99-110

[9] Kaczynski, Theodore John, "Industrial Society and Its Future," ¶ 100

[10] Kaczynski, Theodore John, "Industrial Society and Its Future," ¶ 136

Copyright 2023 by Chess. All rights reserved. This is published with the permission of the copyright owner.