If you don't mind, could you frame the question pungently, and I'll attribute it to a friend if you like?
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Okay.
I think I can build something reasonably crisp by referencing what I wrote about Kunstler almost a year ago.
First, for background, the excerpt:
Here's Kunstler on how things will unfold:
Some regions of the country will do better than others in the Long Emergency. The Southwest will suffer in proportion to the degree that it prospered during the cheap-oil blowout of the late twentieth century. I predict that Sunbelt states like Arizona and Nevada will become significantly depopulated, since the region will be short of water as well as gasoline and natural gas. Imagine Phoenix without cheap air conditioning.
I'm not optimistic about the Southeast, either, for different reasons. I think it will be subject to substantial levels of violence as the grievances of the formerly middle class boil over and collide with the delusions of Pentecostal Christian extremism. The latent encoded behavior of Southern culture includes an outsized notion of individualism and the belief that firearms ought to be used in the defense of it. This is a poor recipe for civic cohesion.
The Mountain States and Great Plains will face an array of problems, from poor farming potential to water shortages to population loss. The Pacific Northwest, New England and the Upper Midwest have somewhat better prospects. I regard them as less likely to fall into lawlessness, anarchy or despotism and more likely to salvage the bits and pieces of our best social traditions and keep them in operation at some level.
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<http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/7203633/the_long_emergency>
On the face of it, if you accept Kunstler's premise of little or no oil this sounds plausible. I'm sure more than a few list members are nodding their heads in at least partial agreement. Who can argue with his insistence that cities such as Las Vegas will wither and die if deprived of cheap and abundant water and power?
Still, in the midst of this logical linearity, there's a hint of what I find irksome. These two sentences bring it out:
New England and the Upper Midwest have somewhat better prospects. I regard them as less likely to fall into lawlessness, anarchy or despotism and more likely to salvage the bits and pieces of our best social traditions and keep them in operation at some level.
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Hmmm. "Our best social traditions."
One of the major threads of the book is the blockheadedness of the American lifestyle. Kunstler describes it as a series of bad choices which seemed sensible at the time (for ex. building lots of highways in the 1950s) but you get the impression he doesn't really believe that. In fact, his disdain for SUVs, McManisions and all the rest of it is so strong, and shapes his opinions so profoundly at times I suspected a nicotine stained Wojtek ghost wrote the book from his wintry fortress of discontent.
Why is the New England area likely to (even marginally) do better? Well, they're apparently nicer people, more sensible in a good old fashioned Yankee sort of way - think Kate Hepburn and Thoreau - than the folks down south who're apparently all a bunch of NASCAR loving gun nuts itching to kill everyone the moment oil gets scarce.
Mind you, if oil gets hard to come by things will surely get nasty before they settle down - if they ever do - but this regional breakdown seems based upon Kunstler's biases and not anything remotely objective.
So yes, the regionally based prejudice annoys me - and there's a lot to say about that. At times, Kunstler's fondness for an idealized Yankee work ethic and aw shucks mam approach to life causes him to steer awfully close to racist and anti-immigrant stereotyping - Describing one of the measures he suggests America take to prepare for his "long emergency" Kunstler writes: Take a time-out from legal immigration and get serious about enforcing the laws about illegal immigration. Stop lying to ourselves and stop using semantic ruses like calling illegal immigrants "undocumented." (kunstler.com).
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full at --
<http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20080114/001111.html>
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To distill all that down to a few questions, I'd ask him why he predicts the best post 'Peak Oil' outcomes for those regions of the country with the least 'diverse', most heavily white populations? Why does he consider immigrants to be a drain instead of part of the nation's productive population?
To go further (and you have to dive into "World Made By Hand" to get a real sense of what I mean) I'd ask why he imagines only white, middle aged men to be the sort most capable and likely to rebuild the world after collapse.
.d.