Eight Principles of Uncivilisation

1. We live in a time of social, economic and ecological unravelling. All around us are signs that our whole way of living is already passing into history. We will face this reality honestly and learn how to live with it.

2. We reject the faith which holds that the converging crises of our times can be reduced to a set of ‘problems’ in need of technological or political ‘solutions’.

3. We believe that the roots of these crises lie in the stories we have been telling ourselves. We intend to challenge the stories which underpin our civilisation: the myth of progress, the myth of human centrality, and the myth of our separation from ‘nature’. These myths are more dangerous for the fact that we have forgotten they are myths.

4. We will reassert the role of story-telling as more than mere entertainment.

5. Humans are not the point and purpose of the planet. Our art will begin with the attempt to step outside the human bubble. By careful attention, we will reengage with the non-human world.

6. We will celebrate writing and art which is grounded in a sense of place and of time.

7. We will not lose ourselves in the elaboration of theories or ideologies. Our words will be elemental. We write with dirt under our fingernails.

8. The end of the world as we know it is not the end of the world full stop. Together, we will find the hope beyond hope, the paths which lead to the unknown world ahead of us.

http://www.dark-mountain.net/

There are many things I thought of when I read the manifesto of the Dark Mountain Project. Firstly that in 2010, man should not be shackled by the cycles of the past. It seems too easy to smile smugly and see the familiar patterns played out on politics and society as if we have all seen it before and nothing changes. It is all too easy nowadays to dismiss alternative theories on social change such as Communism as the failed ideas of the past.

Then the Hung Parliament happened and I realised that we should not think in such terms anymore. If we are to develop we must realise that we are not trapped by the past. I am tired of feeling that everything

Humanaity has made tremendous advances in science and technology, but not in mind. Einstein was correct when he said that "The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking...the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind."

The Dark Mountain Project wishes to change that. The Manifesto hits you in the head and heart with a feeling you have been unable to express. 'The Event' by writer/director John Clancy cries out at the audience that something has gone terribly wrong with the western world (and thus affected much of the rest of the world) and we are all the victims. Distant from one another in an age when no one is beyond reach of telephones, computers or even telephone-computers. I am sure many people seem to feel that something along the way has gone wrong.

But like any major work that has hit me in the head and chest with massive, weighting spikes made of frozen truth it offers little in the way of solution. How can it? It has only just begun! It has only just crawled from the primoridal goo of the mind.

The project wishes to explore ideas of the coming probable ecopocalypse.