Silo, the South American philosopher, has long been called a prophet by some of his protagonists. This categorisation can jar somewhat as images of – for Christians – St John the Baptist surge; bright eyed, bearded and portrayed as mad as a hatter. But to hold this view is to remain stuck in a conditional landscape formed automatically by upsurging reminiscences gained during days of early education.
To be a prophet really means being an advocate or speaker but the term has gained religious or superstitious overtones over time where the broad stroke revelations of such as Nostradamus simply led to excessively impassioned portends of doom and gloom for the future of man.
To make prophesies has come to mean, to tell the future, when it should mean to open up and discuss possible futures. Like a warning when the ‘signs’ foretell of an impending catastrophe, as with ‘climate change’ taken as a new phenomenon when beset with its hard hitting effects in the moment.
Reading Silo’s works, and taking the book, Letters to My Friends, as reference, I find its contents absolutely concrete – no broad brush strokes there, in fact circumstances and their arisings are detailed down to a fine line, matters are stated definitely and there is no appeal to emotions.
I say this because, published in 1991, it tells of the situation made explicit today in 2016 and that is not because Silo foretold the future, it’s because he informed readers of the likelihood of developments from trends notable in those 1990s and that they would lead to precisely what we are having to live through today.
As the title says, the writing is a compilation of letters Silo wrote to those interested in his thought, distributed mainly via channels already established thanks to the organisations set up by the efforts of those same friends by way of tactics and strategieds intended to thwart fate and write destiny by directly influencing the downward pointing tendencies and bending them back up into life generating trajectories.
Point one would be: placement of the human being as central value, which makes all the difference and leads to opposing nuclear weapons with across-the-board de-escalation and abolishment plans because of all potential hits against humanity nuclear war is surely the most devastating.
Against wars too of course and telling occupying troops to go home wherever they may be but these are obvious any party may say, well yes, but these are the first priority messages that had and still have to be launched into the human-sphere.
As the series of letters are unrolled, all what we see and experience today is placed in front of our eyes and in greater detail, from secessionist tendencies and the worth of federalism.
De-centralisation is spoken of as a solution and regionalism is mentioned as an increasing problem – but only because powerful entities want that central control, thus garnering all the goodies for themselves.
The writing hits out at the industrial-military complex and the supporting corporations, warning against monopolies by those multi-national and indeed what are today transnational corporations.
Just to offer one quote from this valuable book may prove the point:
3. Characteristics of the Crisis
“Let us turn now to the crisis of the nation state, the crisis of regionalization and globalization, and the crisis facing society, the group, and the individual.
In the context of the process of globalization, the flow of information is accelerating as the movement of both people and goods continues to increase. Technology and growing economic power are becoming concentrated in businesses that are ever more powerful. And this phenomenon of accelerating interchange is now encountering the limitations and slowed pace that are produced by traditional structures such as the nation state.
The result is that within each region national borders are becoming blurred. This means that countries are having to make their legislation more homogeneous, not only in matters of trade regulations, duties and tariffs, and personal documentation, but also in adapting their systems of production. Changes in labor and social security laws cannot be far behind. Ongoing accords among these countries will show that a common legislature, judicial system, and executive will provide improved effectiveness and quicker response time in managing the region. Primitive national currencies will give way to some type of regional medium of exchange that will avoid the losses and delays of previous exchange operations.
The crisis of the nation state is a readily observable fact, not only in those countries that are joining to form regional markets but also in those whose battered economies have fallen significantly behind. Everywhere voices are being raised against entrenched bureaucracies, demanding the reform of established schemes. Old resentments as well as local, ethnic, and religious rivalries are resurfacing in regions where countries have recently been formed as a result of partitions, annexations, or artificial federations. And the traditional State is having to face this centrifugal tendency at just the time that growing economic difficulties are calling into question its effectiveness and legitimacy.
Phenomena of this type are growing in the areas of Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and the former Soviet Union. These problems will also deepen in the Middle East, the eastern Mediterranean, and Asia Minor. In a number of countries of Africa that have been artificially delimited we are beginning to see such symptoms as well. Accompanying these breakdowns are large-scale migrations of refugees toward borders, which can threaten the equilibrium of an entire region. With any significant imbalance in China, this phenomenon could spill directly into more than one other area, especially in light of the present instability in the former Soviet Union and the countries of continental Asia.”
As many protagonists have said before and are saying now, “Gracias Silo”.
Silo’s Letters to My Friends download from: http://www.silo.net/collected_works/letters_to_my_friends
