Adbusters: A Guide for the Perplexed

MAN MAGAZINE , WINTER 2014

(C1) Denial•n.indd 10

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Ben Curtis (C1) Denial•n.indd 11

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(D1) Anger•n.indd 8

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Tailings Pond Athabasca Oil Sands Project G1501122 , Louis Helbig

Tailings Pond Athabasca Oil Sands Project G1501122 , Louis Helbig

To understand the predicament of industrial civilization, it’s not enough to grasp the outward shape of the crisis of our time: the looting of a finite planet’s stock of resources, the destabilization of the global climate, the breathtaking cluelessness with which politicians, pundits, and ordinary citizens alike insist that the only way we can get out of this mess involves doing even more of the same things that got us into it in the first place, and the rest of it. Follow the roots of our predicament down into the soil that feeds them, and you’ll find yourself in a murky realm of unspoken narratives and unacknowledged desires—the “mind-forg’d manacles,” as Blake called them, that keep most of us shackled in place as the great rumbling vehicle of global industrial society accelerates down the slope of its decline and fall.

– John Greer

(D1) Anger•n.indd 9

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What’s the point of living in one of the most advanced, dynamic and affluent nations on Earth if we’re feeling stressed out and anxious all the time?

(D1) Anger•n.indd 11

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(F1) No Future•n.indd 4

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In the epoch of the Anthropocene, the question of individual morality—What does my life mean in the face of death?—is universalized and framed in scales that boggle the imagination. What does human existence mean against 100,000 years of climate change? What does one life mean in the face of species death or the collapse of global civilization? How do we make meaningful choices in the shadow of our inevitable end?

– Roy Scranton

(F1) No Future•n.indd 5

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(G1) BluePillRedPill•n.indd 10

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The Monstration, Novosibirsk (2012), Artem Loskutov

Lefteris Pitarakis/AP

Lefteris Pitarakis/AP

I’LL MAKE RUSSIA GREAT AGAIN

[A]. NOT AT ALL

[C]. SOMEWHAT

[E]. QUITE A LOT

[B]. JUST A LITTLE

[D]. MODERATELY

[F]. VERY MUCH

On the back of every Russian ruble coin is a twoheaded eagle … one head looking West to Europe, the other looking to the far reaches of the East. For nearly 600 years, it has been the symbol of the Russian people, defining Russian identity as its inverse: though the Eagle gazes to the East and to the West, Russia itself is neither Eastern or Western, but Russian. And here you have the beginning of insight when it comes to understanding the current Russian state. Since the 15th century, Russia has endured hardship after hardship. The last nation on Earth to abolish serfdom, Russia set 22 million people free in 1861—the largest

(G1) BluePillRedPill•n.indd 11

emancipation in the history of humanity. Northern flowing rivers. Winters of near total darkenss.

Suicidal novelists. Epidemics of addiction. Religious persecution throughout the ages. An expansive and indefensible plain from the Neva river to the Pacific, security elusive, environment harsh but somehow giving. It has endured the Golden Horde, the Ivans, Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin and America, it has withstood dissolution, fracture & defeat, and it has still never ceased to surprise the world with a testy, impenetrable resolve . . . solitary and brooding.

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Bossangoa, Central African Republic.

Joe Penney/Reuters

(I1) MadSadBad•L.indd 6

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Joe Penney/Reuters

The struggle between Islam and the West is, at its core,

a dispute about the ‘essence

of man.’

(I1) MadSadBad•L.indd 7

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Bobby Doherty

(L1) Light&Dark•n.indd 6

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(L1) Light&Dark•n.indd 7

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What You’ve Been Looking For

(N1) Back Cover•n.indd 2

adbusters.org

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In this first issue of the Blueprint we go deep into the minds of nations and people... diagnosing the drives of geopolitical madness, societal schizophrenia and ecological sociopathy.

Featuring • • • • • • • • • •

Blue pill/Red pill? The choice we all make Readers’ testimonies from the front lines of breakdown Grieving ecocide as a species: the journey from denial to action Kalle Lasn: why we called ourselves “The Journal of the Mental Environment” Devastated landscapes=devastated mindscapes Millennial Autoeroticism Elephants, rats, capuchins and human altruism by Darren Fleet The festering psychic wounds of nations Stefanie Krasnow on Freud’s “psychological misery of the masses” …and 144 full-color visually-driven pages, more than any Adbusters issue before!

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