Finding Ulysses

To be honest, I feel a bit goofy taking part in the experiment in collective fiction and progressive political imagination that is the World Without Oil. For one thing, the scenario is quite exaggerated in its description of a developing oil crisis. The idea of riots in the streets and a covert American invasion of Canada just because the price of gasoline is over four dollars per barrel is just silly.

Still, I find value in the project in the way that it encourages people to use their imaginations to consider the impact of post-peak oil on their local communities instead of the United States of America in the large, abstract scale. Imagining how the Town of Ulysses might react to the disintegration of the fossil fuel economy is much more provocative a challenge than making pundit-worthy predictions about nationwide trends. Here, on the level of the town and village, we have more of the genuine human element at play, and less of the posturing creations of mass media interpreting that human element for our filtered pleasure.

So, I’m giving this fiction experiment a few more days to work itself out, and see what emerges. I’m inclined to think that Ulysses will fare better than many other communities.