I haven't read Alan Jacobs's book but there was a nice review of it by Chad Wellmon. How to think alone is not really thinking.
~~~
Learning to Die in the Anthropocene is a fascinating book (very much in tune, you suspect, with the Dark Mountain Project). A one line summary: we're fucked.
Any book that starts with these lines has me hooked:
A free man thinks of death least of all things, and his wisdom is a meditation of life, not of death.
--Spinoza, Ethics, IV. 67
This incredible sense of an ending of the immense beauty, wonder and joy that we once felt for the natural world.
Grey whale
Now that we are sending you to the End.
The slow world of the whale, existing in another dimension to ours, out of time. None of our clocks are in sync. Time flies.
How long have the whales been here? Humans, who once, we would like to believe, existed within nature, or at least in a more gentle relationship with her, has finally worked it out; the self-centre narcissistic species has decided how it can go it alone.
Nature, in order to survive, must be 'killed' (that sounds like a bad joke from Vietnam but once you see the same destructive impulses at play you'll get where this is coming from). The connection between war and the environment: scorched earth policy. Shock and Awe.
Nature is now an ecosystem service, valued at around 33 trillion dollars (roughly twice the annual world GDP). So, it's not in our interest to destroy our home (of course, if the benefits outweigh the costs then it is!). But in the process we will kill nature anyway (now priced, and spliced, the subject of speculation, 'investment'..you can be sure the MNCs won't be too far away..follow the money, as the old saying goes). Nature is big business. Instead of the 'free gift' of capitalism its value is now internalized.
And the Elephant sings deep in the forest-maze
About a star of deathless and painless peace
But no astronomer can find where it is.
The Great Thinning is upon us. The Sixth Extinction. See E. Kolbert and M. McCarthy for the stats. It's horrific. And there's a built-in momentum what with urbanization and the relentless imperative of economic growth that shows no sign of waning. The increase in the numbers of people in the middle class as well as farming practices mean that the chances of limiting this to 2 C are thin (see Kevin Anderson).
~~~
I can't really write about the claims of sexual abuse that seem to be part of the daily news nowadays. Would require some serious reflection and not just a small note like this one. But Tariq Ramadan? Really?
Well, not too surprising (if true). It's great that these stories are coming out and I'm pretty sure they're just the tip of the iceberg (violence and abuse are probably a lot more widespread than many would like to believe). But I'm a bit jaded when it comes to the question of whether this will fundamentally alter things. As long as the power structures remain in place and as long as there isn't a change in heart expect more of the same: war citizenship.
In some sense, this is really just a footnote to what was said above: there's a deep sickness in the heart of man (read: heart of men).
~~~
Learning to Die in the Anthropocene is a fascinating book (very much in tune, you suspect, with the Dark Mountain Project). A one line summary: we're fucked.
Any book that starts with these lines has me hooked:
A free man thinks of death least of all things, and his wisdom is a meditation of life, not of death.
--Spinoza, Ethics, IV. 67
This incredible sense of an ending of the immense beauty, wonder and joy that we once felt for the natural world.
Grey whale
Now that we are sending you to the End.
The slow world of the whale, existing in another dimension to ours, out of time. None of our clocks are in sync. Time flies.
How long have the whales been here? Humans, who once, we would like to believe, existed within nature, or at least in a more gentle relationship with her, has finally worked it out; the self-centre narcissistic species has decided how it can go it alone.
Nature, in order to survive, must be 'killed' (that sounds like a bad joke from Vietnam but once you see the same destructive impulses at play you'll get where this is coming from). The connection between war and the environment: scorched earth policy. Shock and Awe.
Nature is now an ecosystem service, valued at around 33 trillion dollars (roughly twice the annual world GDP). So, it's not in our interest to destroy our home (of course, if the benefits outweigh the costs then it is!). But in the process we will kill nature anyway (now priced, and spliced, the subject of speculation, 'investment'..you can be sure the MNCs won't be too far away..follow the money, as the old saying goes). Nature is big business. Instead of the 'free gift' of capitalism its value is now internalized.
And the Elephant sings deep in the forest-maze
About a star of deathless and painless peace
But no astronomer can find where it is.
The Great Thinning is upon us. The Sixth Extinction. See E. Kolbert and M. McCarthy for the stats. It's horrific. And there's a built-in momentum what with urbanization and the relentless imperative of economic growth that shows no sign of waning. The increase in the numbers of people in the middle class as well as farming practices mean that the chances of limiting this to 2 C are thin (see Kevin Anderson).
~~~
I can't really write about the claims of sexual abuse that seem to be part of the daily news nowadays. Would require some serious reflection and not just a small note like this one. But Tariq Ramadan? Really?
Well, not too surprising (if true). It's great that these stories are coming out and I'm pretty sure they're just the tip of the iceberg (violence and abuse are probably a lot more widespread than many would like to believe). But I'm a bit jaded when it comes to the question of whether this will fundamentally alter things. As long as the power structures remain in place and as long as there isn't a change in heart expect more of the same: war citizenship.
In some sense, this is really just a footnote to what was said above: there's a deep sickness in the heart of man (read: heart of men).
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