Some of these parasitic life forms … eek! But the oil wells and heavy mining equipment are far scarier. Finished Ways of Being a couple of weeks ago. I see shades of it reflected in this post. It really was a foundation-shaking book. I actually think I’m going to have to read it again to absorb more of the details. The first time around I was too busy dealing with tectonic shifts in my worldview to get my hands around all of it. Thanks for the rec. And this post.
I kept intending to bring up Ways of Being and McBride's lessons on the spectrum of intelligence, but somehow never got there. But as you say it's just under the skin of the writing. Thank you, Rebecca, for bringing it up here.
"The first time around I was too busy dealing with tectonic shifts in my worldview to get my hands around all of it." -- I've had that experience too! I love books like that.
"We’ll never eliminate the parasitic impulse in human culture, perhaps because it’s the dark shadow of a tool-making species always looking to work more efficiently. But the stability of life on Earth depends on our ability to seriously reduce and permanently leash the urge." YES. I think this understanding is important -- in so many cultures, it's not that the urge is absent, it's that it's recognized and there are structures and practices to constrain it.
Right, Antonia. It's all about a reasonable, mature culture. How possible is that in a tech-focused, profit-driven society...? I hope someone somewhere is designing an ethical AI that will chaperone the ones being built by the teenage boys in Silicon Valley.
I honestly do not know. I wish I did. Some years ago it seemed like we'd passed all points at which a sensible society would do things differently and it's hard to know who, or what, will step on the brakes. But enough people tapping on them, dragging on the inertia, might result in similar effects.
So much to unpack here! I will reread and share with others. Thank you for your thoughtful curation of such important interconnected pieces of little known reality. I was literally just having a conversation about the convenient WASTE of the “cloud” and how people don’t realize the energy suck there (here!😳). The notion of the “overshoot day” is heavy—dystopian realism—and I am struck by the acceleration in the date from 2023 to 2024, paired with the gobsmacked scientists puzzling over ocean temps. Yikes.
Thank you, Michelle. Yes, "Yikes" is a good response pretty much every day, isn't it? There's so much (too much) happening too fast in a world in flux. We're not really meant (in evolutionary terms) to process and cope with the amount of information that's become normalized, and especially when so much of it is so heavy. Yet here we are. It's good to have company, right?
Misery loves it! :-) Yes. And I learn things when I read your work and it IS good to know and to connect with others who are digging deep and sharing the real. It is all for love. Thank you.
It's kind of a take on our culture encouraging and rewarding behavior that isn't truly beneficial for survival, only materially beneficial. I was actually thinking about Jon Ronson's book The Psychopath Test and remembering how in it he talked about how a lot of the same personality traits we see as problematic when taken to their most extreme edge are very likely to make people who have them more successful in business and politics. Lack of remorse, lack of empathy etc. In nature it's not a question of morality but as supposedly moral beings we have to operate in a way that reduces harm. When those of us that don't care to behave morally end up in positions of power due to the way are systems are structured how do we rectify this?
Thank you, Rachel. That's an excellent deep assessment of why we've shaped the world as we have. I think there's a feedback loop between a culture that values abstractions (profit, politics, etc) over empathy and the people who push those unhealthy values further and further. Each generation distances culture further from reality. The living world (including fellow humans) too easily become a distraction in a culture obsessed with building empty structures and false goals. As I've written often, this is all human theater within the real world. So what do we do? Culture has to change. Either we do it sooner or the impending crises will do it later. At the moment it looks like some of both will be necessary.
Thanks very much for the shout out Jason, you are very kind.
Donald R. Prothero, a prolific science writer has a new book out, published last week actually" A History of the Earths Climate in 25 Discoveries. I ordered a copy this morning from Amazon. It deals with global warming and anthropogenic climate change. Check out Amazon for more info if anyone is interested.
Will do. This new book will be a companion book to one I already own: "Paleoclimatology: From Snowball Earth to the Anthropocene" by Colin Summerhayes, Wiley 2020. That one was not too out of date (at least it wasn't in 2021 when I purchased the paperback version.) Prothero's book should get me up to speed on current developments hopefully.
"This is often very hard to look at, but if we can avoid moralizing the natural world, then parasitism is merely a type of relationship."
Thanks for this. The effort to avoid moralizing the natural world is really important. It can take the form of an anthropomorphization that lets us off the hook for our own bad actions, and clouds inspiration for reconnecting with our own best natures.
Thank you, Kollibri. This is nicely said. There's a fine cultural line to be drawn through all this language, right? We want a moral/ethical relationship with the living world, but not simplistic moralizing. We should know other living forms as named beings with intelligence rather than as mere things, but not through some half-witted anthropomorphic lens. Etc. Your work on the invasives narrative speaks quite well to all this.
Yes I believe that consciousness flows through all living things, though the form it takes in more-than-human creatures often seems very different from our own. But I think that those seeming differences are magnified by our own alienation, which is subjected on us by cultural factors. The work of overcoming that alienation is some of the most important work we can be doing.
Glad you see how my work on the "invasives" narrative is attempting to address these things.
Hi Rachel, no, I haven't. Just looked it up, and it looks interesting. I wonder about the idea that social hegemony is maintained only by force, though. I'm probably misunderstanding the book based on the quick description, but what comes to mind is that we're hard-wired social creatures who tend to enforce social norms on ourselves. Up to a point, at least.
But certainly the world is full of examples of various kinds of force keeping otherwise dissatisfied citizens in line. What in this essay made you think of the book?
Some of these parasitic life forms … eek! But the oil wells and heavy mining equipment are far scarier. Finished Ways of Being a couple of weeks ago. I see shades of it reflected in this post. It really was a foundation-shaking book. I actually think I’m going to have to read it again to absorb more of the details. The first time around I was too busy dealing with tectonic shifts in my worldview to get my hands around all of it. Thanks for the rec. And this post.
I kept intending to bring up Ways of Being and McBride's lessons on the spectrum of intelligence, but somehow never got there. But as you say it's just under the skin of the writing. Thank you, Rebecca, for bringing it up here.
"The first time around I was too busy dealing with tectonic shifts in my worldview to get my hands around all of it." -- I've had that experience too! I love books like that.
"We’ll never eliminate the parasitic impulse in human culture, perhaps because it’s the dark shadow of a tool-making species always looking to work more efficiently. But the stability of life on Earth depends on our ability to seriously reduce and permanently leash the urge." YES. I think this understanding is important -- in so many cultures, it's not that the urge is absent, it's that it's recognized and there are structures and practices to constrain it.
Right, Antonia. It's all about a reasonable, mature culture. How possible is that in a tech-focused, profit-driven society...? I hope someone somewhere is designing an ethical AI that will chaperone the ones being built by the teenage boys in Silicon Valley.
I honestly do not know. I wish I did. Some years ago it seemed like we'd passed all points at which a sensible society would do things differently and it's hard to know who, or what, will step on the brakes. But enough people tapping on them, dragging on the inertia, might result in similar effects.
So much to unpack here! I will reread and share with others. Thank you for your thoughtful curation of such important interconnected pieces of little known reality. I was literally just having a conversation about the convenient WASTE of the “cloud” and how people don’t realize the energy suck there (here!😳). The notion of the “overshoot day” is heavy—dystopian realism—and I am struck by the acceleration in the date from 2023 to 2024, paired with the gobsmacked scientists puzzling over ocean temps. Yikes.
Thank you, Michelle. Yes, "Yikes" is a good response pretty much every day, isn't it? There's so much (too much) happening too fast in a world in flux. We're not really meant (in evolutionary terms) to process and cope with the amount of information that's become normalized, and especially when so much of it is so heavy. Yet here we are. It's good to have company, right?
Misery loves it! :-) Yes. And I learn things when I read your work and it IS good to know and to connect with others who are digging deep and sharing the real. It is all for love. Thank you.
Seconding your "Yikes"
It's kind of a take on our culture encouraging and rewarding behavior that isn't truly beneficial for survival, only materially beneficial. I was actually thinking about Jon Ronson's book The Psychopath Test and remembering how in it he talked about how a lot of the same personality traits we see as problematic when taken to their most extreme edge are very likely to make people who have them more successful in business and politics. Lack of remorse, lack of empathy etc. In nature it's not a question of morality but as supposedly moral beings we have to operate in a way that reduces harm. When those of us that don't care to behave morally end up in positions of power due to the way are systems are structured how do we rectify this?
Thank you, Rachel. That's an excellent deep assessment of why we've shaped the world as we have. I think there's a feedback loop between a culture that values abstractions (profit, politics, etc) over empathy and the people who push those unhealthy values further and further. Each generation distances culture further from reality. The living world (including fellow humans) too easily become a distraction in a culture obsessed with building empty structures and false goals. As I've written often, this is all human theater within the real world. So what do we do? Culture has to change. Either we do it sooner or the impending crises will do it later. At the moment it looks like some of both will be necessary.
Thanks very much for the shout out Jason, you are very kind.
Donald R. Prothero, a prolific science writer has a new book out, published last week actually" A History of the Earths Climate in 25 Discoveries. I ordered a copy this morning from Amazon. It deals with global warming and anthropogenic climate change. Check out Amazon for more info if anyone is interested.
Not at all, Michael. Great writing deserves a mention. And let me know what you think of the book.
Will do. This new book will be a companion book to one I already own: "Paleoclimatology: From Snowball Earth to the Anthropocene" by Colin Summerhayes, Wiley 2020. That one was not too out of date (at least it wasn't in 2021 when I purchased the paperback version.) Prothero's book should get me up to speed on current developments hopefully.
"This is often very hard to look at, but if we can avoid moralizing the natural world, then parasitism is merely a type of relationship."
Thanks for this. The effort to avoid moralizing the natural world is really important. It can take the form of an anthropomorphization that lets us off the hook for our own bad actions, and clouds inspiration for reconnecting with our own best natures.
Thank you, Kollibri. This is nicely said. There's a fine cultural line to be drawn through all this language, right? We want a moral/ethical relationship with the living world, but not simplistic moralizing. We should know other living forms as named beings with intelligence rather than as mere things, but not through some half-witted anthropomorphic lens. Etc. Your work on the invasives narrative speaks quite well to all this.
Yes I believe that consciousness flows through all living things, though the form it takes in more-than-human creatures often seems very different from our own. But I think that those seeming differences are magnified by our own alienation, which is subjected on us by cultural factors. The work of overcoming that alienation is some of the most important work we can be doing.
Glad you see how my work on the "invasives" narrative is attempting to address these things.
Have you read "The Hegemony of Psychopathy" ? I just kind of stumbled across it.
Hi Rachel, no, I haven't. Just looked it up, and it looks interesting. I wonder about the idea that social hegemony is maintained only by force, though. I'm probably misunderstanding the book based on the quick description, but what comes to mind is that we're hard-wired social creatures who tend to enforce social norms on ourselves. Up to a point, at least.
But certainly the world is full of examples of various kinds of force keeping otherwise dissatisfied citizens in line. What in this essay made you think of the book?