tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-566549353480755664.post4647843563975806225..comments2023-04-27T03:10:47.278-07:00Comments on la vie rêvée des clowns: sustainability = nice?Kristin Tiechehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10847043996015177460noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-566549353480755664.post-47097571237023315132007-12-17T17:43:00.000-08:002007-12-17T17:43:00.000-08:00Where's Confucious when you need him?Where's Confucious when you need him?Kristin Tiechehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10847043996015177460noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-566549353480755664.post-72102662395255501362007-12-17T15:10:00.000-08:002007-12-17T15:10:00.000-08:00I wonder whether Confucius could have put the rhet...I wonder whether Confucius could have put the rhetorical smackdown on Karl Rove...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-566549353480755664.post-72682581862933854382007-12-17T13:56:00.000-08:002007-12-17T13:56:00.000-08:00Plus, I bet you Confucious wasn't the first either...Plus, I bet you Confucious wasn't the first either. <BR/><BR/>And if you switch to raw, make it local, organic and raw! ;-)<BR/><BR/>BTW, you should be a professor.Kristin Tiechehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10847043996015177460noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-566549353480755664.post-75079920665308996862007-12-17T13:53:00.000-08:002007-12-17T13:53:00.000-08:00Thanks once again for your insightful views. BTW, ...Thanks once again for your insightful views. BTW, Moynihan wasn't the first to ponder as you put it the dissolution of meaning in language, and the article does mention that Confucious asked the same questions.<BR/><BR/>I'm doing fine, BTW. Looking forward to 2008 and the last year of George W. Bush.Kristin Tiechehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10847043996015177460noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-566549353480755664.post-56730320488358779672007-12-17T13:00:00.000-08:002007-12-17T13:00:00.000-08:00Haha! Freudian slip...I wrote that we need an "env...Haha! Freudian slip...I wrote that we need an "environmental profit" when I should have written "prophet". Ain't that a hoot?<BR/><BR/>Beer me.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-566549353480755664.post-32560346460339220782007-12-17T12:57:00.000-08:002007-12-17T12:57:00.000-08:00You know, the substance of that article is part of...You know, the substance of that article is part of the reason why Rosana and I have agreed to switch over to a raw food diet. Although this is small potatoes compared to what *must* be done...but almost none of us are ready to take the necessary actions. We would have to give up almost everything that makes us who we are -- including our material identities.<BR/><BR/>My only addition to this would be that we need to also think of capitalism as a monoculture -- pushing people as well as the entire biosphere into parameters of existence that have their own consequences. The consequences for us so far are certainly not as dire as Colony Collapse Disorder is for the bees, but we are moving in that direction. It is only a matter of time. Unless we develop radically different technologies in the next ten or twenty years, the cosmic record will enter a big "pffffft!" in the space beside "Accomplishments for the human race:".<BR/><BR/>And the problem of the dissolution of meaning and context in language is not specific to this discussion. It is a problem in politics and ethics that was identified a long time ago, but is only now becoming serious to a few. Moynihan, prescient as he was, certainly wasn't the first person to try to bring it into mainstream conversation.<BR/><BR/>As an aside, I got very interested in critical theory at the end of my college career -- and became deeply troubled with the degradation of not just the English language, but of all languages struggling under the weight of totalitarian industrial societies -- even the democratic ones. I've since moderated my views of the "totalitarian". It is more of an existential issue in the US, but the consequences of our consumption are visceral in places like Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and South and Southeast Asia. Anyone who doesn't see this is just...well...I don't want to say.<BR/><BR/>Language in this country is being manipulated on an unprecedented scale by a dominant confluence of political and corporate interests. Closer to home, agribusiness in California is a particularly sinister example of the power of these interests over language and the lengths to which they will go to obfuscate the truth about their practices.<BR/><BR/>In the end, we must all live with the consequences as we are increasingly enclosed within a super-system that demands more and more inputs for the same unit of output. And the monoculture in which we live will slowly destroy anything that challenges its logic -- and that includes authentic language and social cultures as much as it includes entire eco-systems.<BR/><BR/>I wish I could put all of this in more elegant terms...I don’t have that gift. We truly need an environmental profit to help us out of our obsession with this perverse sense of modernity.<BR/><BR/>As I said in an earlier post, I'm not optimistic. It all started with Ivan Illich. We know more than we did before, and there are some bright spots (and people) out there, but virtually nothing has changed in the last forty years. <BR/><BR/>God, what a depressing bloke I am. Sorry! Think of me as Hobbes mugged by Malthuse.<BR/><BR/>So how are ya doing? (sniff)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com