Misplaced Hygienes

So many of our self-inflicted disasters and catastrophes are the result of misplaced hygiene. A series of instances, and whole segments of our habitual hygienic responses, are wrong. Our inability, unwillingness more like, to see this and adjust is perhaps the final layer of catastrophe, the route to the true Enormity of what we are

Between Knowing and Understanding

Is there a space between knowing and understanding? Not if we equate understanding with the power to control. “We understand.” That was the last message tapped out on the cold steel of the pressure hull of the submarine S-4 off Wood End. * He’d never heard them speak, just had secondhand accounts, by way of

the Mainstream’s Misunderstanding

This is where art comes in. It’s not in essays or speeches, all of which are so hard to distinguish from polemic by their very form, that minds can be affected. In fiction, in visual art, in poetry we have the best means of establishing a body of shareable “experiences” that begin to forge a new way of being in the world. These can have the effect of drawing people to them as opposed to simply setting up their defenses to resist new ideas. In an eagerness to misunderstand whenever someone hears that “poetry is the answer,” they will only see whatever form of art they personally dislike and find easy to discount. Probe a little deeper and there isn’t anyone who isn’t affected by poetry, of the kind they do open themselves to, by whatever name it goes by.

Where do I stand?

…where we stand is not where we place ourselves, where we stand is where we find ourselves to be.

New Year, New Place

“Who is this guy?” That’s what people wonder. I’ve never had a good answer. I’ve never really had an answer for myself, so busy tearing down assumptions or running away from any label, finding them either too limiting or false. Still it’s a valid question, one that should have an answer, one that would help me as well as those I’ve confused up to now.

Maintaining the Lie of Invulnerablity

Strength versus power. We tend to see them as synonyms. Or that strength is a measure of the power available to us. In a Newtonian sense this may be true, but what if we go beyond reduction? Let’s start by asking, “Who’s strength and who’s power?”

Berger’s “Moment of Cubism,” part III

Berger’s essay explodes with the import of rediscovery of what had been lost in a stratification of layers sedimented over as the years passed. When I look at where I now stand, I see this essay and its insights as essential elements of my foundations. Berger shows us that there is a curious parallel here to our moment in the close synchrony between their moment of realization and the latent consequences of mounting conditions that made it too late to avoid their tragedy.

Not very clever thoughts on Systems Theory

Hi Antonio and Horizons of Significance readers, First off, thanks for the opportunity to engage in what is – for me at least – an important and useful discussion. I wish I had some more fruitful comments to make! For those of you who’ve come in late, this is my attempt to respond to Antonio’s

The Bad Taste of Clever

System Theory was another of those things, like speaking “prose,” that once it was described to me I realized I’ve been doing it for a long time. There are many fascinating insights to be found there. In the end, I found the “practice” of Systems Theory to be a dead end.

The Search for Hope without Control

“The Search for Hope without Control” The title of this post is a quote from the most recent entry on the Dark Mountain Project’s Blog. Dougald Hine’s conversation with David Abram is a treat to watch and a treasure trove of insight. You’ll have to see the video to find out which one of them

“We’ve Never Had It So Good!” A Capsule Autobiography

In the Autumn of 1962 I went to school, came home, turned on the television, and worked on my stamp collection at our kitchen table. Outside, a glare-y sun beat its post-September light low over the water as it dropped behind the tip of Long Point. On the oval black & white screen, beneath a

War of the Worlds

In the past we had place. Now we don’t. In the future place may re-assert itself – at least I hope so…. Any search for a carving out of our own agency soon comes to the absolute necessity for a place on which to stand. Most fundamentally that distills down to a physical place upon