From 9/11 to 11/9…

Fifteen years between these two dates. Seventy eight years since Kristallnacht…. Landmarks on the path to disillusionment. A road we’ve not seen the end of…. A road from complacency and an unearned certainty to humility. A humility we may feel we don’t deserve. A humility that brings us no where we wanted to go.

Uncertainty and Cause & Effect

There’s something tickling out there at the confluence of our refusal to accept uncertainty and our belief in cause & effect. Even here, as I ponder these two concepts, I’m falling into the expectation that relation equals cause. I was about to say that we refuse uncertainty – vehemently, violently, with suicidal insistence – because

After Comfort

We have resigned ourselves to accept that life’s purpose is to chase after comfort. This leaves us in a very uncomfortable position. We begin to prod and peer to see what might come after comfort…. Money, power, agreement, advantage; these all promise comfort. The key here is in promise. In our appetite for comfort we

What Realism…?

It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. Frederick Douglas Looking at a history of Europe and its entry into Modernity in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries one factor stands out. The legacy that lead to Modernism was filled with internalized violence and the passing down of abusive behavior and the

Communication, driven by assumptions

We cannot connect or communicate intentionally without some assurance of common assumptions to buoy us through the effort. I find that through subtle hints – the sort of unintended communication that takes place whenever there is one organism perceiving another and “making sense” of what they see. Through these hints, if I feel the gap

Space at the end of the year

The close of this year has me once again in a curious form of free-fall, as if the inertia of past impetus is losing to the sheer force of gravity. I tend to welcome these periods. Without the chance to notice the tug of futility it’s easy to get caught-up in enthusiasms that might entertain,

We Think of the Spectacle as External…

The title to this post came to me as my head hit the pillow last night. I got up and wrote it down. That beats spending the next half hour trying to instal it in memory, and calling forth the rest of the insight just to have it evaporate before morning. Trusting the organism means

Lie to me, everyone else does…

An old friend, one of the funniest people I’ve ever met, uses this line frequently. It’s funny. It’s true. It’s true for all of us. Is this just the way things are? Is this the only way things can be? If so, there’s a big reason for pessimism and the need to escape into irony

Craft’s Collision with Civilization, a starting point

Andrew Taggart recently asked me to clarify how I see the deterioration and loss of Craft resulting from its confrontation with civilization. This is a big question! Let’s begin with a few definitions. I’m beginning to see Craft as a central focal point in examining how our confrontation with civilization has led us to where

Innovation as Impermanence

Watching this BBC documentary about the Islamic History of Europe I came across the Islamic roots of Convivencia, a term I’ve associated with Ivan Illich, perhaps its most recent heir, himself part of an Hispanic tradition going back to Al Andaluz. This film is a refreshing look at the contributions of Islamic Culture to the

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