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Nature has priority.1 It's here first and sustains everything.
The guiding principle is ahimsa. Non-violence translated into deep & skeptic ecology, i.e, the interdependence of human and non-human life in a world out of joint. We cannot understand ourselves if we estrange ourselves from nature, but we're already estranged!
Socio-political should start bottom-up, not top-down.2 We don't need to wait for the top to change. As actors close to the local/regional nodes of action, we can acquire the know-how to build connections and mobilize public opinion to challenge institutional and social alienation.
* From the bottom ---> up: The initial transformation is individual but it doesn't stop there. We are ONE: There is no true path without some form of dharma/activism.3
* The aporia of human anthropocentric emancipation: We need to see non-human life under a different optic. The Greeks of ancient times didn't realize that non-Greeks were persons. American plantation owners in the late-18th Century didn't realize that blacks were not inferior brutes. The majority of Americans don't realize that non-human animals are more than just foodstuff. We have an obligation to treat animals with dignity4 (our present animal farming needs to be transformed from intensive farming ----> extensive farming).
* The aporia of pollution vs. development: Blaming corporations in order to feel safely excluded from the pollution cycle, while feeding the very thing we try to prevent. We are the world's worst polluters!5
* Though it may be a little late, the move towards eco-conservation is a social imperative. Let's fight to stop deforestation, to protect sea life from extinction (due to overfishing), ensuring ecological diversity for future generations. Yes, it seems daunting, but it begins by understanding, doing & telling others.
* The aporia of technology vs. emancipation: What makes us human is a result of our cultural evolution: language, rituals, arts and technology. Yet, our anthropocentric-based culture is leading us to a dead end. Let's move from an anthropocentric to a bio-centric culture!6 Technology = Culture.Technology is not the enemy. Humans cannot live without technology. Yet, technology has the imperative to preserve the delicate balance of Nature.
* We must learn to curb and manage our waste: Reuse, donate, recycle! Food is the primary ecological exchange of energy. Our corporate-driven, production-intensive food paradigm needs to be redefined, from fast food ----> slow food. 7 Let's switch our eating habits and bring back food sacralization. Let's turn environmental degradation and human exploitation into eco-erotics!8
* The aporia of development vs. under-development9: Our post-Capitalist global society is craft-deprived. Globalization has outsourced our manufacturing and trade/skills base. Let's get back to cooking, arts and crafts, organic horticulture,10 etc. We should balance our individualistic tendencies with cooperation & communitarianism!
* Let's change our cities, fighting urban decay with environmental sustainability, changing ugliness into beauty.
* Let's become eco-Romantics!11 engaging in heritage conservation, infrastructure efficiency, mass transit, regional integration, human scale, and institutional integrity.
* Let's transform our neighborhoods, building sustainable structures, limiting urban sprawl, reducing car dependence, promoting pedestrian friendly urbanism.12
What to do?
Flipping Marxist formalism, let's turn the base into the superstructure. Our bid is for a different form of emergence:
ACT NOW!
____________
1 Aristotle's naturalism can be seen as a forerunner of eco-ethics, as expressed by his dictum Nature does nothing in vain. John Clearly, Aristotle and the Many Senses of Priority, (Southern Illinois University Press, 1988) p. 60. 2 We don't have to choose between markets (Welfare Capitalism) or governments, as instruments of emancipation (Communism, planned-economy Socialism). Nor is there need to eliminate markets, trade, private ownership, the welfare state, or the institution of the corporation. What we need to do is bring about new practices for each of these institutions appropriate to a balance between prosperity and conservation. This is the force of emergence: Millions of people joining voluntary movements, discovering that the good life is more fulfilling than the endless cycle of accumulation and consumption. Professor Steven Buechler makes a similar (hopeful) point: "Movements can be crucial switching stations in the direction of history (...) vital free spaces that promote democratization and restore a meaningful public sphere." See Steven M. Buechler, Social Movements in Advanced Capitalism: The Political Economy and Cultural Construction of Social Activism (Oxford University Press: 2000) p. 214. Enacting Niyama at the social level can bring about a life of material sufficiency with cultural, intellectual, and spiritual abundance in balance with the environment. By osmosis, the social level can bring about needed changes in the political sphere. 3 One's embeddedness in a particular context: job, household/family, or community can lead one to recognize a problem, learn about community needs, and find a way to make life better through new -or reconfigured- social linkages. 4 According to philosopher Tom Regan, animals have "inherent value" as subjects-of-a-life, and cannot be regarded as a means to an end. See, Tom Regan, The Case for Animal Rights, (University of California Berkeley, 2005) p. 245. 5 The United States has 4.2% of the world's population and produces 24% of the world's C02 emissions. 6 One must be careful not to write off culture, as if humans have fallen from paradise straight into some artificial exile of civilization. This is where the ancient Greeks can help. They understood that us humans are not completely "natural" but rather the site of a collision of nature and culture, which uniquely defines us. See Bruce Thornton, Plagues of the Mind: The New Epidemic of False Knowledge (ISI Books, 1999) p. 96. 7 "Slow food" goes against the received notion that cheap food = good food. Carlo Petrini, the man behind this movement defends the "unpolitical" idea that cheap food is really expensive, bad food, when compared with good, clean, carefully harvested food. He is right. In his book, Petrini advocates the idea of "gusto" (taste) and diversity. There is a correlation between slow food and health, which makes slow food more enjoyable. The locus for this revolucion is la osteria, a place where one can find "traditional cuisine run as a family business with simple service, welcoming atmosphere, good wine and moderate prices." See Carlo Petrini, Slow Food, the Case for Taste (Columbia University Press, 2003) p. 51-58. "Cheap food" is a Capitalist ploy to misrepresent real capital allocation and profit in the name of "abundance," hiding government subsidies for monoculture and intensive production which end up as profit for Big Business in food and energy. Take for instance American corn policies: We subsidize corn while (protect Monsanto's right to sell it to farmers as genetically modified seed). Coincidentally, corn is the foodstuff staple for raising cattle in the US (funded by whom?) and an energy commodity. Wonder why such a labor-intensive commodity such as meat is so cheap? Corn is heavily fertilized — both with chemicals like nitrogen and with subsidies from Washington. Over the past decade, the Federal Government has poured more than $50 billion into the corn industry, keeping prices for the crop — at least until corn ethanol skewed the market — artificially low. That's your Big Mac @ McDonald's, a $5 meal bargain, with 1,400 calories (more than half the daily recommended requirement for adults). 8 I thank my friend Gene Ray for his suggestion. I'd like to spin his idea of eco/erotics as an embodied striving for well-being that connects us with the animal and non-animal other (life). The opposite of eco/erotics is eros gone astray, a perversion of Nishkam Karma. A desire in the form of a will-to-control that aims to secure itself by mastering all around it. Ridden with anxiety, this eros reduces other to self. In fact, there are examples of such versions in modern times: Certain "peak" historic moments, when factors motivating nations and individuals, such as the desires for profit, security, and hegemony got transformed militaristic erotics. 9 It turns out that the mantra of "emancipated" Communist development in Eastern Europe, Africa, and the Caribbean throughout the 1960's-1980's consisted in mimicking the Capitalist "anthropocentric development" model: 1- constant growth, 2- domination of nature, 3- industrialization and technologization of production and society at the expense of environmental degradation, abandonment of agriculture (land reform in this case meant very little, since arbitrary and exploitative prices were set by the bureaucrats, not by the farmers), massive migration to the cities, urban unemployment and loss of crafts skills. The deterioration of nature brought by these mistaken policies, was invoked by the communist bureaucracies as a step in the right direction for the attainment of development. 10 Who would think of pursuing horticultural studies in Miami, now, when the expected move of disenfranchised farmers is from the rural areas to the city? Precisely! This overall migration has to do with the switch from farmer-produced to corporate-produced agriculture. How can one reverse it? By encouraging a moresimple living. Diversifying instead of homogenizing food consumption; by making good, simple food (not gourmet food) a desired commodity, so that corporations are forced to alter their mode of production. Surely, one must be watchful of corporation's good intentions! It's all about awareness. Are people ready for it? After the subprime mortgage crisis, the Upper Big Branch Mine disaster, andBP's gulf disaster, the answer is yes. 11 The new eco-Romantic is committed to ecological flourishing, but she is neither anti-technology, nor naive in her political expectations about Messianic utopias. The traditional Romantic lived in a paradox he was blind to. (H)e deprecated technology from his studio in the industrial-brought comfort of the pre-Modern city. We must see the good and bad in technology. The Industrial Revolution cannot be simply undone (the remedy would be worst than the disease). It needs to be transformed. Technology can serve us in using the ecosystem resources more efficiently. On the other hand, there is a strong historical relationship between growth in economic output and growing human demands on the earth's finite ecosystem. We've pushed since 1950's the human burden on the planet's regenerative systems, its soils, air, water, fisheries, and forestry systems beyond what the planet can sustain. Anthropocentric "development" is not the answer. Pushing for economic growth beyond the planet's sustainable limits accelerates the rate of breakdown of the whole. It also intensifies the competition between rich and poor for the earth's remaining output of life-sustaining resources. 12 See my "Miami's Urban Mess.
17 comments:
Very interesting. So, this time I gather that the message is about balance. One of the major concepts of mysticism is oneness: “as within, as without.” I believe that the proposed argument is that, as one seeks perfection of the soul and harmony with the Universe, one would extend such perfection towards one's environment. I agree with such end; however, I disagree with the means.
The quintessential human identity is dominion over the environment. What separates humans from animals is not intelligence, but the ability to forge nature as a reflection of our inner selves. All other animals reach an equilibrium with their environment. Therefore, it stands to argue that, as mystical traditions seek inner perfection, civilization seeks outer perfection. We treat nature and others as we treat ourselves. We hate ourselves. On the professor's argument on domination springing from insecurity, I have to say that he is right. Mankind possess an Abyss within. An ever changing void threatening to pull humanity back to the darkness from whence it's came. As I gather, yoga is presented as a solution to such void. The achievement of perfection is the very path of staring at the Abyss and understanding it. Problem is, the void stares back. One is incapable of confronting the beast within the darkness because the monster is the very existence of one's self. We will not change society to ethical standards because we are still incapable of changing ourselves. All mediums of “self-improvement,” yoga and activism included, commit the fallacy above. If the root of the problem is one's self, the clear solution is to destroy one's self. And, by the reciprocation stated above, destroy the environment too. Isn't that what we are doing? The solution is the problem, and the problem is the solution. Cyclical logic that will never go anywhere.
The answer to such fatalistic paradigm is found outside the being. Exactly where yoga forgot to look. It is selflessness. Even if one commits good deeds and complete asceticism, one only does it to glorify and perfect the Ego. One only feeds the beast. The required action is abandonment. Let's leave behind our egos and forget about unattainable perfection, the core of the argument. Let's sacrifice ourselves for the good of others and never expect anything in return. The only way to change the word is to change our perspective. Let's fulfill the Abyss with servitude, not because we flow perfection from within, but because we desire to see it without. The Baal Shem Tov said that the road to God is not in religion (search of perfection in being and in conduct), but it is immanent in servitude and hard work.
So what did u like about the comment professor? You did not say it in class.
I'll get to you very soon.
kevin
so im trying to figure out where to start with my comment but i dont know where to begin since im not very good at this, i have various thoughts and opinions but im not very good at writting them down i have a better time voicing them in conversation but here goes.
i believe that the path to nirvana is a path of love faith positivity and trust its not an easy thing o accomplish it is very selfish at the start but as you continue on the path it becomes easier to understand why the world and reality that we live in is so stuck in this hole that we have dug for ourselves. balance and composure is very crucial in this path because if one looses either one of those the path of light that lies in front of their feet will crumble at the first wrong step. although this concept is very simple and not hard to grasp it is hard to apply and maintain its easy to fall out but to step back in takes alot of encouragement and dedication some will not achieve this in this life time but it truly is not impossible. thats what makes this way of life so beautiful.
For some reason, something that kept coming to mind when reading through this post was the idea of shepherding. Although it's a highly optimistic one, wouldn't it be fit to say that humans should be the ones tending to nature and keeping it in as pristine conditions as possible. Now, I know that pristine isn't the correct word because humans need to take from nature in order to survive but the efforts being done to maintain nature are not nearly enough of what they should be. We should be using as little as possible and what we do use we should try giving back to the environment such as planting trees or filtering out toxins in water instead of factories pumping out it's sludge counterpart into rivers and lakes. A good word for this could be sustainability which takes into mind being able to use nature without completely depleting it's resources. I put a lot of stress under the word should because it's something that would happen ideally in a perfect world.
I'm not sure if humans will ever be shepherds to nature (excuse my pessimism) but one cant help but fantasize on the what if's.
~Katherine Davila
Dear Class,
As I was reading the yoga socio-political manifesto, I was encouraged by its ideals. I found myself more accepting of ideas that I would have classified as idealistic a couple of weeks ago.
Unfortunately, this brief suspension of consciousness that results when the ideal is so perfect, was rudely shattered by my materialist beliefs. I came to think that these changes are impossible if we try to flip the Marxist dynamic between the base and the superstructure. I received with incredulity the thought that the superstructure (structural institutions that are manifestations of the idiosyncrasies of the mode of production (the base)) can accomplish any sort of change without a modification of the base whose values and principles are the source from which these social institutions, and our way of thinking about everything, emanates.
In short, I think it impossible that humans can set out to do the principles herein advocated because the vast majority of people are submerged within the ideological state apparatus that capitalism, with it's education, familial structure, mass media, hidden curricula, and amnesic memory, is readily destined to achieve.
In a sense, this positivism is not too dissimilar from Karma. We are trapped somewhere between the impersonal values that we are subjected to, but we must also do what we can within the compatibility model to change the world. This, I believe, cannot be done with good will of individuals (for good will is specific to the ideology that defines it) but must be the result of a dialectical struggle.
Jose Giron
Ethan Epshteyn
I had a very hard time grasping the concept of yoga, although it is thought to be so familiar to us, we are unknown with it. So, basically my thoughts about this are that to achieve nirvana is a long term purification of oneself. One must become pure of problems. I believe many people go through yoga every day when they take deep breaths and try to calm themselves of ahimsa. I am really interested in learning how to calm himself/herself down because it is a necessary concept to life. However I believe yoga should not be fully attained solely because life wouldn't be life without hurt or pain. I think all yoga practicers still feel hurt or pain, because it emotionally and physically impossible to withstand everything which happens to us.
I'm just gonna say this. If only....
If only people collectively decided to practice this, we would live in an ideal world.... or at least a more balanced and just one. I personally believe that that's how a person should behave on an individual stance, and I would love to say that we're slowly heading in a direction that kind of coincides with the ideas of this manifesto, maybe the zeitgeist of this generation (not necessarily my age range alone) isn't such a gloomy and lazy one. Maybe we're waking up and realizing that if we don't start taking some responsibility on a personal and communal level, we're f*%#ed. If we don't change our collective bad habits, stay overly cheap, greedy and lazy, we will pay the price in the coming years, especially given that the populations skyrocketing and our resources(especially fossil fuels)are diminishing.
-Manny Alonso
We have become an invasive species, destroying our planet from the seas to the skies, degrading our resources, and failing to conserve biodiversity. We take nature for granted, we see all the products we buy off the shelves as manufactured never really realizing that they were derived from the earth's creation.
We see the Earth and the minerals in it, the flora that grow and the fauna that roam it and we think- money, food, clothing. We see mother Earth as a well of commerce, extracting and extracting and never giving back. We've disconnected ourselves and are failing to show our gratefulness toward the life that surrounds us-to choose to live a natural life. As humans with exceptionally advanced cognitive and motor abilities we should be the ones to protect and love her.
Problem is, the void stares back. One is incapable of confronting the beast within the darkness because the monster is the very existence of one's self.
well said, so far so good, but I don't understand what follows. Yoga is not fatalistic, unless the West is overly optimistic.
This post really has me thinking… and sorry if my thoughts are a tad scattered.
This is how I feel, I want to change the world, but I don’t know where to start or who to start with! When I sit back and realize that I am a finite soul with a finite amount of time to act it seems pretty hopeless. BUT it isn’t! It is by changing yourself that you change your family, and they change the town, and they change the country and they change the world! This concept should be taught in all schools, I know I didn’t receive that message…
The attractiveness of ahimsa among other practices we discussed in class are vital to the progressive movement of humanity. We are making leaps and bounds in some areas, and regressing in others. There is no set goal, no ideal to strive towards. If more people quit filling that God sized hole in their soul’s with McDonald’s and reality TV and actually looked at the stars and puzzled over their existence once in a while, good things would come a lot faster than they are. I’m a firm believer that people are innately good. Ego is the obstacle one must overcome to find that peace. And that peace is that goal that is missing. I want laughter though! I want sex! I want to feel good! No! As Triff would say “ZAP IT!”
What is it Gandhi said? “the earth provides enough for every man’s need, not every man’s greed”. This is truth! The earth is dying and we are to blame, but we can also reverse this process, but be careful not to pat yourself on the back because remember we f’d it up in the first place. It is difficult to stop myself from acting selfishly on a daily basis and practice these principles in all my affairs! But the answer is clear as day, meditation. Training the subconscious to not act as quickly to satisfy the ego and strive for the greater good. Which is what exactly? Oh right peace and serenity I almost forgot. I was actually going to put happiness, but that is not the point of life is it. That damn ego…
I'd like to address an issue in Vini's argument. I do not see the entailment of “hating ourselves" from searching for [“inner perfection” and treating the environment as we “treat ourselves”]. Seeking inner perfection does not necessarily accede to hatred prior to this endeavor. Even if we claim that man is fickle by nature; that he is perniciously obstinate; that he is even self-destructive and that he is sack of doom waiting to bring his environment to the brinks of chaos, we cannot expect that he will do so. For he is not only fickle by nature nor is he so obstinate that he will go out of his way and pave the road to destruction without primarily slaying the goodness that thwarts his demons. And if he is to be successful in destroying what sustains him, it is not because he is evil but because he is ignorant. Thus, the void that you refer to is not tasked at pulling man back into the ‘darkness’ by which he came from, for man did not come from darkness, but darkness came from within man, only to be known as ignorance or as a verisimilitude of wisdom. Darkness within is only necessary (and by that I mean possible), because reason also claims a part of man (and by reason I mean that which is not darkness). Both are essential; whilst darkness be the cause of man’s clouded visions and intentions, reason be its guide dog. In that same sense, we begin to see that darkness is not so inimical after all, for it too serves to guide reason. When man is blinded by that reason he so prides, darkness dims his sight so that he may be conscious of his tendencies. Moreover, I do not think we hate ourselves, I think we are weary of the detriment that can stem from those capacities which we extol, because we know not how to claim control and that is what we ‘hate’. We do not treat nature on the basis that we hate ourselves. We do not understand nature and hence we do not understand ourselves, for we are a concoction of nature; and in trying to ascertain nature’s mechanics, bearing such a load can be odious and at times egregious, but also innocuous, pure and virtuous.
Nature was here first! I agree completely with that statement. I am in love with the idea how the Native Americans thought of our earth, the earth is not ours to own but we share it. The earth is our home and we must all learn to share the recourses it provides for us, which is in fact kind of what this post is saying, showing all the ways to be more sharing and more community helpful. Although it also makes me kind of upset to know that it is very difficult to get others to agree like this or to have everyone to work in this way in general it is hard to shift a mindset especially after all the lies that have been told with marketing and ads to get money. I do think that in order for the system to have this more sustainable society it would indeed need much emergence especially with extensive farming since most popular faming is intensive. Sadly, although intensive has been becoming more popular lately. If I had a large say in how to manage people I’d say we must all enact Niyama in our daily lives to balance our mindsets and our bodies to see how we too can connect with earth and not be so anthropocentric. Maybe they should make a law where everyone must practice yoga, karma yoga and well see how that goes in bettering our society.
-Jasmin
"The Girl Who Silenced the World for 5 Minutes"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQmz6Rbpnu0
"Another World is Possible-Except at mealtime" -Mickey Z. Vegan
http://worldnewstrust.com/another-world-is-possible-except-at-mealtime-mickey-z
Premises from "Endgame" Vol 1. The Problem of Civilization and Vol 2. Resistance. By radical environmental author: Derrick Jensen
http://www.endgamethebook.org/Excerpts/1-Premises.htm
Earth Amplified
"Food Fight"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mu8QthlZ6hY
Author Derrick Jensen on "Violence"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kk7pnKedpEU
Lie: We can't change the world. So, why try?
Truth: The most powerful weapon of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed. If we don't believe we can win, we've already lost.
Truth: Migration is a natural right.
Lie: There's not enough room in this country.
Lie: This is our country.
Truth: One cannot own the land.
Truth: We do have personal property, but there is a difference between that and owning the land. All of it.
Truth: It's not too late.
All it takes is for a certain majority to realize that it is possible to live in harmony with nature and with each other. It WILL take years and years to undo damage done. But life is resilient. And remember, it took thousands of years to get like this. It will take awhile to get back to sustainability. It's the most worthwhile thing we can do.
-Geoff Robbins
This one was crazy. I mean, it's all ideal, isn't it? It seems like the key to this is education; educating oneself, educating others. But also believing in it, and making something happen.
I can't help but think that the societies anthropocentric views and ideas are so much bigger than everyone and every thing. Change just seems so far fetched, and I feel totally negative and pessimistic saying it! But extensive farming, a biocentric culture, stopping deforestation and overfishing, slowfood, and all that good stuff sounds perfect! and awesome, just difficult to see as the big picture ?
I also noticed as I was reading that the intrinsic value of an animal is really important to me, and that was interesting.
Unfortunately, this post made me kind of sad because I think about the Earth and how important taking care of her is and how important it is to remember that we came from her and we live on her and with her and around her, and several people don't understand that.
-Carolina Vera
No the paradigm of ego-centrism. I argue that yoga is still egocentric because it aims at perfecting the being. Even its seemly selfless acts are means of developing one's self. I argue that the void is impervious to meditation and any actions. It is fatalistic in the sense that it does not deliver its hope of perfection.
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