Michael Degani
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Hi, I think this is the right place to post this. I am always in awe, just awe, of how brilliant and penetrating a critique Simon Sadler is on matters that we can surely call “ecological design.” When I think about the lineaments of EDC, its mix of Baltimore based social activism (in particular its alliances with black community organizations) and cybernetic enthusiasms borrowed from contemporary ecological philosophy, environmental anthropology, and civic engagement, I really cannot help but feel we are directly downstream of the 1974 edition of the Whole Earth Catalogue’s Co-Evolution Quarterly, in all of its overlaps and tensions between hippies and panthers, as detailed here: https://www.academia.edu/25846853/Mandalas_or_Raised_Fists_Hippie_Holism_Panther_Totality_and_Another_Modernism @anand @Lee @Nicole, here’s to self-knowledge.
academia.edu
Mandalas or Raised Fists? Hippie Holism, Panther Totality, and Another Modernism
In what way was there a "Hippie Modernism," as the Walker Art Center thought-provokingly framed its 2015 exhibition? Modernism implied that human actions can create a better world, and this demanded an understanding of the whole in which
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I enjoyed the conversation, and want to follow up on one point:
One of the real strengths of the book as a kind of cultural road map is to take seriously the power of money and its incentives in driving the plot’s events, thus helping us ordinary people see the anchoring role of central banks and finance in any transition (i.e. ‘putting our money where our mouth is’). To whit, as recently as eight months ago, KSR was endorsing the carbon coin.
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that’s lovely, haven’t seen it but it looks great. I will recommend not quite an ethnographic film but maybe like an ethnographic music video? I have always loved this song and video and consider it my own private mission statement for the anthropological sensibility I’d like to cultivate, at least in its joyful and affirming mode (rather than it’s hardcore critical mode)–an attentive appreciation and even wonder at the small gesture, at all the different ways the body can configure itself. The artists are relentless sound and image archivists but they stitch everything together with so much intelligence and humor. But it’s ultimately really moving. Plus, catch a small multispecies wink when the song really starts flowering.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1irbhY_dgY
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This reply was modified 1 year, 8 months ago by Michael Degani. Reason: ah we can embed youtubes, great
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This reply was modified 1 year, 8 months ago by
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I think you’d do better to take each proposal on its own merit rather than make spurious analogies between them. Bemoaning any and all concrete action short of utopian revolution sounds like bad politics and even worse cli-fi.
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I honestly find that a puzzling characterization of both elements. Solar geoengineering in the book required radical and defiant political will from a nation-state; carbon coin required central banks from the most powerful nation-states to back it. In both cases they are desperate actions held aloft by very specific political-ethical commitments, thoroughly human and vulnerable to mishandling in execution. (It’s like you said in the discussion Anand, money is just human trust materialized). They are not miracle pills; it’s a miracle they work! And just barely at that. If this is about evaluating the book as a work of cli-fi, I like that its willing to delve into boring stuff like monetary policy and able to surface the human drama in it.
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I will send!