PATINA
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=3699692811205&set=oa.10150677416782893&type=3&theater&ifg=1
Trevor Burrowes I saw what looked like a later (post 2000) version--painted with a porch. But I like this version much, much better. So full of patina, "color," texture... Painted up, all that was lost.
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globe and place and how everything connects
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I find big things easier to comprehend than little things. Since most people (in the Western world at any rate) are just the opposite, I’m always going against the grain. I can’t find any corroboration for my view that it is very easy to correct Earth’s climate and other critical woes if we think big enough. And it’s tempting to go off in a corner and leave the world to its dealings.
Despite what astronauts say about Earth’s unity, beauty and fragility when seen from afar, policy to give meaning to that vision is absent. The awe-stricken astronauts were working at the level of sensibility and feeling, and these are never the concern of policy.
After I wrote my first blog post (“How To Do Everything,” below) I heard about the book “Endgame” by Derrick Jensen, for which the author won The Press Action Person of the Year award. Although I’m puzzled by Jensen’s radical views and by the acclaim given him, what he wrote stopped me in my tracks. Could it be that I received no corroboration for my views because there was none to be found within the broad culture?
Among the premises in Endgame :
Premise Twenty: Within this culture, economics—not community well-being, not morals, not ethics, not justice, not life itself—drives social decisions.
I reread my post, and the main fault I now find with it is the perhaps naïve assumption that it lies within the power of government to save the planet from the dire consequences wrought by industrial civilization. Ain’t gonna happen, most likely.
But I question whether direct acts of violence against civilization (as Jensen advocates) is the answer – these will most likely happen anyway -- or whether it is feasible, as an alternate strategy, to take peaceful but subversive actions to protect and restore the planet. As an example, what if it were feasible to cover dysfunctional paving everywhere (paving that does not use the sun’s energy to do anything useful) with vegetation (a simple, non-technologic solution to climate change)? It can’t be denied that looking at Earth as a seamless orb that depends on vegetation for its survival is something that civilization has proven hopeless at doing.
During the coming year I want to investigate, to my satisfaction, how or whether the broader society, driven by a revolution in the humanities and the arts, could potentially reverse this direction. (Examining the feasibility of a worldwide survey of land-use plans is one possible way to start.)
Can what is harmful in civilization be transcended through civilization itself?
Despite what astronauts say about Earth’s unity, beauty and fragility when seen from afar, policy to give meaning to that vision is absent. The awe-stricken astronauts were working at the level of sensibility and feeling, and these are never the concern of policy.
After I wrote my first blog post (“How To Do Everything,” below) I heard about the book “Endgame” by Derrick Jensen, for which the author won The Press Action Person of the Year award. Although I’m puzzled by Jensen’s radical views and by the acclaim given him, what he wrote stopped me in my tracks. Could it be that I received no corroboration for my views because there was none to be found within the broad culture?
Among the premises in Endgame :
Premise Twenty: Within this culture, economics—not community well-being, not morals, not ethics, not justice, not life itself—drives social decisions.
I reread my post, and the main fault I now find with it is the perhaps naïve assumption that it lies within the power of government to save the planet from the dire consequences wrought by industrial civilization. Ain’t gonna happen, most likely.
But I question whether direct acts of violence against civilization (as Jensen advocates) is the answer – these will most likely happen anyway -- or whether it is feasible, as an alternate strategy, to take peaceful but subversive actions to protect and restore the planet. As an example, what if it were feasible to cover dysfunctional paving everywhere (paving that does not use the sun’s energy to do anything useful) with vegetation (a simple, non-technologic solution to climate change)? It can’t be denied that looking at Earth as a seamless orb that depends on vegetation for its survival is something that civilization has proven hopeless at doing.
During the coming year I want to investigate, to my satisfaction, how or whether the broader society, driven by a revolution in the humanities and the arts, could potentially reverse this direction. (Examining the feasibility of a worldwide survey of land-use plans is one possible way to start.)
Can what is harmful in civilization be transcended through civilization itself?
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January
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- WRITING PLAN This could be the main thing to foc...
- YALE AND PLANT BASED FOOD Some good ...
- LYNN'S CORRECTION TO THE PREVIOUS The follow...
- PRACTICE PROPOSAL TODAY'S WRITING TASK (No need ...
- RIFKIN Gail Tverberg quotes from jeremy Rifkin'...
- PATINA https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=36...
- Turquoise Trail REGIONAL OPEN SPACE By Trevor B...
- TOO EARLY FOR EDITS Since I'm hoping this wi...
- TRANSFORMATION (a monastic order) Everything lo...
- COASTAL PLANNING Folks, I doubt that either o...
- CARIBBEAN CULTURE VIBRATIONS ...
- DETERMINISM It is mistakenly thought that th...
- THE POOR AND THE ELITE My theory is that my drawi...
- HERITAGE (Insert Heritage image in picture file) ...
- TO JO Thanks. I wish I had...
- STIRRING UP THE WORLD? Jo, what it feels like I'm...
- BALANCING AND JAMAICA White Jamaicans from domina...
- AN OPEN COMMUNICATION TO JAMAICA'S PRIME MINISTER ...
- THE INTERACTION OF THE INDIVIDUAL WITH THE COMMON...
- JAMAICA AND OCEAN LIFE
- TO DIANNE GOLDING-FRANKSON Dear Dianne, Your p...
- THE BOOK Lynn, There's another Jamaican, this...
- ART AND HOUSE METAPHORS
- A POLEMIC FOR JAMAICA Polemic Wikipedia: "A ...
- CHURCHES CAN LEAD Edith Piaf! In art school days,...
- SHERBERT AND OTHER THINGS "I’d like to think that...
- DRIP FEEDING "...drip feeding, sewing subliminal ...
- RESTORING RR STATION https://www.planetizen.com/n...
- LOCAL SYSTEMS "The issue the comes up with job tr...
- SATELLITE MAPPING FOR PLANNING AND ART There a...
- JOHN FREDERICK PETO
- JOHN FREDERICK PETO splicing things pieced to...
- CONSOLIDATION I need clarification about terms...
- Edward Rutherfoord Dear Trevor Burrowes, I hope y...
- JAMAICA IN A GEOGRAPHICAL NUTSHELL Jamaica is a...
- MY HOUSE His problem is a little different from...
- black jamaicans and historic preservation Dianne...
- BIRCHFIELD AND HOPPER My fairly passionate peru...
- MAINTAINING CIVILIZATION http://www.antipope.org/...
- CHARLES BURCHFIELD'S CATHEDRAL https://www.facebo...
- GARVEYISM AS SANCTUARY Garveyism could function l...
- EPISTEMOLOGY AND GARVEYISM I'm guessing I might...
- DELUSIONAL THINKING The wrong questions keep bein...
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