Two very different conceptual vocabularies.
May 29, 2007
May 28, 2007
The Predator-Prey Bargain
Both in Derrick Jensen’s inflammatory Endgame and in the beautiful story from Grinnell’s Blackfoot Lodge Tales we see the notion of a continuing exchange between ourselves as humans and those beings we eat…
Joseph Campbell pointed out that our reciprocating part in this exchange is not with actual animals but with a platonic Representative of the species — here, salmon and buffalo — on which we predate. I believe the Hopi eagle cult and Ainu bear cult contain equivalent premises.
My question:
if the Platonic / Jungian sense that there are ideal / archetypal entities with whom we can interact is lost in the “advance” of civilization, what do we have by way of alternative to this kind of narrative, for assuaging our conscious and in some ways terrifying awareness that our own lives are lived at the expense of those of others?
May 21, 2007
May 20, 2007
May 17, 2007
May 16, 2007
Disconnect
I am grateful to Kent’s Imperative for pointing me in the direction of the British judge — and to McKenzie Wark for tipping me off to the Benjamin quote.
May 15, 2007
The World Cafe
I’m dedicating this DoubleQuote to the World Cafe, an organization whose work and principles I admire, and hope to work with one of these days. The illustration comes from their World Cafe Book, with appreciative thanks.
May 14, 2007
Mentats, Singers
I would rather have written that Delany paragraph than any other I can immediately think of. More than that, I would wish to live it.
