Towards an Ecology of Mind, Society, and Biosystems
Blog post for Blog Action Day
Ecology (from the greek oikos for house) is the study of living organisms in their environment and it’s all about dynamic balance. Nature survives and evolves because living systems can be stable and in continuous motion at the same time. It’s the dynamic balance between predators and preys, for example, that keeps each population in check and prevents the extinction of species.
Homo Sapiens broke away from the ecological balance a very long time ago. We have messed up with ecosystems as long as we can remember. We have been suffering from what Gregory Bateson, in Steps to an Ecology of Mind, calls “hubris” (in Greek tragedies, hubris was the excessive pride and defiance that led characters to the inevitable defeat and ruin).
It pleases us to picture ourselves as the masters of Nature. It reassure us to believe that we are independent, unconstrained, and we can expand infinitely, even if we are stuck on a sphere of less than 4,000 miles in diameter. We feel omnipotent like little children. Yet we have not defeated death, or illness, or fear, or violence. We have transposed them: now it’s more likely that we will suffer by the hand of other humans than by the forces of Nature.
It’s not only the relationship with our environment that is unbalanced. We also have a hard time maintain balance in our own lives and societies. Those of us who can, work too much, eat too much, produce too much waste, consume too much energy. One would think that having so much would make us happy, but it doesn’t.
The ecological crisis is not just about breaking our biosphere’s stability beyond repair. It’s about the pervasive tendency towards imbalance that we bring to our lives and our societies. Global warming is just one of the symptoms of human societies’ inability to maintain harmony and equilibrium within and without.
Environmental activism is hard because it’s about changing our habits and life style. Anybody who has tried to quit smoking or lose wait can attest how hard changing habits and getting rid of our addiction is, even when our life is at stake.
We need a global ecological movement. We need a powerful, strong, interconnected grass-root movement that works at regaining balance in our environment, in our societies, and in ourselves. And, to paraphrase Al Gore, we need to act quickly and we need to act together.
Two more days to Blog Action Day
The people on Earth had been sleeping for a long time, trapped in a nightmare. In the nightmare, the richest and most powerful of Earth’s inhabitant were possessed by greed and egoism. Their vision was blurred by arrogance and hubris. The Earth languished in misery and neglect but very few noticed it. Too many people were dying of hunger, illnesses, and violence, but very few noticed it. A restless and happyless illness was possessing the souls and bodies of those who had enough to be happy. The planet was on the verge of collapse.
Then some people started waking up and saw the world around them. They realized that their beautiful planet was dying and the future of their children was at risk. They realized they could do something to make Earth a better place and they decided to act. They got together to find another way of living their lives, because the way of waste and exploitation didn’t make them happy.
They started to spend more time with their friends and with their family and less in their cars and air conditioned offices. They found other ways to feel satisfied that didn’t involve polluting and wasting scarce resources. They chose generosity and sharing to possession and accumulation. Others saw them and woke up. They tuned off their lights, sold their cars, discovered they could walk to places or ride their bicicles. They slowed down. They stopped running and started paying attention to flowers and sunsets and they realized that they felt much happier. For the first time in years, the Earth smiled.
Our Earth is generous and tolerant, but it’s not immortal. The balance that keeps Earth able to sustain life is strong, but we are stronger and more powerful. We can do great good and we can do a lot of damage. The choice is up to us.
Monday is Blog Action Day. Speak up on the environment. Look at the list of environmental issues on Wikipedia. Browse the page on environmental resources on Blog Action Day.
Congratulations to Al and to the Environment
Today, Al Gore and a United Nations panel shared the Nobel prize for Peace for their work on global warming. Thank you, Al.
Blog Action Day on October 15
Eight thousand bloggers have pledged to write about the environment on Monday, October 15. (8000 to date, but the counter is ticking up as I write. The page that shows who signed up when it’s a great example of viral spread.)
Blog action day is organizing, Wire Magazine has written about it, LifeHacker and a lot of my friends are participating.
You should participate too.
Watch the video, visit the site, write a post, and let’s meet on October 15 in blog space.
Blade Runner’s Memories
[Spoilers alert: Don't read this if you've never seen Blade Runner but you are planning to]
Husband seems to believe that watching the same movie over and over again is fun. He likes how old movies feel familiar–you’ve learned all the lines by hearth and known exactly what to expect. They become part of you, and it’s almost like watching yourself. To me, watching the same movie twice feels like a waste of time. I like novelty. Familiarity bores me.
Well, except for Blade Runner, of course. I lost count of how many times I saw Blade Runner.
I blame Ridley Scott for the multiple versions that continue to crop up every decade: the first and studio-engineered voice-over version (”Families considering viewing this film should avoid the original like the plague; instead go with Ridley Scott’s vision” write Afsheen Nomai and Marjorie Kase in Common Sense Media), the Director’s Cut, and now the “Director’s Final Cut”.
Yes, Blade Runner is in theaters again (well, at least in one theater, the Ziegfeld in NYC) and yes, I went to see it again. (I wonder, how many times can a director make the same movie?)
I just cannot resist existential sci-fi, the type of sci-fi that explores other worlds and creatures as a way to reflect on what makes a human being human (is it emotions? memories? dreams? compassion? empathy?).
Blade Runner’s cinematography and the atmosphere are still amazing. Inside buildings and in the streets everything is dusty, messy, and wet. You can almost smell the moldy and rotten stench of the street of 2019 Los Angeles. Most scenes are dark, but bright artificial light intrudes and blinds. And it always rains.
Some scenes are more violent than I remember, probably because even the first time I had to close my eyes (this time, I knew exactly when it was time to keep my eyes shut). Watching replicants die was hard the first time, and hasn’t got any easier. They die with a fight, and they are painful to watch. But this is exactly the point.
Replicants are the scary others–so strong, unpredictable, and merciless–but killing dangerous creatures who don’t want to die still feels very much like killing.
Above all, Blade Runner is a movie about memories. Are we our memories? What if our memories are not real? What happens to our memories when we die?
At the end of the movie, Roy saves Deckard life, and it’s for not compassion or a sudden awakening of empathy. Roy needs a witness. A part of himself will continue to live if somebody listens to his memories and survives: “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.”
Time to die.
Power Tool Parade
New York city is a city of beautiful shop windows and spectacular parades. But even in NYC, things can go very wrong.
Somebody please tell me what they were thinking.
New Yorkers
Warriors on 52nd street.
I love MOMA
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I love MOMA.
I love MOMA because I got a membership for Christmas and I can go there any time I want (thank you Kt, that was one of the best Christmas presents ever). A MOMA membership card is like an unlimited-rides metro card, but better: you don’t have to think twice if you need art; you can go to the same show many times (and you discover that every time is different). A membership card makes you free and eliminates any money considerations standing between you and your art cravings.
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I love MOMA because they allow people to take pictures. You cannot quite touch the paintings and the scultpures, but you can smell them, capture them, run around them, bond with them. Art becomes something that happens between you and the piece. You are not forced in a stiff, “just watch and shut up” pose, which is the paradox of so many museums that want to preserve art (and the art mystique) so badly that they kill it. (There are limitations at MOMA too, of course, but they are few and enforced with some respect.)
I went to see again the sculptures of Richard Serra, which illustrate so well why museums need encourage people to get more intimate with art. There was a group of young guys visiting the exhibit and one of them said, standing still in front of the huge round copper-colored wall of Band: “I just don’t get it.” A few minutes later, they were walking through the tilted passages (if you stay with it, you can feel the space continuously warping and changing texture and you can feel your body opening up and tensing, in an almost predictable pattern). They had big smiles on their faces. They’d got it.
[Watch Richard Serra's walking and talking about Band on YouTube.]
Cool Readings
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