Shattering The Clock

In 1609 Johannes Kepler, the German astronomer, mathematician, and natural philosopher published Astronomia Nova (New Astronomy) in which he outlined the first two laws of planetary motion. It was a significant advance on how we understood the movement of the planets.

Four years earlier, in a letter to a friend, Kepler wrote, ‘My aim is to show that the celestial machine is to be likened not to a divine organism, but to a clockwork.’ The metaphor of the cosmos as a clock was promoted at the time by many of his contemporaries.

In his Astronomia Nova he, no doubt, considered that he had achieved that aim.

Sadly he, and many other pioneers of the Scientific Revolution, by introducing this mechanistic metaphor into the world helped to entrench our perceived disconnect from nature. Nature was no longer an organism, but was now a mechanical, automated, and lifeless machine.

And, being mechanical and lifeless, nature could be exploited and open to another of the disturbing metaphors to come out of the Scientific Revolution – misogyny and rape. Francis Bacon, for instance, avowed that the scientific method allowed him to uncover ‘the secrets still locked in (nature’s) bosom… (so that) she can be forced out of her natural state and squeezed and moulded.’ Descartes too, was emboldened by this metaphor, asserting that science could ‘render ourselves the masters and possessors of nature.’

With such metaphors and the attendant worldviews, it is little wonder that today we are exploiting nature and extracting every little resource we can.

But, is the clock beginning to shatter?

The sciences of the 20^th and 21^st centuries are overturning the outlook of the Scientific Revolution of the 16^th and 17^th centuries. Perhaps we could say that these sciences represent a Second Scientific Revolution. The sciences of ecology, quantum physics, biology, systems theory, and theories of Emergence, Chaos, and Complexity are all reasserting the cosmos as an organic wholeness.

Throughout the world there are groups of people, small communities, and especially indigenous societies challenging the mechanistic view of the world. Workshops, seminars, retreats, and vision quests are all being utilised to return to an organic outlook.

Although small, these enterprises and experiences are important. Our belief systems and worldviews are built upon the stories we tell ourselves and the metaphors we use. When we contest these, we open up to new, refreshing, possibilities, including the potential to return to an acknowledgement that we live in, and are part of, a divine organism.

All that is exciting. It reconnects us with a sense of wonder at the mysteriousness of life, the universe, and all it contains.

(The) Hidden Life of Trees - Book Review

(Note that this review is late in coming - this book was published nine years ago)

Go for a walk in a forest. When you get back home read The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben.¹ The chances are high that the next time you go walking in that same forest the experience will be wholly different. You will see things you hadn’t noticed before. You will hear things you hadn’t heard before.

Chances are, too, that you will stop and want to linger. You may want to get closer to the trees and examine the bark. You might want to dig your fingers into the earth, or peer high into the canopy.

Not only will you see and hear things differently, after reading Wohllenben’s book you may also be able to visualise the vast network of roots, fungi, and mycelium that exists underground, out of sight.

Wohllenben’s book has certainly gained wide attention – it has sold more than three million copies worldwide and been translated into more than twenty languages.

Whilst it has gained an appreciative lay readership, it has not been without its critics in the scientific community. Some have criticised the book for its use of anthropomorphic language. For example, some of the book’s chapters are titled, Tree School, Community Housing Projects, Hibernation, Street Kids, Immigrants etc, all as epithets for aspects of forests and/or trees.

Although it is possible to understand this criticism, it is, in this reviewer’s mind, unfair, or at least misplaced. This book is undoubtedly written for the layperson, a person who may know little or nothing about the workings of forests. It is clearly not written as a scientific treatise. Had it been written in scientific, unemotional language it would not have been bought by three million readers.

Wohllenben outlines in the first few pages his intention in writing the book. He states, ‘This book is a lens to help you take a closer look at what you might have taken for granted. Slow down, breathe deep, and look around. What can you hear? What do you see? How do you feel?’ He’s upfront. This is written for those unused to analysing what is going on in a forest. It is written to evoke an emotional response. And – it works.

By writing in the way he does, using what we understand to be human feelings, behaviours, and functions, Wohllenben helps the reader associate with forests and trees. In one sense the criticism of anthropomorphism becomes a two-edged sword. Can we really say that trees do not have feelings, do not behave in ways that humans might, or that trees do not communicate with and look after one another? To say that they do not and try to write of trees and forests in neutral terms is itself an anthropocentric rendition. Many indigenous languages and cultures worldwide do not name trees, streams, mountains, and other living creatures in the third person – i.e. as it. For many, these entities are imbued with the same energies and sacred attributes as are humans.

In the final few pages Wohllenben addresses the divide between humans and non-humans. He states, ‘I, for one, welcome breaking down the moral barriers between animals and plants. When the capabilities of vegetative beings become known, and their emotional lives and needs are recognized, then the way we treat plants will gradually change as well.’   

Perhaps the sooner we come to appreciate trees and other entities in the same ways we value ourselves, the sooner we might desist in destroying nature and the planet in which we live.

So, my suggestion as reviewer, is to ignore any criticism you may have heard, go with the flow and recognise you in the trees and the trees in you.

For myself, as someone who had previously come across some of the concepts Wohllenben writes of, I found this book illuminating and enjoyable. I learnt a lot more about trees and forests than I knew before I read page 1. I learnt something of myself also.

The final words I will leave to Peter Wohllenben himself, they are also the final words he writes in the Acknowledgments section.

‘Only people who understand trees are capable of protecting them.’

Note:

1. Peter Wohlleben, The Hidden Life of Trees, Black Inc., Collingwood VIC, Australia, 2016

Returning to an Island

Recently I re-read Island by Aldous Huxley.¹ It had been around five decades since I first read it.

Those five decades have now allowed me to gain a greater insight into what Huxley was writing about and alluding to.

Island was Huxley’s final novel and served as the counterpoint to his dystopian novel, Brave New World, published thirty years earlier. Could Huxley have written this when he was younger? Perhaps, like me as his reader, he had to be older to dream and appreciate possibilities?

Island is indeed a dream, but not an impossible one. Possibilities exist. The following quotation is at the heart of this novel, both figuratively and literally (on p 170-171 of 329 pages). The possibility described here will find a resonance with many readers, especially those attracted to the ideas of degrowth. The practical philosophy of the island of Pala is explained by one of the island’s elders – Dr Robert as;  

‘… we never allowed ourselves to produce more children than we could feed, clothe, house, and educate into something like full humanity. Not being over-populated, we have plenty. But although we have plenty, we’ve managed to resist the temptation that the West has now succumbed to – the temptation to over-consume. We don’t give ourselves coronaries by guzzling six times as much saturated fat as we need. We don’t hypnotise ourselves into believing that two television sets will make us twice as happy as one television set. And finally we don’t spend a quarter of the gross national product preparing for World War III or even World War’s baby brother, Local War MMMCCXXXIII. Armaments, universal debt, and planned obsolescence – those are the three pillars of Western prosperity. If war, waste, and moneylenders were abolished, you’d collapse. And while you people are over-consuming, the rest of the world sinks more and more deeply into chronic disaster. Ignorance, militarism, and breeding, these three – and the greatest of these is breeding. No hope, not the slightest possibility, of solving the economic problem until that’s under control. As population rushes up, prosperity goes down… And as prosperity goes down, discontent and rebellion, political ruthlessness and one-party rule, nationalism and bellicosity begin to rise.’

Within a little over 200 words Huxley has depicted the possibility of a dream; at the same time rebuking the model that the West has been, and still is, implementing.

The key to Huxley’s dream seems to be restraint, the ability to resist temptation. Failure to do so results in huge problems. Is this not exactly what we see in the world today? Political ruthlessness, discontent, nationalism, bellicosity – at the level of individuals, societies, and states.

Island is worth reading, as a young person and then again at an older age. The novel answers some questions as well as throwing up some serious questions for consideration.

One of those questions was posed by Huxley himself upon reflecting upon his two novels – Brave New World and Island. It is a question that calls out for a response from each of us.

‘How will this thought or action contribute to, or interfere with, the achievement, by me and the greatest number of other individuals, of (humanity’s) Final End?’

Note:

1. Aldous Huxley, Island, Granada Publishing, London, Toronto, Sydney, New York, 1962

No Will

Lithium mine

Last week’s blogpiece bemoaned our cultural focus on the future. During the intervening week I found myself guilty of that same error, although not a future of optimism.

In a response to an online post I stated, ‘Unplanned collapse is what will happen…’ Another commentator rightly pulled me up on that comment.

Unplanned collapse is not a future event or possibility. Collapse is already here, although some of us, like me, are not experiencing its full fury. A quote from science-fiction writer, William Gibson, is that, ‘The future is already here – it’s just not very evenly distributed.’ The word collapse can easily be substituted in that quote for the word future.

Collapse (environmental and social) is underway in many parts of the world. Inhabitants of Pacific islands are experiencing the effects of climate change. The island nation of Tuvalu, for example, is a tragic example. It is being subjected to rising sea levels and more frequent and more severe cyclones and storms. Cyclones further erode the shoreline of the nation’s islands, exacerbating sea level rise.

Elsewhere in the world we see social breakdown, with war being the most glaring example. The five most devastating warfare sites in the world in 2024 were the Ukrainian-Russian war, the Palestine-Israel war, and the civil wars in Myanmar, Sudan, and Ethiopia.

Then there are the other instances. The ones that are out of sight, out of mind. Mostly they are out of sight because they are in countries the mainstream media are not interested in. They are out of mind because if we in the rich, industrialised, nations considered them they would disrupt our cosy, comfortable lifestyles. Mostly, too, these cases are ones that exist so that we can continue to live in a way that believes that collapse will occur in the future.

Let me explain and offer examples of such instances.

In the rich, industrialised, nations we have become aware of climate change and the forces generating it. As a result, we are keen to reduce carbon emissions. However, we only want to do so if it means we do not have to change our consumerist, exploitative, and extractive behaviours.

Yet, if we look closely, these behaviours continue at the expense of local communities (e.g., copper mining in Congo, and lithium mining in the Atacama Desert) and also local ecosystems (again, for example, lithium mining in the Atacama Desert).

The American ethnobotanist, Terence McKenna addressed this inclination towards an out of sight, out of mind outlook when he announced that;

‘The apocalypse is not something which is coming. The apocalypse has arrived in major portions of the planet and it’s only because we live within a bubble of incredible privilege and social insulation that we still have the luxury of anticipating the apocalypse.’

So, I guiltily acknowledge that when I write that “the collapse will happen,” then I am writing from a privileged view and from a position of insulation.

If I, and millions of others in the rich, industrialised nations, continue to live in a bubble (as McKenna refers to it) then we do so by consigning millions of others to suffer collapse right now, not in some anticipated future.

If We Can't Go Back...

Critics of modernity, and the current messy system we are in, often get taunted with the reproach that, “you can’t go back.” Maybe we can, maybe we can’t. Even if we had the means to do so, we may not have the will.

Not going back though, does not imply that we must go forward. Indeed, our westernised penchant for going forward (aka progress) may be one of the major concepts that have got us into this mess.

The idea that we must continually progress is rooted in the manner in which we think of time. Time, in the westernised worldview, is linear and moves from the past, conceptualised as behind us, to the future, conceptualised as in front of us, ahead of us.

Progress as a physical and metaphysical goal was deemed by many Enlightenment thinkers as desirable and almost inevitable. The view of many Enlightenment thinkers (such as Descartes, Hobbes, Locke, and Kant) was that human history tended towards freedom, equality, and greater well-being. Human progress is not only possible, it is inevitable according to this view.

It was a compelling idea and, in an age when the Dark Ages were still at the forefront of people’s memory, it was also a welcome and refreshing idea. Progress became one of the idée du jour of Enlightenment thinkers and permeated the minds of the general populace. So much did it pervade our minds that today it is considered the natural course of things. To question the idea of progress is tantamount to sacrilege.

Progress came to be synonymous with better, greater, improved, advanced, and superior. The current generation were better-off than the previous one. But then came the unsettling thought that the future was a better place to be than the present. With this realisation came the figure of speech that whipped post-war generations into a consumerist society – keeping up with the Jones’es.

Progress became coupled with improvement; progress meant improvement; improvement meant progress. Things must improve. Things must get better. The future is to be striven for at all costs. And one of the costs of all this striving was inadequate consideration of the consequences of new technology and infrastructure. In the post-war consumerism boom the word NEW! was one of the most oft used words of advertisers.

No consideration was given to the social, individual, and environmental consequences.

If we are paying attention to the state of the world then the environmental consequences of progress are all too apparent. We can see the consequences. They are not good.

What may not be so easy to see are the consequences of progress on our mental and psychological health. When we believe that the future is better than now then we can easily become dissatisfied with, and disappointed in, the present moment.

The ability to place our faith in improvement and betterment in a future time was explored in depth by Alvin Toffler and Adelaide Farrell (often unacknowledged) in 1970 in their book Future Shock.¹ In that book they outlined how the pace of change and our expectation of a better future was having an impact upon our psychological health. Toffler and Farrell described this as an ‘abrupt collision with the future.’ Since then, the pace of change has increased exponentially. Also, our expectations of the future solving the problems of today and resulting in a better world have also gained traction.

But it doesn’t happen.

Thinking that we are better off than were our ancestors leads us to want to avoid going back to the past. Thinking that the future will bring about improvement leads us to want to progress to that time as quickly as possible.

In this state of aversion for the past and attachment to the future, our present moment becomes homeless. We don’t reside there; yet it is in the present moment that our hearts and souls wish to dwell. The present is where we are most settled, it is where we become free of anxiety, depression, tension, and stress.

We may not be able to go back, but, for the sake of our health, we can stop striving to get ahead.

If we could do that, we might just find that the past was not so onerous as we think. We might even find that there are some things that we could go back to. We might even enjoy them. We might even improve our mental and psychological health.

Note:

1. Toffler, Alvin (and Farrell, Adelaide), Future Shock, Bantam, New York, 1970

Inequality Set In Stone

Code of Hammurabi
stele

One of the most famous pieces of writing on inequality is undoubtedly Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s essay, Discourse on the Origins of Social Inequality. Although seldom read these days (apart from philosophy and political science students) at the time of its publication in 1755 it was widely read. Its publication helped establish Rousseau as one of the leading European intellectuals of the time.

The essay was Rousseau’s entry into a nation-wide essay competition on the topic of ‘What is the origin of inequality among people, and is it authorized by natural law?’ The title of Rousseau’s essay, and the question itself, expose an underlying feature of European society of the time. It was unequal. The question does not ask if inequality exists. It asks how inequality came into existence.

This blogpiece is not going to summarise Rousseau’s answer. Rather I intend tracing the roots of inequality back in time further than did Rousseau in his essay.

Let us return to the Babylonian Empire, and particularly the reign of King Hammurabi (ruling from c.1810 – c.1750 BCE). Writing had been invented in Mesopotamia 1,200 to 1,500 years before Hammurabi’s reign. Initially, the scripts of the time were used for accounting purposes; to record harvest quantities and the like. Over time writing became more developed and was used to record more and more, including stories.

Today, Hammurabi is best known for the Code of Hammurabi, a set of laws including ascribing penalties for various contraventions of the Code. The Code was inscribed upon a 2.25 m tall stone stele (found in 1901 in present day Iran) and is today considered to be an important precursor in the establishment of a legal code. However, you won’t find the stele in Iran today. The stele was unearthed by the French Archaeological Mission and transferred (stolen may be a more accurate term) to the Louvre in Paris.

Although the code of Hammurabi is known as a precursor to the establishment of a legal code, it is also noteworthy that the laws inscribed thereon indicate an inequality existing in Mesopotamia at that time – some 4,000 years ago.

The Code makes mention of various ‘classes’ of Babylonians. There is mention of superior men, common men, slaves, superior women, and common women. The penalties meted out to transgressors of the code depended upon the status, class, and gender, of both the victim and the perpetrator. Hence, it is easy to determine the relative worth of inhabitants by reading the penalties imposed. For example, if a superior man should blind the eye of another superior man, then the penalty is that his eye is blinded in return. However, if it is a commoner whose eye is blinded, then the superior man must pay 60 shekels of silver (and not lose his own eye.) The penalty imposed upon a superior man if he strikes a woman and causes her to miscarry is entirely dependent upon the class of the woman. If of superior class then the penalty is ten shekels of silver, if a commoner it is half that (five shekels) and if a slave then even less, just two shekels.¹ The difference between people was clearly marked out by Hammurabi and the Babylonians. Hence, on this basalt stele we can plainly read of the way in which people were thought of and treated as unequal, of different status and worth. The inequality of people had become codified and written down. Set in stone, if you will.

It is little wonder then, that some 3,500 years later, Rousseau was answering a question about how inequality came about, not if inequality existed.

The inequality that existed at the time of Hammurabi came to infuse the worldviews of the cultures and Empires that followed Hammurabi. It informed the Roman Empire. It informed the colonisation of the Americas. It informed the British Empire. It informed the European colonisation of Australia and New Zealand.

In many ways the inequality between people remains set in stone today. It is time we started chipping away at that stele.

Notes:

1. Harari, Yuval Noah, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Vintage, London, 2011

Poets and Politicians

As I write this it has been two days since the Canadian election and in two days time the Australians go to the polls.

We have seemingly had elections and politicians for aeons. We have had definitions for politician ever since Samuel Johnson’s first edition of Dictionary of the English Language, published in 1755. In that first edition the second definition Johnson gave for politician was ‘A man of artifice; one of deep contrivance.’ Many would argue that the definition still adheres.

With antecedents in the Roman Republic and in England in the 13^th century, it is only since the 17^th century that electoral democracy began to become the standard form of government throughout the western world. Just two and a half centuries.

During these last two and a half centuries where has electoral (aka representative) democracy (and its attendant politicians) got us? Much of the research into politics has shown that political representation greatly favours affluent sectors of society to the detriment of the population as a whole. Hardly representative. When one looks at the make up of politicians who do become elected, in most cases world-wide they are from the wealthy elite. Very few are those we would meet whilst out walking the dog or pushing a baby in a pram. (Although we will find them queuing up to pat the dog or kiss the baby come election time.)

Furthermore, with politicians at the helm over the past two and a half centuries the world has become a lot messier. Environmentally it is in a mess. Socially and culturally, it is in a mess. Individually too, we are in a mess. Politicians do not appear to have the willingness to tackle much of this, and some even exacerbate the mess.

Yet, we continue to vote for politicians, we continue to vote for a flawed system. Whitmore, we continue to listen to them. We continue to allow politicians to speak on our behalf, notwithstanding that most do nothing of the sort.

So, who could we listen to instead?

The avant-garde filmmaker and poet Jonas Merkas once quipped that, ‘In the very end civilisations perish because they listen to their politicians and not their poets.’ Maybe he is correct.

Another artist, the science fiction author Ursula K. La Guin enlarged upon Merkas’ remark. The author of the very popular Earthsea fantasy series emphatically suggested that;

‘I think hard times are coming, when we will be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, and can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies, to other ways of being. And even imagine some real grounds for hope. We will need writers who can remember freedom: poets, visionaries—the realists of a larger reality. Right now, I think we need writers who know the difference between production of a market commodity and the practice of an art.’

Merkas and La Guin could be onto something.

It may be as simple as William Blake reminding us of our connection to the cosmos: ‘To see a world in a grain of sand/ And heaven in a wild flower/ Hold infinity in the palm of your hand/ And eternity in an hour.’

Perhaps it is the Bard’s love sonnet that begins with, ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?/ Thou art more lovely and more temperate;/ Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,/ And summers lease hath all too short a date.’

Or Mary Oliver suggesting advising a quietude of mind: ‘Every day I see or I hear/ something that more or less/ kills me with delight.’

These and dozens of other poems and poets have us asking the simple question, as Mary Oliver does; ‘There’s only one question/ how to love this world.’

I doubt that this is a question politicians ask very often.

I hear them answer it very rarely. If at all.

I think I’ll go find a book of poetry to read while the Australian elections are on.