Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
I have taken to heart the insight that possibly, the way we respond to the crisis is part of the crisis; that we see this thing we call ‘the climate’ through a window whose frame is itself the product of our toxic culture.
I fear it will be too little and too late in the face of larger forces, but this is part of my answer to those I was debating yesterday who criticize Miranda Whelehan and Just Stop Oil for having no vision for a post-oil world. The part of the vision that they’re helping to supply is a new non-state politics of care. And that’s important.
The Indigenous people of Tierra del Fuego were once relegated to historical oblivion. Now, archaeologists are helping them pursue deeper stories about their ancestors.
Standing Rock was a pivotal moment in regards to Indigenous resistance — but it was just one in a long line of battles that Indigenous peoples have been fighting against the twin forces of colonialism and capitalism since first contact.
What would cause a person to separate humans from all other forms of life? It’s illogical to the extreme.
‘Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice’, a new book by Raj Patel and Rupa Marya, is a tour of the human body that reveals the links between our biology and political and economic injustices such as racism, poverty and colonialism.
The capacity of societies to hold spaces for making sense of complex social issues and analyze them from different perspectives is in most countries under attack and dissipating.
If we are to succeed, it seems we need to first come off our high horse. Now: how do we accomplish this feat of psychological counseling on a grand scale?
We find ourselves in the most consequential decade in the history of humanity. The choices we make now will determine what kind of future we’ll have, or whether we will have a future at all.
Politics is the art of the possible, and politics also is the pursuit of goals that are impossible. We can pursue reforms today, knowing them to be inadequate, with revolutionary aims for tomorrow, knowing that the transformation needed will likely come too late.
So how, indeed, can those of us of colonialist heritage and good will do the serious work of deconstructing, then reconstructing and healing our ancestral heritage in our own minds and lives, while sorting out and holding fast to the beliefs, attitudes, practical knowledge and skills that might be useful and beneficial?
The Dawn of Everything was a revelation. The “Everything” from the title may not exactly refer to our past, but it surely may refer to a sweeping revision of how we see ourselves.
