Age of Decay?
I have this idea that's not fully formed, but goes like this:
Maybe we're just in an age of especial decay this last century or so, and really, this whole trajectory is not that bad. This is what i mean: Maybe some of the bad things that anti-civ/primitivist people criticize are not inherently the problem, but the problem is the debased form we see now.
Like the Weston A Price folks talk about the benefits of raw dairy. Now, maybe the paleo/vegan arguments against dairy are rooted in the debased dairy of modern industrial society.
Maybe more broadly the idea that fat makes you fat is just symptomatic of hydrogenated fats, and other industrial fats, which are bad for you, and not the same as good, healthful fats like coconut and animal fats,
Also- one of my teachers a year ago discussed the idea that writing was this empowering thing for Frederick Douglass and others in his age, and that literacy was connected to taking action in one's life. Maybe the critique of media is more about the critique of industrial era media that obfuscates, rather than informs. Maybe media does not 'mediate' in the worst senses of the word necessarily.
Same for the critique of language- maybe it's more a critique of the debased and disenchanted language of postmodernism, where everything is reduced to language, and nothing really matters (indoor philosophy stuff), that is worthy of criticism, rather than language inherently.
This seems to go well with the idea of balance and attempts not to overstate one's case, and bend teh stick too far in the other direction.
But the converse is also compelleing, and probably what I tend toward. That maybe the debasement has always been here, and I'm romanticizing the supposed elevated forms of teh past. Maybe Zerzan and others are right when they point out simply that the emptiness of this culture, of this trajectory is finally being laid bare for more of us to see.
Maybe media, as the word implies, does necessarily mediate in the negative sense of distancing us from life. Maybe the means by which it did so were less sophisticated a century or two ago, and thus authenticity existed alongside the abstracted world more fully then, but the basic thrust was toward what we have now from the beginning.
Maybe it's not just the 'Green Revolution,' but agriculture itself which is the catastrophe in teh colloquial as well as biological sense.
Maybe, raw or pasteurized, cow milk is meant for baby cows, not adult humans, and pasteurization just exacerbates its ill-effects.
My own current thinking is somewhere mixed along these gradients, but I wanted to get down some of these ideas that I'm toying with.
Maybe we're just in an age of especial decay this last century or so, and really, this whole trajectory is not that bad. This is what i mean: Maybe some of the bad things that anti-civ/primitivist people criticize are not inherently the problem, but the problem is the debased form we see now.
Like the Weston A Price folks talk about the benefits of raw dairy. Now, maybe the paleo/vegan arguments against dairy are rooted in the debased dairy of modern industrial society.
Maybe more broadly the idea that fat makes you fat is just symptomatic of hydrogenated fats, and other industrial fats, which are bad for you, and not the same as good, healthful fats like coconut and animal fats,
Also- one of my teachers a year ago discussed the idea that writing was this empowering thing for Frederick Douglass and others in his age, and that literacy was connected to taking action in one's life. Maybe the critique of media is more about the critique of industrial era media that obfuscates, rather than informs. Maybe media does not 'mediate' in the worst senses of the word necessarily.
Same for the critique of language- maybe it's more a critique of the debased and disenchanted language of postmodernism, where everything is reduced to language, and nothing really matters (indoor philosophy stuff), that is worthy of criticism, rather than language inherently.
This seems to go well with the idea of balance and attempts not to overstate one's case, and bend teh stick too far in the other direction.
But the converse is also compelleing, and probably what I tend toward. That maybe the debasement has always been here, and I'm romanticizing the supposed elevated forms of teh past. Maybe Zerzan and others are right when they point out simply that the emptiness of this culture, of this trajectory is finally being laid bare for more of us to see.
Maybe media, as the word implies, does necessarily mediate in the negative sense of distancing us from life. Maybe the means by which it did so were less sophisticated a century or two ago, and thus authenticity existed alongside the abstracted world more fully then, but the basic thrust was toward what we have now from the beginning.
Maybe it's not just the 'Green Revolution,' but agriculture itself which is the catastrophe in teh colloquial as well as biological sense.
Maybe, raw or pasteurized, cow milk is meant for baby cows, not adult humans, and pasteurization just exacerbates its ill-effects.
My own current thinking is somewhere mixed along these gradients, but I wanted to get down some of these ideas that I'm toying with.
7 Comments:
Maybe some of the bad things that anti-civ/primitivist people criticize are not inherently the problem, but the problem is the debased form we see now.
I'm very skeptical of anything being inherently "wrong". It's all about context. As you said, pasteurised homogenised dairy is a long way away from raw dairy. Modern language is pretty different from it's original integrated form.
I'd identify as largely anti-civ, but I just see that as being aware of a larger context of life and human existence. It's about understanding that there is a lot we have forgotten, and that maybe all this stuff we've forgotten was really important to us.
Everything seems to have just been abused. It's the consequence of putting everything in terms of bad and good, or put another way, looking at everything through Aristotelean logic, and then pursuing what's good, and shunning what's bad. Life just doesn't work like that!
My current interest is how our binary logic affects how we can communicate all of this. We see that the world is characterised by change, and yet our language operates in a way that is nearly the opposite of this. This Robert Anton Wilson essay on E-prime (which I think is AWESOME) is a really great introduction to some really deep ideas that are shaping my thinking at the moment.
when one of the central problems is a mindset that refuses to awknowledge limits and a culture so far removed from the real world....the decay really is hard to pin down.
Activists are so fragmented, it's also hard enough to build coalitions without squabbling over ultimately insignificant details.
"there is a lot we have forgotten, and that maybe all this stuff we've forgotten was really important to us."
I really like this point, Dan. I supect it's very true.
That's a curious line of thought, that Aristotelean logic is a big factor in our abuse of things. Not curious in a bad way- I just hadn't considere dit before and am interested to know more at some point.
Maybe I'll check out that WIlson essay and pursue it a bit. In any event, good luck following this through!
kyle,
Thanks for stopping by! I agree that we refuse to acknowledge limits; it's even built into some of our most highly touted ideals. "You can do anything you want, be anything you want.' And there are some good elements to this, especially as a reaction to a very oppressive reality. But in another sense, it ignores the fact of our finite planet, and its laws. Those laws, also, don't need to have the negative connotation that they might have to anarchist-minded folks- they exist to facilitate life, not to oppress our liberty.
In any event- good point, and thanks for stopping by!
Interesting post.
You wrote: "Same for the critique of language- maybe it's more a critique of the debased and disenchanted language of postmodernism, where everything is reduced to language, and nothing really matters (indoor philosophy stuff), that is worthy of criticism, rather than language inherently."
I'm sure you're probably familiar with David Abram's work, but I thought I would mention it just in case you were not. He really has an interesting perpective on the effects that language has had on us in his book "The Spell of the Sensuous."
Here is an essay by him:
http://www.aislingmagazine.com/aislingmagazine/articles/TAM31/DavidAbram.html
Hi Curt,
Thanks for stopping by! I am acquainted with David Abrams, principally through Jason's great, long post about 'In The Spell of the Sensuous' at Anthropik.
I really like that he answers Zerzan's critique of language in terms that give credence to some of the latter's strong points, but also reconciles language more broadly with indigenousness.
And thanks for the essay link. Will look into it!
the verb 'to be' seems to be the only verb worth being... eliminating now-ness is a negation of intake... just a thought on E-prime. (of which i only read the first four words so don't consider it a comprehensive critique)
Mr. Arch Angel, the expanse of your lens is widening... this is enjoyable... let the illumnation flow in ~ we need not plug up the leaks ~ taste em, swim through them -
language (phonetics are musicals... in a buddhist sense, we all derive from the syllable ohm) the sound of creation... thus i agree... it is not that this tool is useless simply overused...
vegan/dairyrejection of mains source consumption/evolution/
context/diatemtric/dualities
logic is its own box... think outside the... how does that go?
yes yes yes affirm embrace supply!!!
hypertrophy modernism/suffocates individualism through heightening its modality but furthering its connection from source earth***
medium - mediates - immediate
flesh,
you speak poetry. bits and pieces filter through, more to come later.
1luv
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