“Was not their mistake once more bred of the life of slavery that they had been living?—a life which was always looking upon everything, except mankind, animate and inanimate—‘nature,’ as people used to call it—as one thing, and mankind as another, it was natural to people thinking in this way, that they should try to make ‘nature’ their slave, since they thought ‘nature’ was something outside them” — William Morris
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"I don't see deanthropocentrizing the human as a "leveling" out or "bringing down" the human to the level of objects, but rather as the opposite: bringing all objects up to an equal level of value and importance, a place that the human *used* to occupy alone"
This was my take when first reading Harman and you. You have helped me develop a greater respect for the objects around me. I wonder if the criticism of nihilism stems from underlying low self-esteem or a latent fear of the reality of our place in the scheme of things. A flat ontology leads to humility and respect for others.
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