“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


Wednesday, September 13, 2017

Tim Answers an Email

Boy oh boy I answered it about nine months late! I'm so busy...

Anyway I thought you might like these brief answers. Questions are as they appear in the email:

1, In relation to OOO what connections do you think there are with the new ideas that we are now in an Anthropocene Epoch?

Well, we are aware of gigantic entities whose data is obviously different from what they are, which is the basic OOO insight. Things don’t coincide with thing data. It’s just that the hyperobjects (such as climate, biosphere…) are big enough for us to be able to know this intuitively.

2, What is your thinking on land fill ? and how in your opinion does that contribute to this environmental change?

Not much! I haven’t yet. That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t in future.

3, What is your opinion on humans having  a greater connection with materialistic object around them, than they now have with the earth that supports them?

Unfortunately there are some ecological phenomenological chemicals within consumerism. Ecological thought rejects consumerism at its peril. See Dark Ecology.

4, Is it purely down to capitalism, our materialistic wants and the rate at which this is growing that is causing these changes?

No. Neanderthals would have loved coca cola zero and there are soviet carbon emissions, still in effect as I observed in Arctic Russia.

5, what is your opinion on the Gaia theory ?

It’s a form of mechanism in disguise in which trees, humans and bacteria (and everything) become replaceable components of a whole based on all that’s wrong with religion. See my new book Humankind.

6,  How do you think artists and what they use help with drawing attention to the world around them? Do you know of any that are doing this particularly well?

Art does more than that. Art is (from) the future. Art olds open the possibility that things can be different. Gosh there are so many amazing ones I don’t know where to start! I’m working on two hyperobjects exhibitions this year, one in Texas, one in Barcelona.

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