tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1438289051411770399.post4913751296241963135..comments2024-03-25T08:59:38.714-06:00Comments on ECOLOGY WITHOUT NATURE: "It Was a Hippie Thing"Timothy Mortonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05067377804366363020noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1438289051411770399.post-14662303109025633082014-01-11T07:43:59.776-06:002014-01-11T07:43:59.776-06:00It's worth remembering that a lot of the hippi...It's worth remembering that a lot of the hippies were turned into Republicans by Reagan because 'freedom.' The techno-utopian libertarian wing is a legacy of that. A lot of the hippy-left were, in the end, more concerned with abstract concepts of liberty than with any kind of equality or communality. At least that's how it turned out when they got older. That way you get to wear sandals to work and have a roof over your head, I guess.<br /><br />A side-note: the vortex slippage has led to extremely mild weather in Scandinavia, with bears coming out of hibernation and all sorts.Philiphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07389851669048668357noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1438289051411770399.post-85070669095772636112014-01-08T12:50:04.519-06:002014-01-08T12:50:04.519-06:00Hippies weren't into GDP and growth. The left ...Hippies weren't into GDP and growth. The left couldn't get traction against the right without an economic growth story. Hippies were dropping out of that story-- but gender, race and class all can be easily written in to the story. You just need to focus on equality and opportunity within a consensus on growth.<br /><br />In place of the 'hippie' discourse on ecology is a growth and technology discourse. The ecology problem can be solved by pressing harder on the gas pedal. An as yet undiscovered technical solution will emerge from more intensive effort and investment. <br /><br />There are some remnants of the hippie train of thought in things like the <a href="http://www.notechmagazine.com/2013/12/low-tech-publications.html" rel="nofollow">Journal for Humanitarian Engineering</a> and, of course, E.F. Schumaker's <a href="http://neweconomy.net/buddhist-economics/" rel="nofollow">Buddhist Economics</a>. The children of hippies rarely became hippies. There's a generational rebellion that makes the children of the 50s corporate class become hippies and the children of hippies become the new corporate class. It's the next generation -- maybe it's this generation of children -- that will rebel against the corporate growth story. cgerrishhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03564937504464647689noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1438289051411770399.post-7579274476554808452014-01-08T10:46:03.710-06:002014-01-08T10:46:03.710-06:00Is "hippie thing" about style? Or about ...Is "hippie thing" about style? Or about stuff?<br /><br />So often the New Left seems to focus on gender, or race, or class in terms of stuff--why some people don't have have More. The New Left is a Cult of More. A left environmentalism might ask why some people don't have less--but even that is in tension with the ecology of More, as demonstrated by the increased focus on ecosystem services and ecological engineering in professional ecologist communities. For the most part it seems that the both the New Left and the community of professional ecologists have drunk the cool-aid of More.<br /><br />So, when I hear someone form the New Left Review say that the environment was a "hippie thing" I take it as an expression of incommensurability between the Cult of More and the existence of ecological limits.Ted M.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14533609926252521322noreply@blogger.com