John Jacobi
Goodreads Author
Member Since
April 2015
URL
https://www.goodreads.com/johnfjacobi
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Black Seed: A Green Anarchist Journal, Issue 5
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Repent to the Primitive
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Meeting The Needs Of Children & Youth In An Urban Community
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“...unlike humanism, ecocentrism includes the suffering of nonhumans into its calculations. For the same reason, ecocentrists can often be outwardly misanthropic. It allows for the utilitarian calculation that, since all suffering is equally bad, and since ending humanity would (according to some progressive ecocentrists) decrease overall suffering, the end of humanity is worth it. This is comparable to saying that killing one person is better than killing five.
But these are only potentials, ones that have been taken, but potentials only nonetheless. Ecocentrism usually does not go hand-in-hand with strict antiindustrial politics or misanthropy. In the main, ecocentrists wish to radically transform society such that it decreases its impact on the natural world and includes the standing of non-humans into its social systems. This does not necessarily mean, say, that animals could sue; only that their interests as wild animals are considered,
perhaps by establishing wilderness areas. To not do
this, to reaffirm only the value of the human, is what ecocentrists call “anthropocentrism.”
The philosophy, however, is inconsistent. Whereas it measures non-human wellbeing by a standard of wildness, it does not do so for human wellbeing. Instead, humans are supposed to reaffirm civility between all human beings, thereby legitimizing the systems and infrastructure that inculcated that civility; and they are supposed to go still further by extending their moral behavior toward non humans, thereby legitimizing new systems and infrastructure. Man as wild animal himself— unconsidered.”
― Repent to the Primitive
But these are only potentials, ones that have been taken, but potentials only nonetheless. Ecocentrism usually does not go hand-in-hand with strict antiindustrial politics or misanthropy. In the main, ecocentrists wish to radically transform society such that it decreases its impact on the natural world and includes the standing of non-humans into its social systems. This does not necessarily mean, say, that animals could sue; only that their interests as wild animals are considered,
perhaps by establishing wilderness areas. To not do
this, to reaffirm only the value of the human, is what ecocentrists call “anthropocentrism.”
The philosophy, however, is inconsistent. Whereas it measures non-human wellbeing by a standard of wildness, it does not do so for human wellbeing. Instead, humans are supposed to reaffirm civility between all human beings, thereby legitimizing the systems and infrastructure that inculcated that civility; and they are supposed to go still further by extending their moral behavior toward non humans, thereby legitimizing new systems and infrastructure. Man as wild animal himself— unconsidered.”
― Repent to the Primitive
“So we must distinguish between mutualism in the natural state of man, which we will call solidarity, with mutualism in the civilized state of man, which we will call civility. Civility must be cultivated from solidarity according to the demands of civilization, and, as civilization gets larger, so does the sphere of moral consideration.”
― Repent to the Primitive
― Repent to the Primitive
“To argue that wilderness protection puts invaluable economic resources on reserve is not actually convincing to the core of the wilderness movement, but it has occasionally been useful to activists seeking to broaden political support. It is a way of striking a deal with individuals who hold values incommensurable with wildness. The same applies to wilderness as a reserve of scientific biological data, a space for recreational activity, or a source of national pride. Again, the arguments are true, politically useful, and should not be abandoned; but they do not illustrate the wilderness ethic.
Wilderness is valuable because it contains the ecological building blocks necessary for nature to run itself. Wilderness is wildness dignified; thus the losses of wilderness are the losses of wildness to an exemplary degree. In the context of wild nature, nature provides the necessary components for survival. Humans do not need to subordinate themselves to large organizations and technical systems in order to exercise their wills. But when humans modify nature, they must keep up the process of perpetual modification, because the rest of the natural system has not evolved to function in that state. Artificial labor must fill in the gaps. For example, without any human intervention, natural processes deal with animal feces. But a toilet requires entire technical systems of human labor, waste disposal, state management, and so forth. The plumbing is convenient, this is true, but at the cost of great overhead, necessary policing, and further modification of nature. A civilization is the same kind of problem magnified a thousandfold.”
― Repent to the Primitive
Wilderness is valuable because it contains the ecological building blocks necessary for nature to run itself. Wilderness is wildness dignified; thus the losses of wilderness are the losses of wildness to an exemplary degree. In the context of wild nature, nature provides the necessary components for survival. Humans do not need to subordinate themselves to large organizations and technical systems in order to exercise their wills. But when humans modify nature, they must keep up the process of perpetual modification, because the rest of the natural system has not evolved to function in that state. Artificial labor must fill in the gaps. For example, without any human intervention, natural processes deal with animal feces. But a toilet requires entire technical systems of human labor, waste disposal, state management, and so forth. The plumbing is convenient, this is true, but at the cost of great overhead, necessary policing, and further modification of nature. A civilization is the same kind of problem magnified a thousandfold.”
― Repent to the Primitive
“Patrick actually used to be popular before Sam bought him some good music.”
― The Perks of Being a Wallflower
― The Perks of Being a Wallflower
“You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.”
―
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.”
―
“to live in this world
you must be able
to do three things
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go”
― New and Selected Poems, Volume One
you must be able
to do three things
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go”
― New and Selected Poems, Volume One
“Guess what? The Nazis didn't lose the war after all. They won it and flourished. They took over the world and wiped out every last Jew, every last Gypsy, black, East Indian, and American Indian. Then, when they were finished with that, they wiped out the Russians and the Poles and the Bohemians and the Moravians and the Bulgarians and the Serbians and the Croatians--all the Slavs. Then they started in on the Polynesians and the Koreans and the Chinese and the Japanese--all the peoples of Asia. This took a long, long time, but when it was all over, everyone in the world was one hundred percent Aryan, and they were all very, very happy. Naturally the textbooks used in the schools no longer mentioned any race but the Aryan or any language but German or any religion but Hitlerism or any political system but National Socialism. There would have been no point. After a few generations of that, no one could have put anything different into the textbooks even if they'd wanted to, because they didn't know anything different. But one day, two young students were conversing at the University of New Heidelberg in Tokyo. Both were handsome in the usual Aryan way, but one of them looked vaguely worried and unhappy. That was Kurt. His friend said, "What's wrong, Kurt? Why are you always moping around like this?" Kurt said, "I'll tell you, Hans. There is something that's troubling me--and troubling me deeply." His friend asked what it was. "It's this," Kurt said. "I cannot shake the crazy feeling that there is some small thing that we're being lied to about." And that's how the paper ended.'
Ishmael nodded thoughtfully. 'And what did your teacher think of that?'
'He wanted to know if I had the same crazy feeling as Kurt. When I said I did, he wanted to know what I thought we were being lied to about. I said, 'How could I know? I'm no better off than Kurt.”
― Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit
Ishmael nodded thoughtfully. 'And what did your teacher think of that?'
'He wanted to know if I had the same crazy feeling as Kurt. When I said I did, he wanted to know what I thought we were being lied to about. I said, 'How could I know? I'm no better off than Kurt.”
― Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit
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