{"id":288,"date":"2013-12-12T10:29:27","date_gmt":"2013-12-12T10:29:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/environmentalfuturesdialogue\/?p=288"},"modified":"2024-10-09T15:43:14","modified_gmt":"2024-10-09T14:43:14","slug":"opening-thoughts-from-a-frustrated-poet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.cardiff.ac.uk\/environmentalfuturesdialogue\/2013\/12\/12\/opening-thoughts-from-a-frustrated-poet\/","title":{"rendered":"Opening thoughts from a Frustrated Poet"},"content":{"rendered":"

Beginning our reflections on the ‘Making Sense of Sustainability’ event last week, John Barry shares his reflections on the events ‘Keywords and Provocations’<\/a>. <\/b><\/p>\n

\n

If we view\/construct the world with these concepts,
\nwhat sort of world are we inhabiting?<\/b><\/p>\n

What concepts are we playing around with or thinking and feeling through and beyond?
\nAnthropocentric arrogance?\u00a0 Respectful detachment?\u00a0 Fearful appropriation?
\nCelebratory breakdown?\u00a0 Transitioning and transformation ?
\nBeing not having? Being not doing?
\nLightening candles rather than cursing the dark?
\nDigging where we stand?<\/p>\n

Home, homesteading
\nBut also the trauma and complications of history, power, pain, oppression etc.
\nOf the construction and reconstruction\/founding and refounding,
\nof ‘home’
\na decolonisation imperative in the case of my home,
\nmy place.<\/p>\n

Describing the world in particular ways
\nis prescribing and bringing that world into being
\nor preventing another world
\nfrom coming into sharper focus.<\/p>\n

A slower, more local, sharing world,
\nbeyond conventional economic growth
\nfrom ‘buildings, banks and boutiques’
\nto ‘libraries, Laundromats and light rail’.<\/p>\n

Beyond\/different to the myth\/imperative of undifferentiated economic growth
\nas a permanent feature of the economy<\/p>\n

A more civic\/political world
\n‘green republicanism’
\nand stress on the common good
\nand the commonwealth,<\/p>\n

a green\/ sustainable republic,
\na republic which includes the more than human?<\/p>\n

A less opaque world
\nreconnecting production and consumption ethically and ecologically…<\/p>\n

A re-politicised, re-ethicised common world
\nwithout politicising and ethicising all life
\na post but not anti-liberal world<\/p>\n

Is this possible to also be a ‘post-metaphysical’ world?<\/p>\n

The art of living in a world of limits.<\/p>\n

\n

What sort of subjects live in it?<\/b><\/p>\n

Human and other
\nmore than human subjects;
\nplurality of subjectivities
\nSensuousness and corporeality<\/p>\n

Affecting and loving,
\ncaring citizens
\nas opposed to or in addition to
\npassive consumers?<\/p>\n

Resilient, knowing and mindful inhabitants,
\n‘denizen’ and ‘dwellers
\nin the bioregional land’,
\nwith cosmopolitan sensibilities<\/p>\n

Survivalists?
\nPost-Apocalyptic humanity;<\/p>\n

Pioneers in new ways of living
\nand being in the world;<\/p>\n

A story-telling humanity,
\na mythic or post-mythic human subject;<\/p>\n

How do we honour and express our ‘storied residence’?<\/p>\n

Embodied and ecologically embedded human subjectivities
\nsustainable and resilient subjectivities;<\/p>\n

Generosity and gratitude
\nreconnecting with one another
\nand the more than human world
\nthrough food and rituals of being grateful.<\/p>\n

Also more public commemoration
\nwithout religious ceremony<\/p>\n

Earthy humour
\nrewilding our language,
\nhumanising relations through humour,
\nsubversive, life-affirming potential of humour,
\ndiffusing tension,
\npricking pomposity,
\nas well as touching on the ways
\nin which humour perhaps is rooted in a positive orientation towards death<\/p>\n

Toughness and tenderness
\n‘holding tender views in tough ways’<\/p>\n

A stress\/return to virtue and character?
\nethics as about character
\nnot or in addition to rights and utilitarian calculation?<\/p>\n

Resilient characters that recognise and respect and acknowledge
\ndeath, suffering, illness
\nas woven parts of the human condition
\nand contributions to a flourishing human life<\/p>\n

To have a ‘good death’ as something to be desired
\nnot avoided….<\/p>\n

\n

What kinds of destinies\/fates are we imagining for this world and its inhabitants?<\/b><\/p>\n

One of open or closed possibilities?<\/p>\n

less unsustainable,
\nless resilient,
\nless possibilities open up<\/p>\n

Hopeful ones in sense of ‘radical hope’<\/p>\n

Digging where we stand,
\nre-inhabiting place,
\ntransforming space into place<\/p>\n

Destinies\/fates
\nsense of lock in,
\nclosed futures<\/p>\n

What does ‘home’ mean
\nfor a species that no longer has or needs a natural niche
\nand is the one species
\n(perhaps with rats and cockroaches)
\nnature did not specialise?<\/p>\n

Imagination and creativity
\nplay,
\nslack
\nand redundancy<\/p>\n

More free time
\nand more labour?<\/p>\n

Knowledge
\nor love of the world?<\/p>\n

Is it true that people cannot bear too much reality?<\/p>\n

An erotic\/life affirming angle at which to stand to the world
\nthe rediscovery that perhaps the great mystery is not death
\nbut life<\/p>\n

Poetry,
\nlife affirmation,
\nimagination and creativity<\/p>\n

at the end of the world as we know it…
\nbut then the end of the world as we know it
\nis not the end of the world.<\/p>\n

“Oh lightening bole, oh quickening glance,
\nwho can tell the dancer from the dance” Yeats<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Beginning our reflections on the ‘Making Sense of Sustainability’ event last week, John Barry shares his reflections on the events ‘Keywords and Provocations’. If we view\/construct the world with these concepts, what sort of world are we inhabiting? What concepts are we playing around with or thinking and feeling through and beyond? Anthropocentric arrogance?\u00a0 Respectful […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2572,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"status","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-status","hentry","category-guest-blogs","post_format-post-format-status"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6mDP6-4E","meta_box":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.cardiff.ac.uk\/environmentalfuturesdialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.cardiff.ac.uk\/environmentalfuturesdialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.cardiff.ac.uk\/environmentalfuturesdialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.cardiff.ac.uk\/environmentalfuturesdialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2572"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.cardiff.ac.uk\/environmentalfuturesdialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.cardiff.ac.uk\/environmentalfuturesdialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":377,"href":"https:\/\/sites.cardiff.ac.uk\/environmentalfuturesdialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288\/revisions\/377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.cardiff.ac.uk\/environmentalfuturesdialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.cardiff.ac.uk\/environmentalfuturesdialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.cardiff.ac.uk\/environmentalfuturesdialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}