In Response to David Brooks' Column in the New York Times

I am sorry, but I have lost patience with any discussion of the world that does not include the condition of nonhuman entities, including inanimate phenomena and systems. By that token, however, I completely agree: the 21st century is broken, but so was the 20th, and the 19th and perhaps the 18th, if not also earlier eras.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/21/opinion/this-century-is-broken.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-right-region&region=opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region&_r=0

In Response to Paul Krugman's Column in the New York Times

From a standard progressive perspective, I agree with this criticism of the Republican leadership's take on the economy. From a deep ecology perspective, however, I do not see much difference between what the right and left are proposing with regard to the direction that civilization should take. Indeed, since the advent of the Industrial Revolution, even since the invention of agriculture if you want to really identify the roots of the problem (no pun intended), human beings have exerted a disproportionate and malignant force on the Earth, its nonhuman inhabitants, and its systems. Quibbling about relatively small differences in how the human economy should be run really misses the larger point, which is that human behavior has to be radically changed in such a way as to restore life on Earth to a more mutual state of health for everyone and every thing.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/20/opinion/on-economic-arrogance.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region&region=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region

Animism

What can I say? Indigenous people had and continue to have the right idea. If you live your life as if everything has a spirit, you will lead a naturally sustainable and ethical life. I could say more, but I doubt intense philosophizing, if I can call it that, would make the point any clearer. In fact, I think that kind of rhetoric just makes things more confusing. There are numerous ways to do this, and just as many constraints, but I see it as the only solution to the toxic levels of industrialization that have made our form of civilization so fraught with problems. Where I differ from the deep ecologists is that I think, or accept, that the reconciliation of this inherent conflict is possible, at least in a representational sense, but still satisfactorily, through art. Beauty will save you . . . us?

The Wisdom of Jainism

I am increasingly becoming an admirer of Jainism. This religion/philosophy is at once ancient and modern, the exact prescription for what ails us, in my opinion. As with mainstream Hindu beliefs, the core principle is nonviolence. The aspect of this tenet that interests me most with respect to plants relates to diet. As I described briefly before, the main value lies in eliminating harm, so one may eat a part of a plant (a fruit, say) but not the whole thing (for example, a carrot), because doing the latter would entail killing the entire plant, an outcome that is not a consequence of the preceding scenario. Uprooting a plant would also harm animals clustered around its roots or lodged in its leaves and stems, so there is an ecological aspect to the practice as well. By similar logic, one cannot drink wine or beer, or any fermented thing, because to do so would require killing the beings that live in the product, those that are responsible for the fermentation. Even water is filtered, to remove any little creatures resident therein. Traditionally, one drew water from a well, filtered it through a cloth, and then rinsed the cloth with some of the filtered water back into the well, so as to return the creatures to their original home. Needless to say I find Jainism to be enormously appealing, not only for its direct effects but also for the mindfulness that such careful daily practice must cultivate.

I suppose I could argue that the bacteria in the yoghurt I eat would just reestablish themselves elsewhere in either the ecology of my body or that of a larger scale environment. Or, I could take what I believe is a Buddhist approach, and view life as an energy that is resident in a being and therefore, like all energy, capable of being neither created nor destroyed, rather just temporarily present. But from an ontological perspective, this latter view does not rest easy with me. Where life is instantiated in a being, it is the being that matters, not the life: the particular form takes precedence over the abstracted essence, in other words. I find that this approach is much more conducive to mindfulness, as it would lead one to understand that one is eating this onion, this fish, this cow (God forbid), rather than an onion, a fish, a cow. General principles are fine, but I think it is safer to pay attention to what lies immediately in front of you.