The Ecology of Freedom

[Lou Gold]

Oh Divine namers, the one Being and the infinitude of Beings, all inter-being, are not two ... know thyself, and the other, by your true eternal name, the ever-present origin.

Yes, indeed, but naming it may not be highly recommended.

[ParadoxZone]

Hi Lou,

I'm really enjoying this thread and learning a lot from it. If the below is simply a repetition, apologies from me too. It might be a useful rewording.

Thus, I find the so-called tentative approach of 'way-searching' potentially more useful than a possibly more fundamental 'truth seeking' but what do I know?

Is a both/and approach appropriate here too? In other words, if truth can be ascertained more precisely, might the tentative way-searching be improved or sped up when fundamental truth(s) are more accurately arrived at? (I think we might all agree that something needs to be sped up.)

In other words, if truth can be better approached and more widely understood, wouldn't that, in itself, allow for fundamental rules/ethics/organisational structures to become established. Whichever way is preferred, some evidence needs to be firmly grounded and understood.

This comment is, in part, also motivated by an answer to a question that was answered fairly recently (after some prompting) about what "we" should or should not do about indigenous cultures. I wasn't entirely satisfied with that answer and am beginning to understand why.

[Lou Gold]

Hi Lou,

I'm really enjoying this thread and learning a lot from it. If the below is simply a repetition, apologies from me too. It might be a useful rewording.

Thus, I find the so-called tentative approach of 'way-searching' potentially more useful than a possibly more fundamental 'truth seeking' but what do I know?

Is a both/and approach appropriate here too? In other words, if truth can be ascertained more precisely, might the tentative way-searching be improved or sped up when fundamental truth(s) are more accurately arrived at? (I think we might all agree that something needs to be sped up.)

In other words, if truth can be better approached and more widely understood, wouldn't that, in itself, allow for fundamental rules/ethics/organisational structures to become established. Whichever way is preferred, some evidence needs to be firmly grounded and understood.

This comment is, in part, also motivated by an answer to a question that was answered fairly recently (after some prompting) about what "we" should or should not do about indigenous cultures. I wasn't entirely satisfied with that answer and am beginning to understand why.

Is a both/and approach appropriate here too? In other words, if truth can be ascertained more precisely, might the tentative way-searching be improved or sped up when fundamental truth(s) are more accurately arrived at? (I think we might all agree that something needs to be sped up.)

YES INDEED if if one understands 'way finding' as a polar opposite of 'truth seeking" and CERTAINLY NOT if one understands 'way finding' as an auspicious arrival at an interdependent co-arising as when the student and teacher meet to create each other or when one stumbles upon a combination of 'might' and 'right' that works. Often 'not knowing' is the door to discovering these new meetings. But a BIG YES that our language often traps us in duality and yields the aphorism that "The spoken tao is not the Eternal Tao." Perhaps what we can seek is a tentative balance in a never-ending process? I guess the bottom-line for me is that neither a fundamental ontic or a singular hierarchical ascent is a certainty and both should be held with an open-minded skepticism.

This comment is, in part, also motivated by an answer to a question that was answered fairly recently (after some prompting) about what "we" should or should not do about indigenous cultures. I wasn't entirely satisfied with that answer and am beginning to understand why.

'Indigenous' means "originating or occurring naturally in a particular place." Nature, in an effort to prepare for change and uncertainty, constantly pushes for diversity, which is why we must use 'weed killers' to maintain broadcast crop monocultures. Alternately, the best way to tend a garden always depends on the place where one gardens.

So, how might 'wayfinding' be applied, how might one mix cultivated and wild and diversity?

I once read about indigenous potato cultivation in the Andes where there can often be unseasonal shifts in the climate which are hard to predict. The strategy was to plant vertical plots on the mountain slope, one of the selected cultivars and the next left to wild varieties, alternating across the slope. In the case of damaging unseasonal weather like an early frost there would be still be some wild varieties that survived, provided food and new cultivars and across time this could keep changing in an ongoing adaptive process. This is what I would call 'wayfinding' and it also reveals a 'fundamental truth' of change in dynamic systems.

The author of the 'American Land Ethic' Aldo Leopold famously noted, "The first rule of intelligent tinkering is to save the pieces." I think what he says about plants and critters also applies to human cultures. You can check out his rich collection of quotes here.

[ParadoxZone]

YES INDEED if if one understands 'way finding' as a polar opposite of 'truth seeking" and CERTAINLY NOT if one understands 'way finding' as an auspicious arrival at an interdependent co-arising as when the student and teacher meet to create each other or when one stumbles upon a combination of 'might' and 'right' that works. Often 'not knowing' is the door to discovering these new meetings. But a BIG YES that our language often traps us in duality and yields the aphorism that "The spoken tao is not the Eternal Tao." Perhaps what we can seek is a tentative balance in a never-ending process? I guess the bottom-line for me is that neither a fundamental ontic or a singular hierarchical ascent is a certainty and both should be held with an open-minded skepticism.

Thanks for the response Lou. We seem to share so many perspectives that I only feel the need to quibble mildly.

Isn't there a bit from from Lao Tzu also about the mistake of believing that there isn't a fundamental truth? Is there something about the long march needing to come to some conclusion(s)? I'm working from memory here.

In other words, does the way-finding, while still tentative and needing confirmation, need to speed up? (While bearing in mind that there will be points where standing under the "mysteriousness" is appropriate too - I'm just calling that faith).)

[Lou Gold]

YES INDEED if if one understands 'way finding' as a polar opposite of 'truth seeking" and CERTAINLY NOT if one understands 'way finding' as an auspicious arrival at an interdependent co-arising as when the student and teacher meet to create each other or when one stumbles upon a combination of 'might' and 'right' that works. Often 'not knowing' is the door to discovering these new meetings. But a BIG YES that our language often traps us in duality and yields the aphorism that "The spoken tao is not the Eternal Tao." Perhaps what we can seek is a tentative balance in a never-ending process? I guess the bottom-line for me is that neither a fundamental ontic or a singular hierarchical ascent is a certainty and both should be held with an open-minded skepticism.

Thanks for the response Lou. We seem to share so many perspectives that I only feel the need to quibble mildly.

Isn't there a bit from from Lao Tzu also about the mistake of believing that there isn't a fundamental truth? Is there something about the long march needing to come to some conclusion(s)? I'm working from memory here.

In other words, does the way-finding, while still tentative and needing confirmation, need to speed up? (While bearing in mind that there will be points where standing under the "mysteriousness" is appropriate too - I'm just calling that faith).)

Hi PZ,

I can't say that I recall a Lao Tzu saying like you suggest but I do recall an old hippie telling me, "There are no rules, including this one."

Slow/fast like empty/full (etc/etc) is the inevitable dualist dilemma, which does not make it wrong. It's just the balance-seeking, wayfinding search encountered in the manifest world and it's not an error to seek improvement. The widespread spiritual counsel is to serve the 'flow' or tao with a great humility. The reality is that atrocities can be committed by those convinced they are doing good. A clear silent inaction may be the best prelude to action. Perhaps this is why our bodies often take a deep breath as a first reaction to crisis.

In other words, does the way-finding, while still tentative and needing confirmation, need to speed up?

Surely we are in the crisis of rapid change, perhaps a great initiation where danger and opportunity meet and both angels and demons fly feely. The whole process of way-finding has already speeded up. As the playing field changes, participation is less and less a choice. My belief is that expanded awareness can help make us better participants. It starts with being calm and clear, and, yes, that's my faith. By giving our aware participation we will receive feedback about what tentatively works in an ongoing process. I think the learning is about collective caring and sharing, which is no small task for those trained to think of power and survival in terms that are smaller than the new playing field.

A hymn says, "I am not God but I have an aspiration."

[Soul_of_Shu]

Here's an intriguing review of "The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity" by David Graeber and David Wengrow

FYI, Mark Vernon's review and critique of The Dawn of Everything ...

[Jim Cross]

Graeber and Wengrow want to point to the time of the encounter of Western "civilization" with the indigenous. However, by that point in time, almost the entire world, including the New World, was inhabited by agriculturalists and much of the world was under control of states in one form or another.

Most people know of the Aztecs, the Mayas, and the Incas which were large state civilizations. But much the same existed in the North America.

See Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippian_culture

Take a look at characteristics of the Mississippian culture.

A number of cultural traits are recognized as being characteristic of the Mississippians. Although not all Mississippian peoples practiced all of the following activities, they were distinct from their ancestors in the adoption of some or all of these traits.

1-The construction of large, truncated earthwork pyramid mounds, or platform mounds. Such mounds were usually square, rectangular, or occasionally circular. Structures (domestic houses, temples, burial buildings, or other) were usually constructed atop such mounds.
2- Maize-based agriculture. In most places, the development of Mississippian culture coincided with the adoption of comparatively large-scale, intensive maize agriculture, which supported larger populations and craft specialization.
3-Shell-tempered pottery. The adoption and use of riverine (or more rarely marine) shells as tempering agents in ceramics.
4-Widespread trade networks extending as far west as the Rocky Mountains, north to the Great Lakes, south to the Gulf of Mexico, and east to the Atlantic Ocean.
5-The development of the chiefdom or complex chiefdom level of social complexity.
6-The development of institutionalized social inequality.
7-A centralization of control of combined political and religious power in the hands of few or one.
8-The beginnings of a settlement hierarchy, in which one major center (with mounds) has clear influence or control over a number of lesser communities, which may or may not possess a smaller number of mounds.
9-The adoption of the paraphernalia of the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex (SECC), also called the Southern Cult. This is the belief system of the Mississippians as we know it. SECC items are found in Mississippian-culture sites from Wisconsin (see Aztalan State Park) to the Gulf Coast, and from Florida to Arkansas and Oklahoma. The SECC was frequently tied into ritual game-playing, as with chunkey.[/list]

[Lou Gold]

Graeber and Wengrow want to point to the time of the encounter of Western "civilization" with the indigenous. However, by that point in time, almost the entire world, including the New World, was inhabited by agriculturalists and much of the world was under control of states in one form or another.

Most people know of the Aztecs, the Mayas, and the Incas which were large state civilizations. But much the same existed in the North America.

See Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippian_culture

Jim.

You are presenting the consensual view that G&W are challenging. They are not asserting that 'indigenous' means without or prior to agriculture or states. They are asserting that agriculture did not compel a single form of state to develop and that there was a great diversity prior to the dominance of the European Conquest with its model. They are challenging the consensual anthropological view of the inevitability of one form and echoed by Diamond and Harari. OF COURSE this is the consensual view represented by Wikipedia that G&W aim to challenge with conflicting evidence. To evaluate their case one would have to read the book, consider what they present and not just reiterate the consensual view of Wikipedia.

[Jim Cross]

Lou,

I have ordered the book but it is on pre-order so it isn't even available yet. So these few reviews are from prepublication copies.

The problem is that the view Graeber and Wengrow are attacking is NOT the consensual contemporary anthropological view. Sometimes to my own frustration anthropology consistently has pointed to the uniqueness of circumstances and cultures and has been loathe to find commonalities across cultures. Nobody in contemporary anthology ascribes to some fixed set of stages from hunter-gatherer to modern state.

Of course, there are unique circumstances and variabilities as well as commonalities.

Everywhere we look in the world where we have found large populations we have found some form hierarchical organization with inequality. In almost all cases, these political units have been also been expansionistic.

Go around the world.

1- Middle East,- Egypt, Babylonia, the Greek and Roman empires, the Persian Empire
2- India - Rajahs and Sultans
3- China - the Chinese Empire and Dynasties
4- Southeast Asia - Khmer empire
5- North America - Mississippian culture
6- Mesoamerica - Olmec, Maya, Aztec
7- South America - Inca (we don't know much about Amazonia)

Nobody is saying that these diverse cultures were the same or followed the same trajectory but there are commonalities between them.

Can you point to a single place where you have a large population and no hierarchical organization?

You can probably find cultures on the cusp that may have preserved some degree of equality and eschewed hierarchy.

The question for Graeber and Wengrow would be how and why is it that such similar forms of organization come about almost everywhere?

Unless they can explain that, then trying to find a different future by looking to the past is going to be problematic.

[Jim Cross]

Lou,

One other thing. I'm fairly sympathetic to Graeber's direction. I just don't see how reinventing a past with so many counter examples to his argument helps. I think it would be better to understand how and why hierarchical societies emerge rather than arguing there were some exceptions to them. The best the exceptions do as to make it possible to envision something different. But the exceptions don't tell us how to get there.

I think that is going to come down to technology and, if there is to be a better future, I think that will come down to technology too. Dynamics could change significantly with:

1- Reduced population
2- Medical advances
3- Freedom from scarcity
4- Planetary worldview