Hunter-gatherers were the original affluent society

[JustinG]

Yes! Also, several hunter-gatherer societies would reshape the land through the controlled use of fire so it would grow food better. In Australia, for instance, European settlers were amazed at how lush the landscape was because they thought it got that way without any human intervention, because the natives were "lazy" and they didn't have any sophisticated technology that the Europeans would've recognized as such. Rather than struggling against the land, the Indigenous people drew out its natural potentials so that life as a whole could thrive there.

I don't know that burning out a region is exactly drawing out the land's natural potential. And one of the reasons was to make hunting easier. Some think it may have had a role in the extinction of megafauna by changing the types of plants.

Here's an example of how this can work https://www.klc.org.au/indigenous-fire-management:

"Indigenous fire management involves the lighting of ‘cool’ fires in targeted areas during the early dry season between March and July. The fires burn slowly, reducing fuel loads and creating fire breaks. Not all the area is burnt, with the end result a mosaic of burnt and unburnt country.

Aboriginal people in the Kimberley have been undertaking traditional fire management for thousands of years. However, with the onset of colonisation and the removal of Aboriginal people from traditional lands, traditional burning was largely stopped during the twentieth century. This led to the emergence of large, uncontrolled wildfires, usually occurring late in the dry season and destroying important ecosystems and habitats."

[Soul_of_Shu]

Sorry, but the primarily metaphysical focus of this is what again?

[Lou Gold]

Sorry, but the primarily metaphysical focus of this is what again?

That cultural belief rather than actual material circumstance is more important for determining behavior. I take this as evidence of the power of the idea or mind-over-matter.

[JustinG]

Sorry, but the primarily metaphysical focus of this is what again?

That cultural belief rather than actual material circumstance is more important for determining behavior. I take this as evidence of the power of the idea or mind-over-matter.

From another angle, the notion that materiality and earthly concerns are irrelevant to metaphysics can be seen as itself a result of a dualistic mind-matter binary which privileges mind over 'matter'. If matter is mind, then matters about matter matter.

As a side note, overcoming binaries such as human/non-human and nature/culture is part of the focus of so-called "New materialism", (https://globalsocialtheory.org/topics/new-materialism/) which is a form of vitalistic materialism that is very trendy in universities at the moment.

[DandelionSoul]

Yes! Also, several hunter-gatherer societies would reshape the land through the controlled use of fire so it would grow food better. In Australia, for instance, European settlers were amazed at how lush the landscape was because they thought it got that way without any human intervention, because the natives were "lazy" and they didn't have any sophisticated technology that the Europeans would've recognized as such. Rather than struggling against the land, the Indigenous people drew out its natural potentials so that life as a whole could thrive there.

I don't know that burning out a region is exactly drawing out the land's natural potential. And one of the reasons was to make hunting easier. Some think it may have had a role in the extinction of megafauna by changing the types of plants.

Here's an example of how this can work https://www.klc.org.au/indigenous-fire-management:

"Indigenous fire management involves the lighting of ‘cool’ fires in targeted areas during the early dry season between March and July. The fires burn slowly, reducing fuel loads and creating fire breaks. Not all the area is burnt, with the end result a mosaic of burnt and unburnt country.

Aboriginal people in the Kimberley have been undertaking traditional fire management for thousands of years. However, with the onset of colonisation and the removal of Aboriginal people from traditional lands, traditional burning was largely stopped during the twentieth century. This led to the emergence of large, uncontrolled wildfires, usually occurring late in the dry season and destroying important ecosystems and habitats."

Yes, exactly. Burning, not burning out. It's a practice among certain Indigenous groups in the US, too: https://www.npr.org/2020/08/24/89942271 ... -all-along.

[DandelionSoul]

From another angle, the notion that materiality and earthly concerns are irrelevant to metaphysics can be seen as itself a result of a dualistic mind-matter binary which privileges mind over 'matter'. If matter is mind, then matters about matter matter.

As a side note, overcoming binaries such as human/non-human and nature/culture is part of the focus of so-called "New materialism", (https://globalsocialtheory.org/topics/new-materialism/) which is a form of vitalistic materialism that is very trendy in universities at the moment.

New Materialist work is really fascinating. I haven't yet been able to sink my teeth into much of it, but I'd like to. I've kinda been poking at Deleuze recently and his ontology, and I'm finding it gripping, but I'm having to come at it a little sideways 'cause I find the key texts themselves difficult to wrap my head around.

[JustinG]

Yeah Deleuze is a hard read and so I have never made the effort to get my head around his work either (but I liked Claire Colebrook's introductory book about him).

As far as I can see, new materialism doesn't seem to emphasize subjectivity or consciousness all that much, focusing more on the 'agency' and 'vitality' of matter, so I have more interest in panpsychism and idealism. Panpsychism is said to have some affinities with new materialism, but I think there are more affinities between panpsychism and idealism.

[SanteriSatama]

New Materialist work is really fascinating. I haven't yet been able to sink my teeth into much of it, but I'd like to. I've kinda been poking at Deleuze recently and his ontology, and I'm finding it gripping, but I'm having to come at it a little sideways 'cause I find the key texts themselves difficult to wrap my head around.

I checked the wiki on Deleuze. The ontological primacy of differences to identities seems very similar (in it's unique difference!) to Buddhist philosophy of anatman.

French philosophers talk mainly to each other in their own tradition of philosophical jargon, which can be pretty dense. But not less so than the jargon of analytical philosophy, etc.

[Soul_of_Shu]

Sorry, but the primarily metaphysical focus of this is what again?

That cultural belief rather than actual material circumstance is more important for determining behavior. I take this as evidence of the power of the idea or mind-over-matter.

From another angle, the notion that materiality and earthly concerns are irrelevant to metaphysics can be seen as itself a result of a dualistic mind-matter binary which privileges mind over 'matter'. If matter is mind, then matters about matter matter.

As a side note, overcoming binaries such as human/non-human and nature/culture is part of the focus of so-called "New materialism", (https://globalsocialtheory.org/topics/new-materialism/) which is a form of vitalistic materialism that is very trendy in universities at the moment.

Oh, now I get why the pros and cons of controlled bush fire management are relevant to the discussion

[DandelionSoul]

New Materialist work is really fascinating. I haven't yet been able to sink my teeth into much of it, but I'd like to. I've kinda been poking at Deleuze recently and his ontology, and I'm finding it gripping, but I'm having to come at it a little sideways 'cause I find the key texts themselves difficult to wrap my head around.

I checked the wiki on Deleuze. The ontological primacy of differences to identities seems very similar (in it's unique difference!) to Buddhist philosophy of anatman.

I thought the same thing when I was reading some overviews of him. I know he also drew heavily on Whitehead (although I'm starting to think everyone interesting since Whitehead has drawn on Whitehead).

French philosophers talk mainly to each other in their own tradition of philosophical jargon, which can be pretty dense. But not less so than the jargon of analytical philosophy, etc.

You aren't wrong, and Deleuze is a special case even among French philosophers. Nevertheless, the little bit of his thought I've been able to grasp -- the rhizome, the virtual, difference, desire -- I've found gripping. So far, I'm finding a lot of my intuitions reflected in his thought, and I'm hoping to read A Thousand Plateaus and Difference and Repetition myself at some point, but I feel like I need to have grappled at a much deeper level than I have so far with a lot of the philosophical traditions he himself is engaging with: Freud/Lacan, Derrida, Whitehead, Spinoza.