Bissell wrote: "Emma, you define "worthless" as anything you, personally, do
not like. Are
you really *that* sure of yourself?
Nancy asked:"****Steven, if it was a man you were responding to, would you
really question
the self-confidence of the writer?"
Steven replies: You must be new to the list, anyone who has been here for
awhile knows I question everyone and everything. To quote Robert Anton
Wilson, "I do not believe in anything."
Nancy pines further"****In other words, if we recognize ourselves as a
member of the animal
species or even, god forbid, the global ecosystem, we "abdicate our
humanity." Now here's a real example of the lack of self-confidence! Not to
mention a totally pitiful, if not terrifying, "environment ethic.""
Bissell rants: the quote "To say that "I will not be free till all
humans (or sentient creatures) are free" is
simply to cave in to a kind of nirvana-
stupor, to abdicate our humanity, to define
ourselves as losers.
Hakim Bey
The Temporary Autonomous Zone, 1985"
refers to the idea that it is not only not necessary, but probably
impossible, to achieve total freedom. The best we can hope for is to make
our immediate environment as ethically sound as possible. "Think globally,
act locally" is the old saw. I like the quote because it is anti-utopian. I
think utopian thinking has soiled a lot of environmental work.
so there,
sb
http://www.du.edu/~sbissell
What we lost with that wild, primal existence
was a way of being for which the era of
agriculture and civilization lacks counterpoise.
Human life is the poorer for it.
Paul Shepard
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