Everyone's favorite Slovenian philsopher, Slavoj Žižek, discussing his provocative perspective on nature, ecology, biotechnology, and climate change while dumpster diving:
via Immanent Discursivity (thanks Nick!)
- Log in to post comments
More like this
Something about climate change makes people want to argue. Take Greenland, for instance. A few weeks ago, I posted a photo essay about the recent acceleration of melting in the Greenland Ice Sheet. Not only is the entry is still getting comments, but it also spurred a discussion on a political…
KK tweets My latest @ISSUESinST feature just went online. It covers some sensitive issues in ecology & climate spheres. It's kinda standard fodder, headlined "The Science Police" in order to wind you up, like The Fail, bylined On highly charged issues, such as climate change and endangered…
Carl Safina is in some ways a modern Rachel Carson, an ecologist who writes excellent stuff about ecology. The View from Lazy Point: A Natural Year in an Unnatural World is his latest work. I saw him recently at the Gustavus Nobel conference where he gave this talk (the actual talk starts at…
Next week on Thursday, June 25 I will be visiting one of my favorite cities Madison, Wisconsin to give a lecture titled "What's Next for Science Communication?" It's part of a summer speaker series sponsored by the Dept. of Life Sciences Communication and the Holtz Center on Science and…
an interesting beginning to an argument. would be good to see it fleshed out a little..
Thanks!
I see his point about the "disavowing" aspect of the "we are part of nature" philosophy.
However, the fact remains: we are part of nature. The shift needs to be that we act on the responsibility that implies instead of using the same that fact to justify a resigned march straight into catastrophe.
For example: an alcoholic may say "I drink because I can. If God wanted me to not drink, he would have given me a body that cannot desire alcohol." The first sentence is true, the second sentence (conclusion) is full of faulty logic.
The better response is to realize that if you drink because you can, you can also stop drinking because you can.
To many people I have suggested that in order to appreciate your full divinity, you must fully accept yourself as an animal. This goes directly against thousands of years of enculturation that teaches us our divinity lies in the idea that we are separate from the animal kingdom, while in fact, no science supports such a conclusion.
So while it is true that we are part of nature, the correct response is to accept the responsibility that implies, while the incorrect response is to use it as a disavowing-type argument.