Illich wrote in Tools for C.: that if you travel faster than by mule or a third world bus, you cannot possibly take your soul along with you. But you know this.
Mar 5, 2023·edited Mar 5, 2023Liked by Dougald Hine
I'm researching for the writing of my own first book. The book is on the topic of knowing (usually called 'knowledge' -- the noun rather than the verb). I'm interested in the verb -- in knowing as a process in which we're at any moment in its present moment. The moment passes, it moves on... or does it? Do we let it move on fully as needed? Anyway, I'm exploring knowing in relation to thinking, feeling, sensing, intuiting and imagining -- and how to go about wedding these to one another so they work together in harmony. This, I think, would bring about another world! Or it could.
Anyway, while researching, Dear Dougald, I chanced upon this quote which resonates with your writing and thinking, feeling, sensing, intuiting and imagining.
*****
“Our age,” says Kierkegaard, “will remind one of the dissolution of the Greek city-state: everything goes on as usual, and yet there is no longer anyone who believes in it. The invisible spiritual bond which gave it validity no longer exists, and so the whole age is at once comic and tragic—tragic because it is perishing, comic because it goes on.” 2 Beckett’s works, at once tragic and comic in just this sense, are indeed works of and for our time.”
― David Michael Kleinberg-Levin, Beckett's Words: The Promise of Happiness in a Time of Mourning
“In the clearing, world and earth are in interaction: earth is the ground on which the world is built, and world is that within which the earth is given its meaning as grounding. Earth and world are in incessant, endless strife, the earth ever reclaiming for itself, reducing to earth, what the world builds upon it, whereas the world struggles with the earth, and against the earth, to make it serve human purposes. But it is only in the world that the earth receives meaning; and it is only in relation to the earth that we can fully understand not only the fragility and power of our world but also the frightening vulnerability of our grounding and building on the earth—and can harvest some meaning in our fated mortality.”
― David Kleinberg-Levin, Heidegger's Phenomenology of Perception: An Introduction
So sorry for misinterpreting. Please forgive. To pause, reflect then to act . We all know our present path is the path toward extention. Let's hope our collective individual actions redirect this path toward a livable future.
Hi, just finished reading your book. Thanks. Seeing clearly is, I think (actually, I might have nicked this from Ruskin), one of the more difficult things to do, and to communicate what is seen is just as hard. I just hope there's more Palestinian chicken in me than Israeli.
Also, maybe "travelling without moving" (nicked from Dune) creates the soul-sickness.
Thank you Dougald, this call to humility is such the antithesis of the new modernity that constantly declares that, “you can have it all” while ignoring the blaring signs that we have reached the absolute limits of our planet’s carrying capacity. I am also applauding your decision to humbly, slow you body down right now so that you can recalibrate your personal carrying capacity. Good walks, rest, soup, and bread; all restorative medicine. Thank you for this reminder and for At Work Among the Ruins, both are helping me stay resilient and resolved.
So by the time I leave Vietnam maybe my soul will have got as far as your place. In a jetlagged half-awake state last night I was imagining reading a quote from the dust jacket of your next book: "Reading [title]" it said "is like being shouldered off a cliff by a wild boar and then finding you don't have to fall." Maybe I was half-remembering something Ed said in Norwich.
I've commented before but wanted to reach out again. In the weeks since I read your book, I've been mulling over much of what you wrote. In search of a good podcast, I've also been listening to The Great Humbling, starting from the beginning. I wish I'd known about the podcast while I was living through the pandemic, but I've ended up in the same place, regardless. It's refreshing to hear your and Ed's measured perspectives on global events, and I can also hear echoes of the ideas in your book coming into being. Just finished the "Cultivation of Conspiracy" episode (loved it), as I have been vaguely aware of Ivan Illich for years, but only more recently have started hearing more about his thought.
Your endorsement in your book was the final tipping point for me to embark on reading The Master and His Emissary, (after hearing about it from various sources over the years). It's immensely erudite, ambitious, and incisive, and McGilchrist's cultural observations seem to be spot-on.
Oh, and I purchased another copy of your book and mailed it to my sister in Nevada. Hoping to have a cross-continental discussion about it with her soon! (I'm in Ohio).
Illich wrote in Tools for C.: that if you travel faster than by mule or a third world bus, you cannot possibly take your soul along with you. But you know this.
I'm researching for the writing of my own first book. The book is on the topic of knowing (usually called 'knowledge' -- the noun rather than the verb). I'm interested in the verb -- in knowing as a process in which we're at any moment in its present moment. The moment passes, it moves on... or does it? Do we let it move on fully as needed? Anyway, I'm exploring knowing in relation to thinking, feeling, sensing, intuiting and imagining -- and how to go about wedding these to one another so they work together in harmony. This, I think, would bring about another world! Or it could.
Anyway, while researching, Dear Dougald, I chanced upon this quote which resonates with your writing and thinking, feeling, sensing, intuiting and imagining.
*****
“Our age,” says Kierkegaard, “will remind one of the dissolution of the Greek city-state: everything goes on as usual, and yet there is no longer anyone who believes in it. The invisible spiritual bond which gave it validity no longer exists, and so the whole age is at once comic and tragic—tragic because it is perishing, comic because it goes on.” 2 Beckett’s works, at once tragic and comic in just this sense, are indeed works of and for our time.”
― David Michael Kleinberg-Levin, Beckett's Words: The Promise of Happiness in a Time of Mourning
from https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/15732798.David_Michael_Kleinberg_Levin
Also similarly salient to your work, Dougald:
“In the clearing, world and earth are in interaction: earth is the ground on which the world is built, and world is that within which the earth is given its meaning as grounding. Earth and world are in incessant, endless strife, the earth ever reclaiming for itself, reducing to earth, what the world builds upon it, whereas the world struggles with the earth, and against the earth, to make it serve human purposes. But it is only in the world that the earth receives meaning; and it is only in relation to the earth that we can fully understand not only the fragility and power of our world but also the frightening vulnerability of our grounding and building on the earth—and can harvest some meaning in our fated mortality.”
― David Kleinberg-Levin, Heidegger's Phenomenology of Perception: An Introduction
So sorry for misinterpreting. Please forgive. To pause, reflect then to act . We all know our present path is the path toward extention. Let's hope our collective individual actions redirect this path toward a livable future.
Hi, just finished reading your book. Thanks. Seeing clearly is, I think (actually, I might have nicked this from Ruskin), one of the more difficult things to do, and to communicate what is seen is just as hard. I just hope there's more Palestinian chicken in me than Israeli.
Also, maybe "travelling without moving" (nicked from Dune) creates the soul-sickness.
Thank you Dougald, this call to humility is such the antithesis of the new modernity that constantly declares that, “you can have it all” while ignoring the blaring signs that we have reached the absolute limits of our planet’s carrying capacity. I am also applauding your decision to humbly, slow you body down right now so that you can recalibrate your personal carrying capacity. Good walks, rest, soup, and bread; all restorative medicine. Thank you for this reminder and for At Work Among the Ruins, both are helping me stay resilient and resolved.
So by the time I leave Vietnam maybe my soul will have got as far as your place. In a jetlagged half-awake state last night I was imagining reading a quote from the dust jacket of your next book: "Reading [title]" it said "is like being shouldered off a cliff by a wild boar and then finding you don't have to fall." Maybe I was half-remembering something Ed said in Norwich.
I've commented before but wanted to reach out again. In the weeks since I read your book, I've been mulling over much of what you wrote. In search of a good podcast, I've also been listening to The Great Humbling, starting from the beginning. I wish I'd known about the podcast while I was living through the pandemic, but I've ended up in the same place, regardless. It's refreshing to hear your and Ed's measured perspectives on global events, and I can also hear echoes of the ideas in your book coming into being. Just finished the "Cultivation of Conspiracy" episode (loved it), as I have been vaguely aware of Ivan Illich for years, but only more recently have started hearing more about his thought.
Your endorsement in your book was the final tipping point for me to embark on reading The Master and His Emissary, (after hearing about it from various sources over the years). It's immensely erudite, ambitious, and incisive, and McGilchrist's cultural observations seem to be spot-on.
Oh, and I purchased another copy of your book and mailed it to my sister in Nevada. Hoping to have a cross-continental discussion about it with her soon! (I'm in Ohio).
Did people like their souls with the invention of the wheel or movable type or other discoveries that brought us where we are today.
Think not.
Cheers
DENNIS D.