whew doug...thats quite a leap of your "logic" you use when you interpret
what roxanne was saying this way:
> it reduces life to an interaction between the individual mind/imagination
> and nature, with society disappearing from the picture.
having a spiritual base in my life HELPS me see and feel the
interconnections of all people and animals and life. that is society.. i
think the major reason our "society' is so sick is that we have forgotten
and been forced to forget our connections and our roots...
> That disappearance of society is one thing that makes me nervous about
> spirituality. Another is that it slides very easily into the irrational
> and the anti-rational. Now certainly there are limitations to and dangers
> of rationality. But I prefer the Frankfurt school critique of the
> distortions of rationality - that it has become an instrument for the
> accumulation of power and wealth rather than a critical, evaluative
> agency.
but see, the reasons for my personal distaste for "rationality" in our
relationships to nature are precisely centered on the function of
rationality as a critical, evaluative agency. i dont think there is no
place for rationality..but i think it has a minor role in our
relationship to nature. and that doesnt mean we shouldnt use rational
critical techniques for decision making concerning the way society should
relate to nature (technology, science) but i think it means that a
spiritual relationship to nature (more than just admiring a landscape for
its asthetics) must underlie all rational attempts to make society work
smoothly.
a problem seems to be that many of the "materialists" dont see how any
spiritual connections to nature can be used to implement policy or
transform industry into sustainable capitalistic enterprises.
what i cant help but "argue" is that without the spiritual base, any of
the things we talk about here are futile, and band-aid solutions. and
capitalism as far as i can see a dead-end system. and really i dont put
much stock in socialism either...cuz no matter what economic organization
we use, if the human beings using them are detatched from nature were
gonna use them foolishly. economic systems have been oppressive to most
involve since at least the dawn of yaweh..if not way way before. but not
always!! did native americans or africans destroy their ecology before
europeans colonized them? NO! cuz people who are in tune with nature know
that what we do to nature we do to ourselves!!
okay enuf ranting!
;) anne
