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joel's avatar

Some great comments here and a very thorough laying out of the land Carne, thank you.

I am sharing a link to Chris Hedges,

https://open.substack.com/pub/chrishedges/p/the-western-way-of-genocide?r=1gxl5d&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false

Who reminds us that 'fascism' is nothing new, and far from rising is coming to its logical conclusion (its ontological truth?) in the world.

I agree with your conclusions regarding your assessment of how and what the problem is that we face. To echo one of the commenters below, it is action that underpins our words, and as you have hinted at, the commons - and the Commoners- that preserve and create the actionable this way of living. We are embodied beings and through the skills of our hands and bodies can craft objects of care from the land.

How many men you have meet in the High places of power know how to weave a basket, what wood is good for chair, when to plant for the best crop and the ingredients of good compost? I think any human without these skills is the most impoverished of us all, that they are the savages, with only the base skill of words and brute force of violence. Without these skills, we are not human and we are not animal.

We are working on a theory of change based in the sharing of skills for community provisioning from a land base. Through the action of embodied learning and situated in place (land and material of the ecological environment) can build the necessary ontology you describe.

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Richard Bergson's avatar

I think anyone who prioritises people and relationship would have little to quibble about here. I am in the throes of re-reading The Matter With Things and finding that I am even more drawn to Iain McGilchrist's philosophical take on the world and in particular the folly of certitude.

I used to be in awe of people who seemed so confident in their viewpoint and dazzled by their ability to argue effortlessly in favour of it. It is a little easier these days to perceive the ontological flaws and wonder what chasm their confidence is covering over.

There are elements of Anarchism that are very attractive and while I wouldn't call myself an Anarchist I do believe very strongly in the need for localism and reigniting everyone's interest in influencing the issues that affect them. There does to my mind need to be some structure to hang the processes around and, until we return to a state of complete local self-sufficiency, we are going to need different levels of structure to address wider regional needs and, as long as Nation states persist, national and international matters. Such structures don't preclude a collaborative approach but will necessarily mean fewer people being involved in higher level decisions.

I don't believe in completion any more than I believe in certitude so we travel hopefully in the knowledge that while not having all the answers we can accept an imperfect version of our dream and that tomorrow it may all change again. This thought is my lifeline in these troubling times.

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