Saturday, 31 July 2021

Hyborian Bridge 183

In order to follow the Hyborian line of "ecological" trade-routes (prev) I'm taking as a contemporary example the protracted dispute in India between Modi's 3 farm bills and the small farmers.

There are reasons to believe (see "The Light" prev) that the overhaul will favor bigness over smallness and diversity. The freeing-up of buying and selling restrictions - formerly to states and government - creates uncertainties that should benefit the efficiencies of size. The vast majority of small farmers have no access to the transport infrastructure apart from basic pack-animals and tractor-haulage.

It has been suggested thst, rather than a complete overhaul, rebuilding in the context of expanding mandi (state markets or auctions) serves the needs of small farmers and harvesters.

While it's true to say that left-wingers such as those journalists who write for The Light will always cotton-on to the size and infrastructure advantages to global business vis-à-vis small farmers in Modi's overhaul, it's also possible to view it from an ecological perspective.

This means being rather elemental. For a start, economics is advantaged by efficiency and order whereas the spirit of place is advantaged by disorder!

The destruction of products is ecologically advantageous while being economically inefficient. One of the problems with inefficient transport is that grain is stored too long and creates wastage, piles of detritus such as fruit husks are left by roadsides.

The problem is that modern systematizers only look at the economy of a situation; ecologically-speaking rotten fruit is very good and beneficial for fertility, as well as adding to a spirit of place (fertile and disordered.)

The primitive side of things is quite dynamic, cluttered and fairly illogical, but it does not suffer from the weaknesses of a global economy.

On the one hand is a system of straight-lines that attracts the ego (monetary, numerical, size); on the other is the proportionate psyche that is soothed by places of power.

Places of power are disordered and have the dynamic of fertility. Efficiency can kill this in the name of global.logistics.

On.the one side information is a belief; on the other, there are beliefs in local gods of fertility and the hearth.

Efficiency in itself tends to lose sight of such things as poetic pace (of Earth spin) and allusive roots (to the heavens above). The Noto-esque strength of rooted entanglement in the fires of the underworld. Revival and picturesque weirdness; Persephone.

There is an even.more fundamental difference in that economic efficiency is hygienic, while local ecologies are fairly filthy. This was brought home by recently reading Kipling's Kim, set somewhere before 1900.

The ecological tendency of a belief in demons and deities of the barren or abundant fields is much in evidence, such as in this scene where Kim is threatening a Jat.

..if, by any chance, O man from Jullundur, thou rememberest what thou hast seen, either among the elders sitting under the village tree, or in thine own house, or in company of thy priest when he blesses thy cattle, a murrain will come among the buffaloes, and  fire in thy thatch, and rats in thy corn-bin, and the curse of our gods upon thy fields that they may be barren before thy feet and after thy ploughshare.' This was part of an old curse picked up from a fakir by the Taksali Gate in the days of Kim's innocence. It lost nothing by repetition.

'Cease, Holy One! In mercy, cease!' cried the Jat. 'Do not curse the household. I saw nothing! I heard nothing! I am thy cow!' and he made a grab at Kim's bare foot beating rhythmically on the carriage floor. (page 300)

Fertility is a type of destruction that involves decay. Light is also absorbed by trees and transformed into foliage (Daphne of the laurel, prev.) A world without destructive tendencies is hygienic and efficient but also weak, full of psychic uncertainties.

There is a type of dichotomy, meaning any logical system.is incapable of renewal. Because a logical order is imbalanced, it is more like a continual mutation into micro-monstrosities (of DNA or AI) - see "BEM' P180.

Revival has strength; a frayed tapestry rather than a purely factual endeavor. Modern medicine acts as an information system but not on the psychic luster that makes life worthwhile.

In Kipling's India quacks abound, their herbal and animal.ointments at the ready. Their efficiency is completely dubious, but their existence in a state of rapturous disorder and fertile strength is not (parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme.)

An inductive system (of light and logic) will always be attracted to logical states of straight-line disbelief by the ego of acolytes (of the mirror of illusions). Psychic weakness is liable to follow; pray that's not Modi's agricultural legacy.