Talking of hides..
Why should picturesque old-timers with tomahawks be a better breed than modern fashionistas? In short, what makes one person wrong and another one right?
For a start, I'm not writing against any one person so much as modernism, and the things that are said in the name of modernism. I take succour from old-stuff that is pre-modern, of a rebellious spirit, so the question is really, 'What is modernism?
As The Light says, it's the electricalization of reality. The reason for that is that the head (of acolytes) is attracted to ones and zeros as it is satisfying to the ego (algorithm.)
With the ego satisfied, the modernists are naturally inclines to think they're right, even when they're totally wrong. Electricity is the electric-green (clean) future where there is no hassle with dirt.
From beach cleaners in Swansea to food growers producing crops without a scrap of soil, Joanna hopes to prove there is still lots of positive action that can make a real difference to global warming. (Lumley&Co on TV prog)
Clearly that's not green, since the soil is where riches both material and organic come from, the underworld and the great recycling basin of nitrogen and carbon (along with sea and sky, see prev.)
But the cycling of carbon isn't necessarily a global-warming issue. Mixed farms cycle manure into crops and have fallow years for the field to build fertility.
Fertility is a cyclical issue (see prev on Minnesota Institute of Environment) the enemy of which is monoculture. Fertility encompasses dirt, as well as cleanliness or regeneration - as in compost - while a monoculture is just sterile junk that is economically efficient.
As has been noted of the Indian small- farmers, economic inefficiency is the same as ecological efficiency, or fertility (vegetable litter). This is the area that is covered by Minnesota's Institute of Environment.
Ecological stability maintains fertility and also maintains pests within the host population (which has defences.) The basic point is that dirt is inefficient for an economic monoculture, but maintains health and fertility.
The cycles of materials maintain purity and strength, but that's not how moderns think. Only an electric-green future to them is clean. This is the ego talking that is convinced by meta-calculations; the head as opposed to the tactile body.
Within this meta-world exists the profane serpent that is simply the technological corruption of natural rhythms (such as 'clean meat' and gene-editing.) The world of dirty French women - like Claire Bretécher, prev - and old-style hippies in electricity-less farmhouses - see Caza - is the world of natural rhythms and song cycles.
From this world is derived empirical tradition.
I think it's a misrepresentation of the Cherokee people or Native Americans in general. It just depicts them as this kind of caveman-type people who aren't intellectual. (Baseball player Ryan Helmsley of the Cherokee speaking about Atlanta Braves, DT)
That's right because empirical tradition isn't a product of the head only; it's a product of activity in the field amid free-expression of the psyche.
The feudal world of rough justice has no place for modernists who have to talk as if all are one, when in fact only nature is one.
Nature is one because it is composed of differences, and differences have similarities of line. Claire Bretécher speaks this language, but Greta Thunberg doesn't. Despite her inimicism to politicians, she speaks their language.
We say no to more blah blah blah, no more explanation of people and nature and the planet. No more whatever the fuck they are doing inside there. (Greta Thunberg at Glasgow)
That is to say, the language of insults as opposed to the language of actively living with the divisions of nature and gaining the song of life from this experience.
This is the old-style body-positivism represented by Hawk-eye and the Old West. Only nature has the physical presence to activate the psyche with the intensity of experience that is the origin of culture.
Those like Thunberg - or indeed 'Muckeros' (the combined Musk, Zuckerberg and Bezos) - are heading into the land of the convinced ego; of ones and zeros or the dual-note of Jirel Meets Magic (prev.)
The Greta-Muckeros will end up with an electrical future that complements the head, which is where they're coming from. Away from this ego- dominated carnival of clowns exists free-form action of the Raducanu variety; excellence of grace, unrestrained coordinated movements.
This is the area of active strength which spokespeople for American Indians seem inclined to forget. If the world of the ego is highly convincing and numerical - spot the percentages in Thunberg's speech - the world of communal action has the unreality of dance and song.
The unreal penetrates the real with the line that connects us to nature (like Pavlova's Dying Swan). An active society has a nascent feudalism, whether it's the historical dances of the Bolshoi or a high school class. Rivalries that are allowed to exist can be creatively explosive.
The basic problem is that a world of the head (ego) occupies the area of empirical reason that tends to convince with numbers. An active society occupies the area of empirical tradition that is convinced only by activities in-the-field, which then influence their behaviour, customs.
This basic dichotomy is pointed-up nicely in the classic 67 film To Sir With Love, where the entire plot comprises feuding- both within the class of unruly delinquents, and between the class and the latest sheep-to-the-slaughter in the new guy, played by Poitier.
Despite the best efforts of the ringleaders, the new guy's rigorous standards of truth in education begin to wear down resistance. The turning point comes when he declares,
We will talk about life. Love, marriage, death, sex, rebellion.. anything.
Now, what Poitier is really saying here is that education need not be all facts and empirical reason - it can also be empirical tradition..which is just living. The tribal aspects of life are also there, with a baby in a crib.
The gritty traditions are a factor, and when a trouble-maker asks the teacher about some pictures he saw of semi-nude blacks in the jungle, he responds that they are the product of climate, of custom.
He means empirical tradition, which is the way of all active peoples.
In short, western education can be the bane of modernity. Those of the Greta-Muckeros are explicitly bound to empirical reason, because that is the reality of the ego. The percentages they chant, and the carbon-neutral agenda are well-meaning but wrong-headed.
Life in-the-field is not a numerical game. For example, gamekeepers are wont to burn heather on grouse-moors to encourage breeding. This has come under criticism that wet peat - a carbon-sink - is being dried, and calls have been issued for a ban on seasonal burning.
However, grouse-hunting is an active country pursuit and gamekeepers are running the sport, not governments or campaigners. The idea of burning is to maintain a state of balance of populations and gamekeepers are skilled at assessing situations while campaigners are not.
There are two ways of looking at things. One is there are predators and prey and an active state of balance is required. This impacts on the scenery and moors. The other is that Man should leave nature be and at most plant trees.
The first attitude is that of the regeneration of fertility from seasonal cycles, from the mixture of crops and herds and fallow fields. The second attitude is that of a carbon-neutral society where everything is electrical and algorithmic (numbers.)
But, as I've repeatedly said, the carbon-based problems are monocultural, where the emphasis is on sterile efficiency and not fertile cycling. Grass foraging herbivores that are fed hay are not methane-polluters.
The convictions of carbon-zero folk disregard the fertile area of carbon-cycling that incorporates herbivores, crops and fallow spaces.
The carbon-zero agenda is an ego- centric one and essentially a product of empirical reason. For those in-the-field, none of the technological advantages they accrue can escape the fact that by-and-large their yearly activities are the product of empirical tradition.
And that is where feuding and tribal origins are to be found. Differences that attract despite everything. The psychic affinity of differences.
TO SIR WITH LOVE (spot the red dinosaurs)
