<nettime> Bioregionalism

Joe's statement that "the ancient idea of abundance . . . has both a social and aesthetic value that are profoundly anchored in the collective psyche, and positive vision of the rural landscape" got me thinking about Kenneth Burke's linking (cf. A Grammar of Motives and elsewhere) of the human propensity to realize purely linguistic opportunities, to "fulfill" the meanings intrinsic or implicit in words (e.g., the historical attempts establish in political reality the out in real-the implications of terms like freedom and equality) and the propensity to actualize the possibilities of our technological inventions (i.e., our more or less compulsive drive to use to "try out" and then use to the fullest the capabilities of our inventions -- e.g., in one of KB's more striking examples, to actually make and use atomic bombs once we discovered the potentialities of atomic structure).

The conception, invention and subsequent use of the plough is another case in point, as are other agricultural technologies -- chemical pesticides and fertilizers come easily to mind. And when the drive toward technological fulfillment gets hitched up to growth-forever economics and bigger-is-better acquisitive mores, we're well on the way to climate catastrophe with population numbers that far exceed carrying capacity.

One essential word in this discussion that seems conspicuously absent is restraint. We do because we can. (Perhaps the royal pronoun here has to be understood as not including indigenous cultures.) We're trained from the cradle to reach for more, to do our utmost. We are seldom taught to restrain ourselves, to not realize our technologies to their fullest, to not plough as much as we might, to not explode our populations and planet. To learn how and when to say enough is enough.

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"The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction…between true and false no longer exist.”
. .- Hannah Arendt

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Michael Gregory
- www.michaelgregoryaz.net

- www.reddragonflypress.org/2020-titles/pound-laundry