The Earth itself is in revolt. The Earth itself is rising against its destroyers.” — Donna Haraway

I was reading ‘The Visionaries: Arendt, Beavoir, Rand, Weil, And The Power Of Philosophy In Dark Times’ by Wolfram Eilenberger when it suddenly hit me. … Philosophy isn’t about what you believe or even a so-called ‘love of wisdom’. It’s about stepping outside of time, slowing down, not accepting things as they are now and a refusal to be on autopilot. It’s not a love of wisdom but a striving towards understanding. A striving of understanding our world, our time, and ourselves. Of how we think and perceive the world around us. Philosophy then isn’t like other subjects where knowledge builds upon itself up in perpetual advancement. Though I think we treat it that way when it comes to the ‘Enlightenment’. Instead it’s a snapshot of a thinker in their own time and how they perceived themselves and the world. We see their echoes down the line to our own times solely because we haven’t tackled these problems and thus perpetuate them. Every philosopher is a product of their world and their perceptions. There never was a linear progression outside the one we duct-taped to it in the hopes of making it make more sense.

Some Questions:

• What happens when personal philosophies are mass adopted?
• Is there, or should there be, a difference between personal philosophies and the beliefs that form the foundations of our governments?

Links:

• DONNA HARAWAY on Staying with the Trouble /131
• A Tangled Web: Redwoods, Colonialism, Eugenics, and Climate Change
• 5 reasons you’re not improving your art

Reads: 

• The Feminist Botanist
• The Smartphone of the Middle Ages
• The Science Underground: Mycology as a Queer Discipline
• Do plants have minds?
• ‘Uncommon Measure’ by Natalie Hodges
• ‘Science of Murder’ by Carla Valentine
• ‘The Visionaries: Arendt, Beavoir, Rand, Weil, And The Power Of Philosophy In Dark Times’ by Wolfram Eilenberger
• ‘Metaphysical Animals’ By Clare Mac Cumhaill & Rachel Wiseman