<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
</head>
<body text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:View>Normal</w:View>
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>
<w:PunctuationKerning/>
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>
<w:Compatibility>
<w:BreakWrappedTables/>
<w:SnapToGridInCell/>
<w:WrapTextWithPunct/>
<w:UseAsianBreakRules/>
<w:DontGrowAutofit/>
</w:Compatibility>
<w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel>
</w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]-->
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:106%"><i><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;line-height:106%;font-family:Calibri">Nature.</span></i><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;line-height:106%;font-family:Calibri"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:106%"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;line-height:106%;font-family:Calibri">We
are , <i>contra
</i>the shibboleths of Biblical ideology, part of nature,<i> i.e</i>
., we are <i>animals</i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:106%"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;line-height:106%;font-family:Calibri">Even
the
radical Marx, echoing his own Judeo-Christian heritage, spoke
of “Man’ proudly as the ‘sovereign of creation”.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:106%"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;line-height:106%;font-family:Calibri">He
hadn’t
studied Darwin
(Darwin’s classic work was published, late: the same year as
one of Marx’s classic works: 1859).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:106%"><i><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;line-height:106%;font-family:Calibri">At
any rate, we
are part of nature</span></i><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;line-height:106%;
font-family:Calibri">: and when we are kept away from it<i>, as
we are,
more or less, in all EM societies,</i> in arid cityscapes of
cement and
steel, our ‘spirits sag’ (all but unconsciously) and we
experience
an ineffable distress (poetically depicted in Keats’ To One
Who Has
Been Long in City Pent’ verse) .</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:106%"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;line-height:106%;font-family:Calibri">Presumably
parks
exist , here and there, in cities, to alleviate that disorder.</span></p>
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="156">
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><object
classid="clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D" id=ieooui></object>
<style>
st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) }
</style>
<![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0cm;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-ansi-language:#0400;
mso-fareast-language:#0400;
mso-bidi-language:#0400;}
</style>
<![endif]-->A very welcome offer Ranjani, I'd like to add to, even
extend what you suggest. And I look forward to any comments that may
arise.<br>
<br>
For reasons of experiences that I will pass over here, I have come
to understand that the 'alienation' of people from Nature and of
Civilisation from Nature is a profoundly damaging category error. <br>
<br>
Swallows build nests on the walls outside this room, beavers build
dams, hornets created a kind of skyscraper in a room above my
head... 'nature'. People create washbasins, airliners, cities,
railways homes and offices.... also 'nature'. <i>It is all nature</i>.
From a planetary perspective there is nothing that isn't nature.<br>
<br>
I have struggled to find a way of describing this integration, what
might bridge nature-and-civilisation? A colleague suggested
'wilderness', and as I have dug deeper into this I have come to
understand economics, families, bodies politics and civilisations as
myriad interconnected wildernesses. If this seems a bit off the
page, think of wilderness as a vernacular way of talking about
systems theory, complexity theory etc. and if it still seems off the
page, take a look at part 2 of my recent video <a
moz-do-not-send="true" href="https://vimeo.com/257467422">Messages
From The Blue Planet</a> that seeks to open this up as a non
linear, affective, imaginal take on where we are with ourselves on
this planet; and that might, though it's very late, go some way to
heal the alienation you speak about.<br>
<br>
Again, thanks for opening up this topic.<br>
<br>
Denis<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 11/07/2018 03:27, Michel Bauwens
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAK_2xiJmaywY-NfpjhRnvX8n6SnzmEwHJP_myaBQGKnS7eGPNw@mail.gmail.com">
<div dir="ltr"><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">---------- Forwarded message ----------<br>
From: <b class="gmail_sendername">r kanth</b> <span
dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:involutegandhian@gmail.com"
moz-do-not-send="true">involutegandhian@gmail.com</a>></span><br>
Date: Wed, Jul 11, 2018 at 3:54 AM<br>
Subject: Fwd: From Rajani: On Alienation: : A Non-Eurocentric
View<br>
To: Michel Bauwens <<a
href="mailto:michelsub2004@gmail.com" moz-do-not-send="true">michelsub2004@gmail.com</a>><br>
<br>
<br>
<div dir="ltr">
<div class="gmail_quote"><br>
<br>
<div dir="ltr">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in
8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><b>
Further Notes on Euro-Modernism*<span></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in
8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><b><span>
</span><span> <wbr> <wbr> </span><span> </span>On
Alienation<span></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in
8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><b>
</b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in
8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><i>Alienation</i>
is a
major theme in European discourse, both theological
and philosophical, in its
EM <span> </span>(EuroModernist) phase.<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in
8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">Marx
, one of the great canonicals in that <span> </span>august
lineage<i>, e.g.,</i><span> </span>noted several <span> </span>aspects
of alienation: <span> </span>of workers - <span> </span>from
their product, from the production
process(run by owners/agents) , from each other(via
‘competition’) , <span> </span>and from their own <i>species
essence</i> <i>(<a
name="m_-6961411603529116355_m_8984962414658614183__Hlk519007880"
moz-do-not-send="true">Gattungswesen</a></i><span>).</span><span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in
8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">I
wish to identify the last as specially important, if
in a
marginally different sense, <span> </span>as far as
our ‘species-essence’ goes– perhaps – from Marx.<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in
8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">I
also wish to add another species of alienation, <span> </span><span> </span>a
<span> </span>little less relevant, perhaps, <span> </span>to
a <span> </span>child
of the enlightenment, <span> </span>and <span> </span>an
heir to industrial society, <span> </span>like Marx:
<i>i.e</i>.
<i>alienation from nature.<span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in
8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><i>*</i>
<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in
8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><i>Gattungswesen.<span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in
8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">I
have argued that , <i>contra
</i>all the norms of EM, <span> </span>we as a
species
are <i>affective </i>beings, led to seek the
felicity of warm kindred relations, <i>instinctually:</i>
familial, <span> </span>co-operative, <span> </span>and
communal.<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in
8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">EM,
<span> </span>by setting up its
<i>alternate </i><span> </span>template of
competition, acquisitivenessness,
individualist, <span> </span>self-seeking behavior <span> </span>(as
in the pseudo-science of “Economics”), offers
a paradigm strikingly opposed to this human essence.<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in
8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">This
sets up not <span> </span><span> </span>so-called
‘cognitive dissonance’ – <span> </span>a <span> </span>buzz-word
if ever there was one - <span> </span>but , even
deeper,
an <i>existential nightmare</i> for humans <i>compelled
to act against their very own <span> </span>natures.</i><span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in
8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><i>This
is the <span> </span>ontic basis of angst and
despair, noted by existentialist
writers, <span> </span>for generations.<span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in
8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">This
is why <span> </span><span> </span>the so-called <span> </span>‘happiness
index’ is so low in all societies <i>most ‘advanced’
in EM norms</i>, such as the
US; and why the UK, uabashedly, recently set up , no
less, a ministry for ‘loneliness’.<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in
8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">*<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in
8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><i>Nature.<span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in
8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">We
are , <i>contra </i>the
shibboleths of Biblical ideology, part of nature,<i>
i.e</i> ., we are <i>animals</i><span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in
8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">Even
<span> </span>the radical Marx,
echoing his own <span> </span>Judeo-Christian <span> </span>heritage,
<span> </span>spoke of “Man’ <span> </span>proudly as
the ‘sovereign of creation”.<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in
8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">He
hadn’t <span> </span>studied <span> </span>Darwin
(Darwin’s classic work <span> </span>was published,
late: <span> </span>the same year as <span> </span>one
of Marx’s classic works: 1859).<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in
8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><i>At
any rate, we are
part of nature</i>: and when we are kept away from
it<i>, <span> </span>as we are, more or less, <span> </span>in
all EM societies,</i> in arid cityscapes of
cement and steel, our ‘spirits sag’ <span> </span>(all
but unconsciously) and we experience<span> </span>an
ineffable <span> </span>distress (poetically depicted
<span> </span>in Keats’ To One Who Has Been Long in
City
Pent’ verse) .<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in
8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">Presumably
parks exist , here and there, in cities, to alleviate
that disorder.<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in
8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><i>It
is a unique form of
alienation</i> – <i>i.e.</i> <i>suffering</i> - <span> </span>lifted
<span> </span>by that trope of <span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>‘<i>One
Touch of Nature”, as Shakespeare had it, <span> </span>that
“ Makes the Whole World Kin" </i><span> </span>.<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in
8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">It
is <span> </span>a misery quite <span> </span>akin
to that caused by the rupture with <i>Gattungswesen.<span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in
8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">*<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in
8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">To
sum up.<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in
8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">In
my view, we are, as a species, <span> </span>alienated
when separated from <i>family, community, <span> </span>and
nature.<span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in
8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">Marx,
subscribing – as did most <span> </span>all his peers
in political economy - <span> </span>- to EM’s
(philosophical) <i>materialism</i> , <span> </span>prioritised
<span> </span><i>human
engagement in production</i> as critical (‘work’ <span> </span>is
an important concept <span> </span>in Protestant
-Calvinist - theology as well), <span> </span>whence
his ‘alienations’ , leastways, <span> </span>begin in
that domain.<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in
8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><i>I
theorise, au
contraire, <span> </span>the priority of <span> </span>family,
culture, <span> </span>and society, within <span> </span>the
geist of our species.<span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in
8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">Native
American children, cruelly and brutishly separated <span> </span>from
their families/culture/ and society by
their <span> </span>oppressors, as part of an
‘experiment’
to ‘civilise the savage’ , <span> </span><span> </span>apparently
died ‘mysteriously’ in large numbers,
or so it is reported.<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in
8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><i>No:
no mystery.<span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in
8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">It
is explained by what I argue, above: <i>no EM
philosophy can ‘explain’ it.</i><span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in
8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><i>This
alienation is
critical</i>: at its extreme, <i>we suffer a
loss of being, of sanity, <span> </span>of
wholeness, and
incur a debilitating <span> </span>anomie when so
separated.<span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in
8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><i>I
will repeat: when
separated <span> </span>from family, community, and
nature, <span> </span>we experience a <span> </span>critical
breach of what we could term the wholeness
of being.</i><span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in
8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">For
humans, involuntary <span> </span>isolation could
well be <span> </span>the ultimate <span> </span>terror
(which is why being put away’ in
solitary ‘ is such a barbaric mode of ‘correction’).<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in
8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">Such
<span> </span>‘isolation’ is
now, sadly, <span> </span>near-chronic <span> </span>in
EM societies (<i>vide </i>Ministries of Loneliness)<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in
8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">It
may well account for the <span> </span>unmistakable
madness of our (EM) age, in the
final stages of what I have termed, in my recent book
(2017) <span> </span>‘Human<span> </span>Devolution’.<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in
8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">I
will <span> </span>conclude by
repeating my <span> </span>principal thesis : <i>in
virtually Everything it claims , represents,
<span> </span>or commends, Euromodernism is
categorically
mistaken : <span> </span><span> </span>and , worse,
<span> </span>more often <span> </span>than not,
positively injurious <span> </span>to human
existence. <span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in
8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">The
sooner we see through, and reject, its many charades,
<span> </span>the sooner we might have a chance to
save what
<span> </span>still remains of our social, natural ,
and emotive/personal, world.<span></span></p>
<p
class="m_-6961411603529116355m_8984962414658614183gmail-MsoListParagraph"
style="margin:0in 0in 8pt
0.5in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><b><i>*EuroModernism
</i></b>, <i>or EM, for short, is my term for the <span> </span>specific
form of Modernism that Europe first
invented, and imposed on itself, and its benighted
populace, and then exported <span> </span>-
perforce, to its everlasting detriment - <span> </span><span> </span>to
the
world at large.</i><span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in
8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span>
</span><span> </span><span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in
8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span> <wbr>
</span>R<span> </span>E <span> </span>F<span>
</span>E<span> </span>R<span> </span>E<span>
</span>N<span> </span>C<span> </span>E<span> </span>S<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in
8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in
8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">Kanth,
R.<span> </span><i>Breaking with the Enlightenment</i>,
NJ:
Humanities Press, 1997<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in
8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">_______<span>
</span><i>Farewell to Modernism,</i> NY: Peter Lang,
2017<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in
8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><b><span
style="font-size:9pt;line-height:107%">[©R.Kanth
2018]<span> </span><span></span></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in
8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in
8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in
8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span> </span></p>
<br>
</div>
</div>
<br>
</div>
</div>
<br>
<br clear="all">
<div><br>
</div>
-- <br>
<div class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature">P2P
Foundation: <a href="http://p2pfoundation.net"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">http://p2pfoundation.net</a>
- <a href="http://blog.p2pfoundation.net" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true">http://blog.p2pfoundation.net</a> <br>
<br>
Connect: <a href="http://p2pfoundation.ning.com"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">http://p2pfoundation.ning.com</a>;
Discuss: <a
href="http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation</a><br>
<br>
Updates: <a href="http://del.icio.us/mbauwens"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">http://del.icio.us/mbauwens</a>;
<a href="http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true">http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens</a>; <a
href="http://twitter.com/mbauwens" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true">http://twitter.com/mbauwens</a>; <a
href="http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true">http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens</a><br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
</div>
</div>
<!--'"--><br>
<fieldset class="mimeAttachmentHeader"></fieldset>
<br>
<pre wrap="">_______________________________________________
P2P Foundation - Mailing list
Blog - <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.blog.p2pfoundation.net">http://www.blog.p2pfoundation.net</a>
Wiki - <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.p2pfoundation.net">http://www.p2pfoundation.net</a>
Show some love and help us maintain and update our knowledge commons by making a donation. Thank you for your support.
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/donation">https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/donation</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation">https://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation</a>
</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
</body>
</html>