I kept going down the Rupert Read Road and found this:
On liberatory philosophy and politics in the time of civilisational crisis
Four incredibly smart people, Rupert, a Finn, a Palestinian, and an Indian, discussing the imminent collapse from a mainly philosophic standpoint. I love the things they take for granted as facts, like that the modern world is an institution where the patients are insane, and the caregiving administrators are even more insane–The Cuckoo’s Nest as a documentary about modernity. We’re not arguing about guns or abortion here. We’re talking about what actually matters, and starting from a place of common understanding about where we really are.
The best part of it was being introduced to Aseem Shrivastava.
I’ve linked his three best pieces by timestamp and annotated them. I hope you enjoy. Namaste.
We have no idea what freedom even is. How the Enlightenment collaborated in the current destruction. The project of modern civilization ended in 1914–we’re living in the post-apocalypse now. The american giant is bleeding out. “Liberty” is the consolation prize for losing actual freedom; true freedom cannot be an individualistic process (and later this viewpoint is called “ontonomy”). What do you say to someone who knows everything, but is insane? Everyone is necessary, even though no one is indispensible. Tagore prophesized eco-disaster a hundred years ago.
Possibilism. Is progress necessary; desirable? Pro-science but anti-scientism. How war erodes freedom. The differences between techniques, technology, and technocracy. The relationship between technology and colonialism. Your cellphone is a baby spoon.
Our gazes are turned away from Paradise. “Let heaven exist, even if our estate be hell” (Borges), and quite a lot more from the world of belletrism, including the spiritual truth behind Joni Mitchell’s ‘Big Yellow Taxi’.
(A little more, for reading, here:
I have not undertaken any journey. The journey has undertaken me. )