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frankie_s's review
3.0
I expected something much more radical. Too many men. Enjoyed the piece on enclosures, an interest of mine since Federici.
jdgcreates's review
3.0
Dark Mountain Project is what I would call a 'reality check' and it's first issue of essays, poetry, and images are all focused on seeing our environment and the ways we relate to it and the myths or truths we use to describe it as they actually are (hint: not as rosy and cozy as we'd like to pretend). Though many of the writings did not draw me in, there were four that definitely did. I could feel little sparks of new understanding flashing in my brain as I read them and have included some of my favorite passages from each one:
*Beyond Civilised & Primitive by Ran Prieur*
“I think the root of civilization, and a major source of human evil, is simply that we became clever enough to extend our power beyond our empathy.”
“But gradually we’re learning. Every time it comes out that some product is made with sweatshop labour, a few people stop buying it. Every day, someone is in a supermarket deciding whether to spend extra money to buy shade-grown coffee or fair trade chocolate. It’s not making a big difference, but all mass changes have to start with a few people, and my point is that we are stretching human conscience further than it’s ever gone, making sacrifices to help forests we will never see and people we will never meet. This is not simple-minded or ‘idealistic’, but rational, highly sophisticated moral behaviour.”
“The more we are forced to abandon this system, the less we will learn, and the more aggressively we will fight to rebuild something like it. And the more we choose to abandon it, the more we will learn, and the less likely we will make the same mistakes.”
*The falling years: an Inhumanist vision by John Michael Greer*
"The resemblance between the concepts is not accidental; like a spoiled child who misbehaves to get the attention good behaviour won't bring, we're willing to see ourselves in any role, even the villain's, as long as we get to occupy centre stage."
"Instead of fantasizing about the kind of future we want humanity to have, in other words, or confusing our daydreams with our destiny, we need to start thinking hard about what kind of future humanity can afford..."
"When we realize that human history is nothing unique--from nature's perspective, we're simply one more species that overshot the carrying capacity of its environment and is about to pay the routine price--we can get past the habit of wallowing in a self-blame that is first cousin to self-praise, face up to the hard choices ahead, and make them with some sense of perspective and, at least potentially, some possibility of grace."
*Black Elephants and skull jackets: a conversation with Vinay Gupta by Dougald Hine*
"The kind of suffering we are afraid of coming from climate collapse is the ordinary condition of half of the human race."
*Confessions of a recovering environmentalist by Paul Kingsnorth*
“We are environmentalists now in order to promote something called ‘sustainability’…It means sustaining human civilization at the comfort level which the world’s rich people—us—feel is their right, without destroying the ‘natural capital’ or the ‘resource base’ which is needed to do so.”
“Build enough of the right kind of energy technologies, quickly enough, to generate the power we ‘need’ without producing greenhouse gases and there will be no need to ever turn the lights off; no need to ever slow down.”
*Beyond Civilised & Primitive by Ran Prieur*
“I think the root of civilization, and a major source of human evil, is simply that we became clever enough to extend our power beyond our empathy.”
“But gradually we’re learning. Every time it comes out that some product is made with sweatshop labour, a few people stop buying it. Every day, someone is in a supermarket deciding whether to spend extra money to buy shade-grown coffee or fair trade chocolate. It’s not making a big difference, but all mass changes have to start with a few people, and my point is that we are stretching human conscience further than it’s ever gone, making sacrifices to help forests we will never see and people we will never meet. This is not simple-minded or ‘idealistic’, but rational, highly sophisticated moral behaviour.”
“The more we are forced to abandon this system, the less we will learn, and the more aggressively we will fight to rebuild something like it. And the more we choose to abandon it, the more we will learn, and the less likely we will make the same mistakes.”
*The falling years: an Inhumanist vision by John Michael Greer*
"The resemblance between the concepts is not accidental; like a spoiled child who misbehaves to get the attention good behaviour won't bring, we're willing to see ourselves in any role, even the villain's, as long as we get to occupy centre stage."
"Instead of fantasizing about the kind of future we want humanity to have, in other words, or confusing our daydreams with our destiny, we need to start thinking hard about what kind of future humanity can afford..."
"When we realize that human history is nothing unique--from nature's perspective, we're simply one more species that overshot the carrying capacity of its environment and is about to pay the routine price--we can get past the habit of wallowing in a self-blame that is first cousin to self-praise, face up to the hard choices ahead, and make them with some sense of perspective and, at least potentially, some possibility of grace."
*Black Elephants and skull jackets: a conversation with Vinay Gupta by Dougald Hine*
"The kind of suffering we are afraid of coming from climate collapse is the ordinary condition of half of the human race."
*Confessions of a recovering environmentalist by Paul Kingsnorth*
“We are environmentalists now in order to promote something called ‘sustainability’…It means sustaining human civilization at the comfort level which the world’s rich people—us—feel is their right, without destroying the ‘natural capital’ or the ‘resource base’ which is needed to do so.”
“Build enough of the right kind of energy technologies, quickly enough, to generate the power we ‘need’ without producing greenhouse gases and there will be no need to ever turn the lights off; no need to ever slow down.”
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