From "Animism" by Graham Harvey
"The 'new animism" has generated some important academic debates, but it is perhaps better expressed and more joyfully celebrated in the books of writers as various as Alan Garner, Leslie Silko, Barbara Kingsolver, Alice Walker, Daniel Quinn, David Abram, Linda Hogan, Patricia Grace, Chinua Achebe, Ursula Le Guin, Louise Erdrich and Marge Piercy."
I've been thinking of reading some more Barbara Kingsolver anyway.
"Religion, for example, is not centrally a 'belief in the supernatural' as Hultkrants asserts but is, as Detwiler says about Oglala ritual, 'a quest for ethical responsibility through communicative action'." (pg. 49)
This brought to mind a book I recently read that drew heavily from Habermas's critical theory (Agency, Democracy, and Nature 2000, by Bob Brulle). In this theory, social change occurs through communicative action, explained as: 1) Through the use of language in the lifeworld (the world of everyday social interaction), we develop a notion of reality; 2) The establishment of a shared reality creates a definition of the situation on which joint action is based. Social systems then arise from the development of new worldviews and practices through communicative action, which creates and maintains symbolic structures. These structures enable the construction of social order by providing the symbolic resources used in forming and maintaining groups.
If we substitute "communication" for "language", this could fit with many of the ideas expressed by Harvey.
"Our ordinary, sensual, phenomenological experience still makes is meaningful to talk of a 'sunrise', whatever we may intellectually acknowledge the objective truth to be." (pg. 207)
This is why I don't always agree with a strictly skeptical/scientific worldview. Metaphor, myth, and metaphysics matter because they affect our actions, our beliefs, our experiences, and our interpretations (regardless of objective/scientific truths). And they can easily coexist with objective/rational truths - most people already have experience with focusing on different aspects of an issue in different circumstances. Positivist rationality should be used when it is the most effective tool, but it should not exclude other kinds of truth-seeking that may be more relevant for questions that cannot be pinned down or cannot be answered rationally.
"Latour's statement 'we have never been modern' should aid an argument that the benefits produced by modernity may actually be in spite of the system rather than because of it." (pg. 208)
Have I mentioned how much I love Bruno Latour? I haven't read nearly enough of his work, but what I did read made me wish I was a better artist.
I've been thinking of reading some more Barbara Kingsolver anyway.
"Religion, for example, is not centrally a 'belief in the supernatural' as Hultkrants asserts but is, as Detwiler says about Oglala ritual, 'a quest for ethical responsibility through communicative action'." (pg. 49)
This brought to mind a book I recently read that drew heavily from Habermas's critical theory (Agency, Democracy, and Nature 2000, by Bob Brulle). In this theory, social change occurs through communicative action, explained as: 1) Through the use of language in the lifeworld (the world of everyday social interaction), we develop a notion of reality; 2) The establishment of a shared reality creates a definition of the situation on which joint action is based. Social systems then arise from the development of new worldviews and practices through communicative action, which creates and maintains symbolic structures. These structures enable the construction of social order by providing the symbolic resources used in forming and maintaining groups.
If we substitute "communication" for "language", this could fit with many of the ideas expressed by Harvey.
"Our ordinary, sensual, phenomenological experience still makes is meaningful to talk of a 'sunrise', whatever we may intellectually acknowledge the objective truth to be." (pg. 207)
This is why I don't always agree with a strictly skeptical/scientific worldview. Metaphor, myth, and metaphysics matter because they affect our actions, our beliefs, our experiences, and our interpretations (regardless of objective/scientific truths). And they can easily coexist with objective/rational truths - most people already have experience with focusing on different aspects of an issue in different circumstances. Positivist rationality should be used when it is the most effective tool, but it should not exclude other kinds of truth-seeking that may be more relevant for questions that cannot be pinned down or cannot be answered rationally.
"Latour's statement 'we have never been modern' should aid an argument that the benefits produced by modernity may actually be in spite of the system rather than because of it." (pg. 208)
Have I mentioned how much I love Bruno Latour? I haven't read nearly enough of his work, but what I did read made me wish I was a better artist.