[Xmca-l] Re: Life off grid - communitas?

[Larry Purss]

Mike, Huw, Greg,
I have just read Latour's wonderful and provocative exploration of the
disconnect between earth and earthlings and his sense that we have lost the
sense of the *sublime* and must search for an answer in
rearranging emerging  assemblances imagined AS  nodes, tapestries, and
weaving strands of being/becoming.

Latour wants to "bridge" the gap [the disconnect] with earthlings on one
side and Gaia on the other side. Gaia's fundamental feature is that of the
"trickster".

Greg sent a link to living off the grid and asked if this expressed
*communitas*? I experienced the examples as very heroic and trusting in
being rugged individualism.

I hope we can engage with this thread. I will point out that Latour
emphasized there are no nodes, knots, weaves, and TAPESTRIES without the
open spaces, and I want to call attention to this fact. My imaginal *spaces
as places* asks if we must envision SHARED LOCAL PLACES where there exist
*inter (-) mediate* assembled assemblances  where the STRONG Ich [capital
I] becomes the WEAK ich [small I] which opens up imaginal *third* spaces
for *du* [intimate you]. Spaces of shared dialogue where Gaia as
trickster/Hermes is honoured. A place of hope and dread with always a gap.
The place of intervals and "ma".
Latour is engendering grand narratives/myths with *disconnects* [as falling
away from ...]. A neo-Platonic myth.
Larry

On Mon, Oct 26, 2015 at 5:09 PM, mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu> wrote:

> It turns out that Wednesday in LCHC we are discussing Latour's article on
> waiting for Gaia. I attach it for those interested. It raises Huw's
> concerns and multiplies them by a few terawatts.
>
> Just in time for Halloween!
>
> mike
>
> On Mon, Oct 26, 2015 at 4:27 PM, Huw Lloyd <huw.softdesigns@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > That looks like a compelling film, Greg.  Is 'off the grid' used
> > metaphorically, i.e. is it about living away from societal norms, or is
> it
> > principally about generating their own power etc?
> >
> > I have always thought it rather telling that the skills that society at
> > large tends to value the most (finance, entertainment) are invariably the
> > most useless when it comes to living within a small community.  Maybe,
> > maybe, this is because community is not something easily achieved outside
> > of settings of co-dependence that are not mediated by money,
> qualifications
> > etc.
> >
> > Then again, one has to ask about the nature of a production documenting a
> > more independent way of living whilst simultaneously reconnecting with
> > societal values by lugging a wide-lens camera around with homesteaders at
> > one end of the camera and a series of official film selection committees
> at
> > the other end of apparatus.  Is there some kind of hipster quality to
> that,
> > about being radically happy in the city centre or radically happy out in
> > remote places, provided the umbilical chord isn't cut?  Or is it more
> > simply communities celebrating their existence and survival -- "we're
> here
> > and we do things differently".
> >
> > Either way, what seems to be interesting for me here is the change in
> > meaning for basic skills and community values that seem to go hand in
> hand
> > with 'disconnecting'.
> >
> > Best,
> > Huw
> >
> > On 25 October 2015 at 02:30, Greg Thompson <greg.a.thompson@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Is this a new form of communitas:
> > > http://lifeoffgrid.ca/
> > > (link is to a 3 minute trailer for a movie about folks living life off
> > the
> > > grid)
> > > Some of the folks seem to suggest so. Others maybe not so much.
> > > -greg
> > >
> > > --
> > > Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
> > > Assistant Professor
> > > Department of Anthropology
> > > 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
> > > Brigham Young University
> > > Provo, UT 84602
> > > http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson
> > >
> >
>
>
>
> --
>
> It is the dilemma of psychology to deal as a natural science with an
> object that creates history. Ernst Boesch
>