>Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2000 09:43:38 -0700 (PDT)
>From: John Konopak <the_left_rev@hotmail.com>
>Subject: Re: Lang embodied?
>To: eva.ekeblad@goteborg.utfors.se
>
>
>dear eva...im replyin to you cuz im not signed onto the list from this
>isp...if you think it useful, you could please post it as a forward?
>
>
>eva wrote:
>>
>>Hi all
>>
>>The little discussion between Bill and Judy about semiotic ecology and
>>dialectics has made me wonder, abstractly, about whether dialectics and
>>social-semiotic-ecologics are formally incompatible or not.
>>
>....
>>
>>What I can see is that when people talk about dialectics, they tend to
>>focus on some central conceptual aspect of the process of world, while
>>ecologically inspired approaches are more prone to include multitudes of
>>aspects.
>>
>>Is there a deeper gulf I am overlooking?
>>
>>Eva
>
>The late prof. Paul Shepard of the Claremont grad school, and the (I believe
>unacknowledged) inspiration and source of the most significant ideas in the
>novel/work "Ishmael," which has been referred to here occasionally,
>addresses this relation in many of his works...he argues that
>dichotomous/dialectical thinking is 'immature', infantile, or at best
>adolescent, thinking, a (necessary) step along a continuum/cycle toward full
>special ('species-al'?) maturity that not only accomodates, but celebrates
>and ritualizes 'otherness,' not in dialectical opposition to humanity, but
>as a cumulus of othernesses, of which the mature human knows thru the whole
>epistermoilogy of her maturation she is but another manifestation. Hence the
>dialectic, in which conflict between incommensurable opposites is said to
>create a 'new' poll for which another anti-poll must 'spontaneously' arise
>(or be created), all the while within an ethos of 'progress,' is an epigone
>of immaturity, no matter how necessary for the understanding and
>transformation of the immmature culture in which it resides. The
>accomodation of apparently irreconcilable complexity is the mark of mature
>thought, a thought located in physical space, and tied to a tradition and a
>realization of the falsity of 'history' per se.
>
>Shepard is fascinating and compelling. He's author of 9 or 10 books,
>countless articles, and as i noted before, i think he's the "mana" behind
>Quinn's books, Ishmael, etc.
>for example, from "Nature and Madness" (1982, p.34-35) consider the
>folllowing, which may impinge upon these discussions:
>
>"...'Belopngings' is an interesting word, referring to membership ant
>therefore toparts of a whole. If that whole is Me, then perhaps the
>acquisitionof man-made objects can contribute in some way to my identity--a
>way that may compensate for some earlier means lost when people became
>sedentary and their world mostly man-made landscapes.... My self (within the
>ambit of 'civilization') is to some extent made by me, at least insofar as I
>seem to gain control over it. A wilderness environment is...mostly given.
>For the hunter-forager, thi Me in a non-Me world is the most penetrating and
>pwoerful realization in life. The mature person in such a culture is not
>concerned with blunting that dreadful reality but with establishing lines of
>connectedness or realtionship. Formal (hunter/gatherer) culture is shaped by
>the elaboration of covenants and negotiations with the Other. The separation
>makes iumpossible a fuzzy confusion; there is no bague 'identity with
>nature,; but rather a lifelong task of formulating--and
>internailzing--treaties of affiliation (with Others)...Now consider the
>process in which that Other has mostly disappeared.Food, tools, structures,
>whole landscapes are manmade, even to me presonally they seem more made than
>given and serve asa extensions of that part of self which I determine. My
>infantile ego glories this great consuming I-am. Everything in my sight
>belongs to me in the same sense as my members: legs, arms, hands, and so on.
>The buildings, streets, and cultivated fields are continuous with my
>voluntary nervous system, my tamed controlled self..."
>
>i hope this gives some of the flavor of Shepards accounts...i heartily
>recommend the books, and if anyone can find me a copy of 'the sacred paw,'
>cowritten with "barry sanders,' which an outta print account of the
>trans-borealic-hemispheric deification and reverence for the bear, i would
>appreciate your lettin me know where it might be found.
>
>cheers
>konopak
>
>
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