Infra-ordinary People | Cara Blue Adams
She wants readers to adopt and embody an ethos that makes room for the vitality of matter. In her view, it’s a useful attitude. “Without modes of enchantment, we might not have the energy or inspiration to enact ecological projects,” she writes. We might find it hard to “contest ugly and unjust modes of commercialization, or to respond generously t
... See moreMorgan Meis • The Philosopher Who Believes in Living Things
Keely Adler added
Severin Matusek and added
Or do such Sisyphean philosophies—that “the road is life”—turn out to be bourgeois luxuries indulged by those safe enough to pretend this is all there is? Does the hunger and hope of the migrant show us something more fundamentally human? Maybe our craving for rest, refuge, arrival, home is a hunger that can’t be edited—the heart an obstinate palim
... See moreJames K. A. Smith • On the Road with Saint Augustine: A Real-World Spirituality for Restless Hearts
In Chalmers’s vision, we would, as Arendt feared, be trapped in a situation wherein we would encounter nothing but ourselves and those things some of us have made. And it would be altogether likely that we would do so while swaths of our common world increasingly became inhospitable to human life. If so, the burden will fall, as it always does, on ... See more
theconvivialsociety.substack.com • The Dream of Virtual Reality
Alex Wittenberg added
If you encounter somebody that is different from you, maybe, if you’re good at lingering for a moment or two in wonder at that person, you can postpone the moment of fear or rejection,” she told me. The subtitle to “Vibrant Matter”—“a political ecology of things”—hints at an interpersonal politics: in her view, politics should always include a sens
... See moreMorgan Meis • The Philosopher Who Believes in Living Things
Keely Adler added
This version of the observational eros doesn’t just recognize or appreciate the inhabitants of a place, but is willing to perceive the special agency of those beings and receive their attention in turn. Overcoming species loneliness is impossible if our subjects appear inert and lifeless to us, be they hummingbirds or rocks.