the structure of a philosophical revolution

Dear All, I’ve recently returned from an inspiring and intense month in the northeast, where I left my heart with friends, family, and everyone who is recovering in the devastating wake of Hurricane Sandy.

During the month of October, as a result of my constructive critiques of Bill McKibben’s article on climate change’s terrifying math, I was invited by 350.org and Blue Mountain Center to spend two weeks cloistered away in upstate New York with 20 other socially/ecologically focused artists/activists. Together we discussed messaging and strategy, shared information and skills, and imbibed the restorative qualities of BMC, brilliant company, and the splendor of autumn in the Adirondacks.

For me the experience was both affirming and unsettling. It was a privilege to have the opportunity to share ideas with a group of people all working in different ways to foster a culture with a set of new “normals”, a culture within which it usual to think and act with reverence and concern for one another and the world at large, to listen deeply without judgment, to work collaboratively without hierarchy or competition. During the residency I had planned to work on the Dialectic Revival, a paradox- and nuance-embracing dialog project…but it was entirely unnecessary, since every conversation unfolded in precisely the way I’d been imagining. We discussed our simultaneous senses of hope and hopelessness, the balance between independence and interdependence, art and activism. Together, for 17 days, we lived in the changed world we wish to see. Staving off overwhelm at how to best deliver a similar sense of creative cooperation to a wider audience with limited support from established systems was a collective challenge.

It became more obvious than ever to me that we are in the midst of a cultural paradigm shift unlike any since the 16^th century move away from the geocentric model of the universe – there are those who already have a visceral understanding of humanity’s ultimate interconnectedness with the biosphere, and those who are fiercely resisting.  I expound upon this idea further in my latest article Structure of a Philosophical Revolution.

Another profound tidbit reinforced by the BMC experience is that often the most potent illumination devices contain humor (sometimes referred to as “tactical frivolity”), ritual, &/or abstraction. As in sailing, the most direct route is not always the most efficient. Herein lies the socially transformative potential of art. Bill McKibben is inviting us to “do the math”, to understand fully the dire state of Earth’s ecology from a rational, scientific standpoint. In addition, artists can help us to feel the math, to bring meaning and purpose to existences that have been devoid of these vital things since the dawn of the scientific age, when we began to value tangibles over intangibles.

My experiences during the last half of this year (attending the Marfa Dialogs on the Politics and Culture of Climate and Sustainability and participating in ISEA2012, in addition to the focus residency at BMC) have increased my resolve to continue exploring a “middle way”, a separate discipline that Goethe referred to as “delicate empiricism”. I look forward to sharing my research with you.

I leave you with a song taught to the BMC group by a fellow resident, the stunning singer-songwriter Anais Michell:

Woyaya (by British Afro-pop band Osibisa, Sung by Art Garfunkle)

We Are Going
Heaven Knows Where We Are Going
We’ll Know We're There

We Will Get There
Heaven Knows How We Will Get There
We Know We Will

It Will Be Hard We Know
And The Road Will Be Muddy And Rough
But We'll Get There
Heaven Knows How We Will Get There
We Know We Will

We Are Going
Heaven Knows Where We Are Going
We Will Know We're There


Thank you BMC, 350.org, and dear generous friends without whose support this experience would not have been possible.