Letting the World Grow Old: An Ethos of Countermodernity

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Letting the World Grow Old An Ethos of
Countermodernity

• Freya Mathews

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Nature and Artifice

• Nature is a process what happens when creatures
  with capacity for abstract thought dont
  interfere.
• Artifice is what happens when we try to change
  thins for out own ends.
• Living within the given is letting nature happen.
  
• Modern civilization relies on artifice, but a
  return to nature is assured if we let it be (by
  definition).

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Against Restoration

• Environmentalists want to restore lost swamps and
  forests and return to nature but this is getting
  wrong we need to let things be. The natural
  process can recommence as soon as we stop
  interfering. We shouldnt tear down cities but
  let them grow old. We can maintain them but
  this is compatible with the fundamental attitude
  of letting be. (223).

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More on Restoration

• The ethic implies that if exotic species have
  been introduced into an environment they should
  be left to sort it out on their own. This may be
  distasteful but it is natural and speciation will
  in time begin again.

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• Trying to restore things is perpetuating the
  process of control, which implies a sort of
  self-rejection. (paper topic why?) She
  illustrates this in the following way when we
  accept our unnaturalness, our uptightness for
  example we begin to relax.

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Inhabiting Place

• Letting things unfold in their own way is
  learning to inhabit place. Thus we become
  attached to them and they become part of our
  (individuals, Families, communities)
  histories. We become the natives of the places
  in which we roam.

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• The physical features of things become
  intertwined with our identity, and from a
  panpsychist view nature can come to know us.
  (223)

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About Change

•  She says that change is inevitable but that
  change should not disrupt the general unfolding
  of things (224).
• What does this mean?
• It should respect history, and continuity.

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The Problem with Artifice

• The problem with artifice is it does not pay
  attention to history or context. It doesnt pay
  attention to what came before old factories are
  more natural than designed parks, which are
  subject to intentional control and redevelopment.
  

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An Objection and Response

• Objection is that this is too passive.
• Response this worldview has the power to destroy
  capitalism (and its desire for constant growth)
  because it is contrary to the values of
  capitalism in many ways.

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She Says Her Ethic is Not

• Consumerist we would be pleased with what we
  have and not desire new things. Most pleased
  with our oldest not newest things.
• Commodificationist when we value things for the
  relationship we have with them (not the potential
  for a relationship) this removes them from the
  market. They are not replaceable they are like
  members of a family

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• Focused on productivity when we are satisfied
  with how things are we dont crave bigger and
  better things or want to make things different.
• Focused on progress if people dont think they
  can remake the world as they want it the desire
  to improve peoples standard of living
  indefinitely collapses (225).

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• Focused on efficiency Tools will not be valued
  for efficiency but for meaning. Old tools have
  meaning even if they arent perfect efficiency
  is only one factor in choosing tools.
• Focused on industry/business letting things be
  is very different from industriousness or
  business

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• Focused on development rather development is
  understood in terms of transformation and
  regeneration not in the capitalist sense.
• Not focused on profit there is no surplus in
  natural systems and no accumulation of wealth.
  Profit in one part of the system is loss in
  another part.

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• Not focused on automation human labor can be a
  way of investing meaning into things, handmade
  things can be valuable
• Not focused on property people should seek to
  belong not to own things, they shouldnt
  disregard matter by buying it and discarding it,
  we should treat our bodies better and appreciate
  the way they are reclaimed by age.

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A New Ethic

• All of this amounts to a new sort of economics
  or method of making sure our material desires are
  fulfilled, and Mathews says a panpsychist
  world-view.

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Objections?

• Some might object that resistance rather than
  letting things be is the best attitude toward
  destruction.

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• She agrees that our commitment to things may
  require us to resist their destruction,
  specifically people may re-inhabit places marked
  for development.

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• People have to know their land, titles, and
  histories. People can make places sacred. Tera
  nullius would not work as a justification for
  development and people would refuse to be
  compensated for land

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Modernity

• Modernity is a dissatisfaction with the given, a
  search for the new.
• She thinks this is the cause of the environmental
  crisis.
• The ethos she suggests is not an attempt to save
  the world or change it, it requires living with
  nature rather than against nature.

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Politics

• This is an ethos of conservatism not radicalism.
  
• It shares conservativism of places/things with
  right wing politics (not of oppressive
  institutions) and with the left a desire to avoid
  privileging the powerful over the few (but not
  the revolution that is antagonistic to letting
  things be).

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• It is most opposed to economism the idea of
  the free market radical change to achieve
  privilege and wealth.

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Metaphysics

• It is counter-modern with a pansychist
  metaphysics rather than a materialist metaphysics
  (which assumes matter is lifeless).
• Nor is it an attempt to deconstruct metaphysics
  as post-modernism does therefore leaving the
  world devoid of meaning.

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Taoism and Aboriginal Philosophy

• Basically this is a Taoist philosophy there is
  an intelligent guiding inner principle in
  everything that can be trusted.

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• There are also similarities to Australian
  aboriginal culture acceptance and accommodation
  rather than craving. Their accommodation is a
  way of transforming and changing the significance
  of things. Land is all that is real and spirit
  is everywhere. We connect with spirit by
  engaging with the given.

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Summary

• Matthews is suggesting a new ethic that is based
  on Taoist philosophy and Aboriginal thought.
  Spirit is in everything and nature is a process
  that cant be forced or restored, we have to let
  it be. We can defend our land best by knowing it
  and investing meaning in it. By appreciating old
  things made sacred by tradition and time.

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Continued

• We should view ourselves as the natives of the
  land, and it should be like our family. We can
  defend it by inhabiting it (refusing to leave it
  or be compensated for it). This is a
  conservative, egalitarian, counter-modern
  philosophy it is opposed to economism, modernity,
  post-modernity, and artifice.

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Questions for Consideration

• What is panpsychism? Economism? Modernity?
  Post-modernity? Counter-Modernity?
• Do you like Mathews ethic? Why or why not?
  Reconstruct what you think she is arguing and
  after showing me offer an argument against it.
  Critique that argument.

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• What are three objections to her view? Do they
  work? Why or why not? Come up with one of your
  own and discuss.
• Give arguments for and against restoring nature?
  
• Do you agree with her prescriptions for
  protecting nature? Why? How would she respond
  to a critic (or you)?