The video is up. I have not had a chance to review it, but I know I was left wondering whether our conversation really got “radical,” or whether that was even a useful framing for the discussion. Methodologically, I also thought it might have been better to hew closer to Terry’s text, and discuss more of his specific ideas; at the same time, I didn’t want to elide the first-person and first-person plural (geneological) conexts of the occasion, nor the immediacy of the particular mix of people in the room. Could we have more elegantly integrated both areas of focus?
Philosophically, I’m wondering about how we can talk about ‘wholeness’ without being a lot more particular about the contexts in which that wholeness is manifesting. If the Whole (as Terry defines it in Chapter 3) is the dynamic sphere whose center is everywhere and circumference is nowhere, then is anything (including fragmentation, devolution, regression, etc.) not included? The concept loses all normative value, insofar as Terry’s is positing wholeness as “better” than partiality.
If the point of practice is to awaken into ‘ever greater wholeness’ then we will never, ever reach any kind of fulfilment or enoughness. We are caught in the infinitism which I believe Peter Sloterdijk rightly critiques as the attitudinal bias of modern liberalism (not to mention ‘integralism’).
On the other hand, if we talk about particular wholeness, then we have to get a lot more politically specific. At one point, Terry talked about the “New Republic” as comprising (in theory) some form of representative governance amongst planetary interest groups (or something similar). I wonder how exactly that would work, if it’s even a good idea.
The Liquid Democracy model promoted by Democracy.Earth seems like it might be more amenable to a decentralized social planetary social sphere. But who knows? We would have to try it in some smaller (manageable, safer to fail) contexts and see how it works, methinks.
Regarding the meta-crisis, and how a small group (like ours) could possibly have an influence on the course of global ecologlical events, I must admit, it is not really how I’m orienting. “The time is now,” Terry said—It’s game time on Planet Earth—which is galvanizing rhetoric. However, for me, the field of action remains fixated on the particular and idiosyncratic, even while I aspire to poetic potency and Cosmic grandeur.
Overall, I appreciated everybody’s presence. I note, as well, that this was probably very different style conversation than a typical book promotional interview, for better and worse. Terry listened a lot more than a typical author would! However, I would have also liked to zero in more on his ideas, even if this would have been more of an intellectual conversation, at least at first. I really liked Terry’s explanation of his use of the term ‘radical,’ and I liked the personal accounts that John, Doug, and Ed shared, which challenge philosophy to be locally relevant.
Lastly, Lisa’s crystal looked really cool! It well illustrated an idea of diversity in unity—but it eerily also reminded me of the crystal in the film mother!. However, one would have to see the film to know what I mean, and I will give no spoilers here.