# Cosmos Café: A Radical Conversation with Terry Patten, author of A New Republic of the Heart \[5/15/18\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Cosmos Café\ **Tags:** event\ **Created:** [May 10, 2018, 3:13am UTC](https://www.infiniteconversations.com/t/cosmos-cafe-a-radical-conversation-with-terry-patten-author-of-a-new-republic-of-the-heart-5-15-18/1983 "2018-05-10T03:13:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 38
**Author:** ![madrush](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/infiniteconversations/user_avatar/www.infiniteconversations.com/madrush/32/6452_2.png) [@madrush](https://www.infiniteconversations.com/u/madrush)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2018, 7:26pm UTC](https://www.infiniteconversations.com/t/cosmos-cafe-a-radical-conversation-with-terry-patten-author-of-a-new-republic-of-the-heart-5-15-18/1983/38 "2018-05-20T19:26:41Z")
Re: the word “radical”: > [@achronon](#): > > One of the reasons I asked Terry what he meant by the term was to clear up what the term even means. When used in a “revolutionary” context (cf. the subtitle of the book), the term can conjure up rather vivid and active imagery. I was very happy to hear that he was using the term in a very similar way to our long-forgotten friend Flighty Dwighty (for later-comers that would be Dwight Macdonald and his monograph _The Root is Man_ … Here’s the thread you’re referring to, Ed, for anyone interested: > [@A new model for the left?](https://www.infiniteconversations.com/t/a-new-model-for-the-left/825): > > New thoughts from Slavoj Žižek. He says state communism is dead; social democracies are obsolete; and local democracy movements remain incapable of addressing large-scale imbalances. So, even if a progressive movement were to overthrow an existing neoliberal order, what would it put in its place? What large-scale models for structural transformation are available? Do we have something other than planetary dystopia to look forward to? [[Slavoj Žižek: Why There Are No Viable Political A…](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7JgfB8PaAk) And re: the focus of our conversations: > [@achronon](#): > > In both cases, however (and I’m oversimplifying, I know), getting too close to the text diverts the conversation from the message to the messengers in the background, and that does a disservice to both the backgrounders and the foregrounders, who are trying to do something _with_ those frameworks which they respectively found useful, and to do it _now_ . I think I agree (the wording is a little off) but I think what I’d like to point out, to pick up on your distinction, is that before fore-grounding and back-grounding, we need _common-grounding_; otherwise, it can hard to determine whether we’re even talking about the same thing, thus what needs to be brought forth, and what’s better left behind or unsaid. Re: saving the world. It’s a cliché, of course, which I think has to do with some new human order that can exist in harmony with nature. On a planetary scale: I can actually envision this. It would mean roughly what Terry means by “whole systems change.” I understand this to be a radical vision of what’s possible. But in my imagination, this stage of human evolution (if that’s what we’re still talking about) would be the _starting point_ for a whole new properly _Universal_ (perhaps even Cosmic) phase. But first: I do believe we are charged with creating Heav’n on Earth. And yes: we are the Fallen Angels. And we may need to do this a few times before we get it right. (I am assuming we have already done this before, in some way.) And finally, I imagine that Heav’n on Earth will necessarily be concrete and imperfect, because if it was ideal and perfect, it would actually be Hell. Re: future Cafés, I am interested in other spaces and metaphors that complement the cosmic. I am curious about Stuart’s Halls theory of encoding/decoding messages in mass media. Here is a piece we may want to read and discuss. [Hall-Encoding-Decoding-CSReader.pdf](https://www.infiniteconversations.com/uploads/infiniteconversations/original/2X/0/09b021078008e84717f4e7e4c32d270af41929df.pdf) (280.5 KB) I also think that while a “new republic of the heart” is a lofty and wholesome ideal, we/I also need to keep and strengthen our root systems in the ground—the _underground_, and the [_undercommons_](http://www.minorcompositions.info/?p=516)—which is where what’s “radical” is actually found and lived (and suffered)—where thinking actually takes place (where it remains unpopular) before the marketplace takes notice. I believe we need more poetry, too! I am getting bored with philosophy and theory. I would rather care-fully interpret a single poem (or a _line_ in a poem), which is spiritually high stakes and requires sensitive concentration, than vaguely generalize about interesting ideas, which yet don’t move the soul. --- _[View the full topic](https://www.infiniteconversations.com/t/cosmos-cafe-a-radical-conversation-with-terry-patten-author-of-a-new-republic-of-the-heart-5-15-18/1983)._