ecological thinking

is being caught in hypocrisy whereby we can’t get compassion exactly right. Eating a fish means eating mercury and depleting a fragile ecosystem. Not eating a fish means eating vegetables, which may have relied on pesticides and other harmful agricultural logistics. Being nice to bunny rabbits means not being nice to bunny rabbit predators.

When thinking becomes ecological, the beings it encounters cannot be established in advance as living or non-living, sentient or non-sentient, real or epiphenomenal. Biology is founded on this confusion. What we encounter when we access the symbiotic real are spectral beings whose ontological status is uncertain to the extent that we know them in detail as we never have before. Our experience of these spectral beings is itself spectral, just like ennui. Starting the engine of one’s car isn’t what it used to be, since one knows one is releasing greenhouse gases. Eating a fish means eating mercury and depleting a fragile ecosystem. Not eating a fish means eating vegetables, which may have relied on pesticides and other harmful agricultural logistics. Because of interconnectedness, it always feels as if there is a piece missing. Something just doesn’t add up, in a disturbing way. We are never clear of embodiment. We can never achieve cynical escape velocity. We are caught in hypocrisy. We can’t get compassion exactly right. Being nice to bunny rabbits means not being nice to bunny rabbit predators. Giving up in sophisticated boredom is also an oppressive option.

ecological thinking, n.All

ecological thinking