[FRA:] Mass-extinction

[matthew piscioneri]

Steve,

>My own tendency is to ask why is it that the current mass-extinction event 
>is unaddressable by the thought ?

well it's nice to try and *do* some critical theory on a list devoted to 
critical theory. When you say unaddressable by the thought, do you mean that 
critical thought is unable to ameliorate the phenomenon of mass-extinction?

The critical thought purveyed by the ecological movement has made 
substantive inroads into mass consciousness over the last 30 years. One of 
my *critical* interests concerns the conditions of success faced by 
progressive social movements - why is it that social democratic efforts, 
feminism, environmentalism only can get so far? My surmise is that the limit 
conditions are mainly defined by existential factors...social change hits a 
point of acceptability beyond which further change threatens the procreative 
regime. Further change challenges the fundamental way the majority of people 
*exist* and understand their existence.

It is ironic that this incapacity to move beyond our fixed existential 
comfort zones enable looming ecological changes which undermine the 
possibilities of our continued material and thereby existential futures as a 
species.

>Rather, I suspect that given that for the forseeable future human beings 
>are now uniquely responsible for 'everything' that happens within this 
>locality - so then a philosophical proposition and position needs to take 
>this into account.

Well, except, I tend toward the view that humans are a part of nature and 
what is happening is a natural process.

>Re the 8 year old --- when that happened to my children i'd already 
>innoculated them against that unpleasent virus by playing them  sun-ra's 
>"it's after the end of the world"  and told them that god, satan and 
>somewhat later that man was dead, and that anyone that believed any human 
>life had greater value than that of george the cat was either an idiot or 
>hadn't thought about what they were saying...

Thanks for the advice :-).

best regards,

mattp