I think your quotation of Foucault is right: the rapport between human
beings and other living beings is a political issues, related with the
origin of the humankind citizenship based on rights and duties. Maybe this
would imply a new political order founded on Fourier's "passionate
attractions": this brilliant utopian wrote "*The only art that the
moralists know is that of perverting human nature and repressing the soul's
impulses or passionate attractions on the grounds that they are not suited
to the civilised and barbarian order*."1
This *passionate attractions* are the level of the art, in order to
understand a new sociopolitical order were humankind, other living beings
and technologies live together
Francesco
*1The Utopian Vision of Charles Fourier*. Selected Texts on Work, Love, and
Passionate Attraction. Translated, Edited and with an Introduction by
Jonathan Beecher and Richard Bienvenu. Published by Jonathan Cape,
1972;First Published:
in 1822, *Théorie de l'unité universelle.*
2010/4/28 Amos Bianchi <amos.bianchi@naba.it>
> Dear Francesco,
>
> following Foucault, I strongly believe that the onthological reflection
> about the rapport between human beings and other living beings (I found very
> correct you have quoted plants too, animals are just the fifth part of the
> living kingdom) is derived from some political issues, having origin from
> the human history.
> For what concernes this discourse, the French Revolution has given birth to
> the concept of citizenship, that still nowadays firmly shapes the identity
> of the contemporary human being in the western world.
> But the citizenship is based on rights and duties.
> How to face this problem? If we review our concept of society, establishing
> a new relation with other living beings, don't you think it will be
> necessary to figure out a completely new political order?
>
> Amos
>
>
>
> ----- Messaggio originale -----
> Da: "francesco monico" <francescomonico@gmail.com>
> A: "YASMIN DISCUSSIONS" <yasmin_discussions@estia.media.uoa.gr>
> Inviato: Lunedì, 26 aprile 2010 10:04:31
> Oggetto: Re: [Yasmin_discussions] Narcissism and Anthropocentrism
>
> Dear Roger,
> I agree with you, one of the first move in order to look away from the
> narcissistic anthropocentrism is to develop 'cultural studies' of different
> species and genus of the nature kingdom. And we could start including the
> human obsession for primates as part of the cultural narcissism
> problematic.
>
> Indeed the contribution of Peter Singer with *'The Great Ape Project -
> Equality Beyond Humanity' (1993*) is very relevant, this project aims to
> extend the Human Rights to non-human great apes, this idea gave a
> substantial aid to every discussion on the end of the anthropocentrism and
> on every ideas on Humankind Cultural Narcissism.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Ape_Project
>
> The Humankind Cultural Narcissism new concept is rooted in the work of
> Richard D. Ryder idea of 'Specism' and in Peter Singer work.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_D._Ryder Beyond all influence of
> loving
> nature what is very interesting are the political fall on of all this
> ideas.
> >From this point of view Peter Singer it could be seen as one of the most
> interesting exponent of new political concepts.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Singer
>
> In fact the practice of privileging humans over other animals, is same as
> in
> the XV century western humankind had the practice of privileging christian
> over Indians in central America. The exploitation of natives in the just
> discovered countries of central America was justified by a substantial
> difference, this difference was advocated in the name of God: because they
> weren't christian so they weren't kind of humans. Strongly Narcissistic
> indeed.
>
> Monotheistic God could be seen as the center of Human Cultural Narcissism,
> and because the Narcissism is the neurosis that impede to love the
> otherness, if god is an expression of Cultural Human Narcissism, therefore
> a
> monotheistic God is not able to develop love.
>
> *****
>
> But there is another genus and phylum and family the one of the plants,
> that
> is far way from our comprehension of the otherness. And is for this radical
> distance the reason I use plants instead animals in my artworks. The idea
> we
> should look at plants and their functioning as a useful way of re-thinking
> on us, looks like the proposal of Roberto Marchesini's Zooanthropology,
> http://www.robertomarchesini.com/zoo_fr.htm (unfortunately is in
> Italian/Spanish) that bring back on the stage the animal kingdom.
>
> The central topic is the idea to find from different way to be a useful way
> to be and to see the world. It seems an opennes of the book you quote by
> Karl J. Niklas : Plant Allometry (1994) 'it would be useful to pay more
> theoretical, artistic, and scientific attention to the way otherness
> (algae,
> fungus, plants, animals..) grow and reproduce, use resources and dispose of
> waste over space, time and scale.' Many aspects of our social behaviour are
> closer to plant strategies, as animals, as all living beings, but In my
> artwork I'm enhancing the topic to all things: as today we are facing a
> very
> sophisticated technology, we are facing the theory of the Singularity, so
> may we have to extend this new vision from plants/animals to technologies,
> in a very open eco-logic approach.
>
> In this direction there are interesting topic and term in the Shintoist
> culture that could be defined as "politeistic naturalism" and taht consider
> stones as living beings. Very radical.
>
> francesco
>
>
>
>
>
> 2010/4/21 roger malina <rmalina@alum.mit.edu>
>
> > Francesco
> >
> > Your example about Toxoplasma Gondii is about the importance of parasitic
> > protozoa and I think is one good place to re think about
> > anthropocentrism as most
> > of the life forms on this planet are not primates or in close systems
> > interaction
> > with primates. Yet we are obsessed by primates as part of the cultural
> > narcissism
> > you describe.
> >
> > Ramon Guardans, in his essay " On Plant Physics: the silent power of
> > waiting"
> > argues that we should look at plants and their functioning as a useful
> > way of re-thinking
> >
> > http://www.imera.fr/images/stories/PDF/ramon_guardans.pdf
> >
> > This paper is based on a remarkable book by Karl J. Niklas : Plant
> > Allometry.
> > The Scaling of Form and Process (U Chicago Press 1994)
> > and introduces some of it to the reader. This paper argues that it
> > would be useful to pay
> > more theoretical, artistic, and scientific
> > attention to the way plants grow and reproduce, use resources and
> > dispose of waste over space,
> > time and scale. We shal
> > l argue that many aspects of our social behaviour are closer to plant
> > strategies over
> > the long range rather than shaped by
> > urgencies of ambitious predators , these exist but are just a part of
> > how change
> > in living lineages come about. Other forms
> > of interaction are relevant too.
> > Summarising and commenting on Niklas's work, we draw attention to some
> > distinctive
> > aspects of the physics and biology
> > of plants, regretting implicitly that not more of this work is in
> > progress and accessible
> > when considering long - term life processes
> > The consideration of these issues is also applied to comment on the
> praise
> > Charles Darwin deserves and how the poor man
> > has been abused.
> >
> >
> > Ramon, are you following this discussion ? maybe you would like to
> comment
> > !!
> >
> > Roger
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