A Green Philosophy of
Chaotic Hope

The Discourse's Context

The Need for an Articulation of Theme or Philosophy, of 'Hope' ^[Refs.]

The last pages of "Postmodernism for Beginners" (from Icon Books) mentions Foucault, shortly before his death, calling for a rethinking of the Enlightenment, then "Postmodernism for Beginners" closes with an un-attributed phrase "The only cure for postmodernism is the incurable illness of romanticism". Personally I disagree, now believing that some sort of 'Philosophy of Hope in Chaos' or 'Green Hope' offers a better way beyond the postmodernism pessimistic morass. The rest of this discourse is my clumsy torturous effort to build a skeleton that greater minds may enliven.

The 'HOPE' of the Greens.

'The Greens' at the moment seem to express a sort of intuitive hope, a psychic awareness of a turn of the tide, that while the current situation is far from desirable or ideal for the planet, then in turn humanity long-term survival, things will inevitable change as humanity finally perceives the truth of its precarious predicament, and with the effort of the Greens this can be sooner, rather than latter after most of value is already indelibly lost.

Kernel (= Summations & Conclusions)

The Meaning of Life, The Universe & Everything.

The traditional certainty of enlightenment in a mechanistic universe, created by a divine rational clock-maker, no-longer exist and no dose of romanticism will regain the assurance that it does.
Rather than the old languages of 'progress' and 'development', we need a more harmonious and fruitful language of purposefulness, speaking of fulfilment and maturing equating to an improvement in quality, that surpasses it predecessor by all measure not just currentness.
The complexity and interconnectedness of the world and life on it, are such that simplistic answers will no-longer work, no matter how hard short term expedience demands that they should.
Because science can no-longer provide an epistemological ground of certainty , a leap faith is required that life existence is in itself is proof of own meaningfulness and purposefulness of life, as a whole.
The maturing of human thought is characterized by an ever 'spreading circle of concern', and it is the personal observance of how the circle is reflected from the personal experience of the web of life that becomes the crystals in Indra's net of the significant other beyond the individual.
Such a leap of faith is not of personal relevance, but the significance of the individual impact / contribution (no matter how small) to the diversity and purpose of the whole of creation.
A life of hope and interconnectedness must not only be a head knowledge, orthodoxy, but must also translate into the action to, and in life, an orthopraxis.
A philosophy of hope should underscore and augment the four principals of the Australian Greens;-

Ecological Sustainability
Social & Economic Justice
Grassroots Democracy
Peace, Disarmament & Non-violence.
Trying to collect the various philosophical heritages that have given rise to these principles. Then most importantly with the 'Philosophy of Hope in Chaos' as the maturing entity the consolidation of these philosophical heritages into a bulwark against Po Mo and Neo -Romanticism.

The Eros effect of the collective unconscious combined with the spreading circle of concern can be viewed as an agent of hope for humanity, thence creation as a whole.
The artistic articulation of the myth maker, 'Meaning, Message and Magic' needs to be combined with creative revitalization of social forms, and celebration of enabling technologies for way beyond ecological crisis management to a spiritually, renewed ecological suitability.
The only intellectually honest hope for the Future will be Green.

Philosophy & Art.

Kandinsky's Moving Triangle ^[Refs.]

Kandinsky developed the idea that any field of endeavour in society is characterized by a conceptual 'moving triangle' . The apex of the triangle is occupied by the elite cadre of exponents on the forefront / leading edge of their discipline, following behind them is a more numerous group that popularizes or implements the development of the researches advances, and the base of the triangle is the masses of society that acquirer the future of advances in the fullness of time. The distance from the apex to the base varies from discipline, in some cases eg. sport and popular culture / fashion it may only be days /weeks or months, in science and the arts it can be years or even centuries! As population densities increase and communications accelerate the gap between apex and base compresses.

The theory can sound elitist until it is realized that a scientist who is at the apex of one triangle will be at the base of another, say the legal world or medicine etc.

Out of this theory grew the modernist concept of the 'Avant-garde' in art, searching the bleeding edge of the aesthetic space for the brave new authentic modes of expression. Sadly cultural machinations in the de-politicised post-war New York art scene debased the heroic role of the avant-garde to a fetish for the 'Shock of the New', where the final arbiter of artistic value, became that which could create the biggest stir at any moment among the richest, most powerful clientele.

The Failure of Modernism & the Rise of Po Mo.

In the 1970's the sheer rich diversity of modern world culture highlighted the absurdity of an exclusivity of one city, country or world view claiming to speak on behalf of the World. The international style in architecture, and much modern art theory, were then seen as being tools of cultural imperialism, rather than unique authentic barometer to the globes aesthetic progress or quest.

The whole concept of progress, collapsed into the directionless, cannibalistic, deconstructionist pastiche that we now call post modernism or 'Po Mo' for short. The popular cultural ramifications was a lost of Faith in any of the grand themes; history, politics or culture. This lead to idealism's death at the hands of greed, and a 'Me-Now generation' that consume today with no thought for a future. Or as an evil twin, a lazy scepticism that will not apply effort to research a thing through, preferring conspiracy theories, extreme fundamentalism or Right-Wing answers.

A Measure for All Things

Beyond Po Mo; Hegel & Romanticism.

This bring us back to the quote "The only cure for postmodernism is the incurable illness of romanticism". Romanticism in itself as a reawakening of the imagination to the sense of beauty and strangeness in all things, is not necessarily a bad thing. {Carl Jung noted modern man's necessity for the reintegration of the spiritual with the rational. But more of this below, see "Carl Gustav Jung." }. Unfortunately Romanticism typically despises rationality in favour for the melodrama of the heart, rendering a society soft-headed, intellectually impotent and vulnerable to the unscrupulous and fanatical. Romanticism also can stupefy a society with utopian dreams falsely reassuring the noncommittal laziness of the cult "she'll be right".

The Failure of Romanticism, to Kitsch, Naturalism & Fascism

Historically Romanticism as with the 19th. century manifestation, usually rejects all resent forms in an uncritical nostalgia of the past, a yearning for 'the good old days'. This revisionist yearning for the past, fuels conservative politician peddling of reactionary simplistic solution to the complex problems of the day. 19th. century Romanticism wallowed in the Gothic, asserting superstition over reason, reviving Catholicism and recreating Monarchies from Republics.

At a populist level this historical nostalgia leads to soft hearted, high touch 'kitsch'. At an academic level it trends over time to a celebration of the power and splendour of nature to over come all, which may not necessarily be a bad thing, as when it lead to the formation of National parks at the end of 19th century both in Australia and in the USA. But a celebration of the power nature often leads to rhetoric of the Social and Cultural Darwinism 'The Survival of the Fittest' and the 'God given ~ Right to Rule' al-la Fascism, particularly when intoxicatingly mixed with the heady romantic heroism of war.

Unfortunately Fascism tends to only arise in polarized societies under stress. When Fascism is combined with such insecurity that gives it birth fervent Nationalism. The official sanctioning of predigest as easy scapegoat answers typically see a corresponding rise in Racism. After the combination of Nationalism and Racism, the spectres of Pogroms, Holocausts and Ethnic Cleansing are usually not far behind.

The Trap of Man as the Measure of All Things.

Man as the measure of all things only work as long as the concept of 'Man' remains universalized, speaking all men ever-where, as in Humanism. When 'Man' is personalized as individual, or some small group or click, the myopic quality of such vision devalue to narrow self interest. Then 'Self' as the measure leads inevitability personal greed, and the corresponding loss of compassion for mankind at large. This process is somewhat inevitable because any given observe cannot interact, or build personal relationship with humankind at large, thus the personal perception contacts to personal experience of the significant few. A more encompassing broader slice of personal experience needs to be engaged, to sufficiently expand the individuals moral / ethical horizons.

The Dictatorship of The Mighty Dollar

Society built on greed are characterized by greed in two directions;-

Bottom up greed: where the masses desire to minimize tax and maximizing of personal benefit at the loss of everyone else, who in not being them are not important.
Top down greed: where capital wishes to maximizes its own befit above the society as a whole, thus 'The Mean School' of modern management.

Both the directions place a disproportional value on the acquisition of money as the lubricant of purchasing power. The rise of short term populist economics, economic rationalist, and short-term power politics. The measuring of everything in economic terms inevitably devalues the spiritual and the non-monetary aspects of anything, collapsing the high aspirations of the society.

The Cosmos as The Measure of All Things ^[^Refs.^]

Peter Singer [1] talks about the maturing of human thought is characterized by an ever 'spreading circle of concern'. Early man only valued his kinfolk, then later it expanded to ones race and / or nation. Humanist ideals extended the scope of concern to all human kind.

From the 1960's, propelled by the environmental movement, the circle of concern has extended to embrace all of creation, with the growing realisation of the interconnectedness of the wed of life.

Streams for a Philosophy of Hope.

Kandinsky's 'Moving Triangle' proffers the concept that any field of endeavour develops and matures over time. Po Mo dismissed the concept of 'Progress' as a Modernist myth, which it is when debased to the formula 'That latest equal the best'. Part of Po Mo's dismissal, opposing that time had a beginning and end, as long asserted by Christian eschatology and underpinned Western thought, was founded on cosmology's proposition that universe is rather just a continuous loop of sequence in time, be this as it may to apply such a grand cosmological proposition to the everyday philosophy of man seems to stretch concepts of relative scale beyond the plausible bounds of human perception and relevance. Maturing equates to an improvement in quality, the latest will only be better when it surpasses it predecessor by all measure not just currentness.

The following stream of thoughts / influence I believe provide the components that can be welded into a 'Philosophy of Hope in Chaos' to surpass Modernism in completeness and quality, while at the same time answering the concerns of Po Mo without falling into the trap of Romanticism.

Christian Existentialism & Kierkegaard

Sören Kierkegaard (1813-55) mapped a way beyond Hegel's efforts to define certainty thence God from first principle. One can never draw or define a finite box , or model that can enclose the infinite. Kierkegaard's 'Leap of Faith' makes sense in the context of a Christian paradigm, being honest enough to distinguish the product of faith from the projection of rational thought (unlike modern day Protestant Evangelicals that wish to argue in a positivist mode from the Bible as an absolute universal revealed truth).

My understanding is that the latter secular existentialist finish in despair, because their leaps of faith are confined to personal experience in a purely personal frame of reference. They lack a spiritual or cosmological scale of purpose and validity.

Marxism ^[Refs.]

Karl Marx (1818-83) ignoring Hegel's inconclusive spiritual machinations, applied dialectics to the development of social productive structures. In the process Marx executed some brilliant, if not cumbersome economic analysis of the productive constituents of society and commerce. It is one of the great pities of history that Soviets so monopolized then petrified Marx's insights into their putrefied form of Communism, which had more to do with a dictatorship of a party machine, than a workers' state.

The Failure of Marxism

Berman in his book "All That Is Solid Melts Into Air" does a very interesting critic of Marx. Marx saw the development of history as the story of successive wave of new classes arising in society to sweep all previous, old social stratas from the board of modern life. Marx saw this process culminating in the rise of the proletariat and the formation of the socialist state, Berman notes there was no reason as history proved, for the process of new class continuing to eclipse former classes to magically stop with the proletariat. Here in lies the seed for the demise of the Soviet state, as we have witnessed.

Forgetting for the moment the economics and global power politics of the Cold War, one other stream for the demise of communism was interesting highlighted by the ABC television series 'Pandora's Box'. The documentary convincing asserted that the Soviet collapse was in part attributable to the social experiment of allowing engineers devoid of any humanist education to attempt after the Second World War to rigidly reengineer society expecting that people could be understood like so many components in some supper machine. Needless to say it failed dismally, motivation collapsed, quality deteriorated and productivity went haywire, then the engineer had no solution beyond a stronger dose of the same formula!

Liberation Theology ^[Refs.]

Combining influence from both Marxism and Christian heritage's, it presents a more human face than Leninism that was the mainstream outworking of Marx's ideas. Liberation theology accomplishes this by infusing Marxism with a Spiritual dimension, making it more open to wonderment of God / creation, and less dictatorial in form. Liberation theology developed the concepts of Ortho-praxis (correct action) as a vital compliment to Orthodoxy (correct thinking), it is not enough to believe something if that belief does not consistently illuminate and motivate an ever expanding outworking in ones action. This is in sharp contrast to the Protestant model that underpins much of the political thought of the 'New Right', that Orthodoxy should be codified into ever stricter laws so all of society is forced to obey a narrowing view of correct conformity. The contrast becomes clear when the case of attitudes to the poor of society are investigated. Liberation theology talks of God championing the cause of the oppressed, being a call to devote people to join in the struggle of the poor, then applies Marxist analysis to history to discern what structures have aggravated their poverty and what can be done to reverse the trend. The 'New Right' see the poor's predicament as God's punishment of the poor for their lack of faith, with no desire to examine the structural issue of why the devote hardworking peasant is not rich!

Anarchism

Prince Peter Kropotkin (1842-1921) ideas about how society doesn't need any organization, if left without coercion, in the light of modern psychology now seem somewhat naive. The concept of mutual aid that he expounds though it may work at a small community level I believe is inadequate for a national or global level, particularly when faced-off by highly rigid structured units.

Anarcho-syndicalist is a more feasible model allowing for a flexible, non-centralist, non-authoritarian, implementation of much of the economic justice requirements that flow from Marx's analysis. But as the Spanish Civil War clearly demonstrated anarcho-syndicalist democratic and inclusive nature inhibit quick clear responses to well militated threats. Anarcho-syndicalist like communism seems to be a system that will only work when the whole world is operating in the same paradigm.

Futurism & Constructivism

Futurism was an artistic movement in Italy before World War 1, full of hope it celebrated modernity (among other things) as a foil to the dead hand of romanticism fossilized as tradition. Constructivism was a slightly latter art movement in Russia that gave voice to the aspirations of the Russian Revolution. Both movements had a strong sense of energy and vitality, a vision for the heroic, in the plastic art, architecture and society as a whole.

Sadly Futurism with it celebration of 'war as the hygiene of society' degenerated into Italian Fascism. Constructivism was a victim of Stalin's conservatism, and megalomania.

Chaos & Complexity ^[Refs.]

Theories of Everything

Since the Enlightenment and Newton, Science has been characterized by a quest to understand the clockwork of the Universe. Einstein and Heisenberg up the stakes of complexity but didn't shake the scientific communities certainty that the answer was just around the corner.

Contrary to the desired aim, theories of Chaos & Complexity arose to vigourously challenge modern science self assuredness. Post Modernist science arguing "Without chaos, no knowledge. Without a frequent dismissal of reason, no progress..." [2]. However the old desire for certainty still passionately surges, now characterized by modern physics pursuit of its' Holy Grail a 'Theory of Everything'. Even with a theory of everything, modern science would now reluctantly accept that complexity and chaos are such, that no amount of processing power or time will allow absolute certain mechanistic prediction for all but trivial problems.

Hofstadter & Penrose.

Douglas R. Hofstadter with "Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid", then Roger Penrose with "The Emperor's New Mind" both developed the concept that large highly complex systems while not predicable and at first examination apparently chaotic often have intrinsic purpose or function when viewed with sufficient granularity. Both authors deal with the limits of computability or knowablity in paradigms or systems of rules (Eg. In the mathematical domain, Gödel's theorem).

They also examine the functioning of the brain as an example of these phenomena, undermining a mechanistic determinist approach. The commonality between human minds coming from not having the identical content or structure, but rather functioning within a similar biology and the context of the cultures that those biologies' develop, something similar to the old theological concept of 'man being made in the image of God'.

Gaia Theory

James Lovelock developed a theory that "organisms collaborate unwittingly in keeping the plant Earth fit for life" [3], the theory however does not say that Earth will remain fit for human life! The Gaia Theory is an interesting model of large micro-biological feedback system, the symbiotic quality of the system being potentially concealed by the chaotic data overload, the sense of all only coming when the appropriate scale is brought into focus. Likewise I think a 'Philosophy of Hope in Chaos' could be discerned in humankind's will to survive, if a global scale can be articulated with the 'spreading circle of concern'.

The Logic of Diversity

Nigel Calder's book "Spaceships of the Mind" while examining the problems of space habitation throws up some interesting corollaries for the survivability of humanity. Leslie Freeman, Palaeolithic archaeologist observes "Cultural diversity has been one of the major means of adaptive success of our species and diversity is now becoming an endangered resource. Encouraging and nurturing cultural diversity is going to be one of the major challenges facing mankind" [4].

I have difficulty in seeing how the globalization and internationalization of commerce and trade, within an economic rationalist approach of bigger is better, is desirable or even viable over the long term. We need a variety of economic and cultural models that can be interfaced to deliver greater diversity, social justice. Maybe a solution can be found in some further development of anarcho-syndicalist , or Schumacher's "Small is Beautiful" line of thought.

Carl Gustav Jung ^[Refs.]

Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) beyond Sigmund Freud is probably the most influential explorer of the subconscious mind, of both the individual and the collective conscious of humanity. During the storm before World War Two, Jung warned of modern man's desperate need for the reintegration of the spiritual with the rational. While a return to Romanticism could temporarily placate this deep need, the dangers Romanticism are too great, and hangover after Romanticism will only exacerbate the disease of discontinuity in society soul. (See above "Beyond Po Mo; Hegel & Romanticism." )

Synchronicity

Jung developed the concept of a fourth axiom in the explanation of the basic laws of the universe. Called 'Synchronicity' it is understood as an 'Acausal Connecting Principle', in contrast to the classical trinity of physics - time, space and causality. Across his writing it becomes unclear if he dose not use the term for two different perspectives of the same thing;-

A attractive force operating between like things. Or tendency for like things to cluster together in space / time.
A perception or increased awareness for a viewer to perceive meaning in collection / clustering of associated things.

Archetypal Meaning

Archetype was a term coined by Jung to denote, inherited meaning structures of the collective unconscious. The Archetype being an inborn form of intuition which breaks through to manifests itself to the conscious as dream images.

Super Ego

'Super Ego' was a psychological structure originally detailed by Freud, being the third manifestation of the individual's conscious identity, after the Ego of childhood has been condition by the society at large. The individual's Super Ego often being indistinguishable from the collective unconscious of the day, with its national psychosis.

Thanatos & Eros

Competing forces within all animal psyches;-

Eros = The Will to Survive, the Lust for Life. 'Eros' is the Greek for 'Life'.

Thanatos = Death Wish, Suicidal Force. 'Thanatos' being the Greek for 'Death'.

That the human species as individuals generally dies from non-self-inflicted reason, is a witness to the greater strength of Eros in the human mind. Pessimists and dis-utopians that argue that humanity will deliberately self-exterminate the race, are unjustifiable postulating that the collective unconscious is diametrically different from the sum of the individuals conscious. Thus the Eros forces of the collective unconscious can be viewed as an agent of hope for humanity. Combining this with the 'spreading circle of concern' raise the issue of hope for the creation as a whole.

Nature of God ^[Refs.]

This is where all this discourse gets very hard, I am not trying to justify personal ideas nor prove anything one way or the other, about the existence or otherwise of anything. What I am trying to say as Jung and others have, that there is something bigger than individual experience, that experience in itself cannot explain, be that a projection out of internal subconscious structures, perceptions of a collective superego, or even external supernatural entities, is not the point at issue, rather that spiritual growth flows from the humility to acknowledge the significant otherness of life.

Myth & Joseph Campbell

Joseph Campbell was a follower of Jung's work. Campbell undertook the enormous task of plotting the cross fertilization, and commonality of the world's wide heritage of myth. In his work he analyses what people talk about and why;-

People spend most of their time talking about those things that are the easiest to talk about. The weather, work, sport. The objective realities outside themselves.
The big emotional issues of life get talked about less because they are hard to successful put into words, and require a deeper level of rapport between speaker and listener. Often requiring a risky bearing of ones most intimate feelings to the other party. Issues like, love, hope and fears.
Finally the most important issues, in the experience of people are nearly never spoken of because the vehicle of language usually collapses under the weight of the mystical or cosmic. Such experience are traditionally communicated from the collective unconscious through the society by the surrogate vehicle of myth.

The myth making function in society, is to be the dream of the collective unconscious, to resolve tensions, so that a society may mature. The raison d'être of the fine arts in society should to be to give form to myth. As Ernst Fischer expounded by synthesizing the 'Meaning, Message and Magic' (See below "Content , Form & Cyberspace " ).

Indra's Net

Hofstadter relates [5] "The Buddhist allegory of "Indra's Net" tells of an endless net of threads throughout the universe, the horizontal threads running through space, the vertical ones through time. At ever crossing of the threads is an individual, and every individual is a crystal bead." so that all the beads reflect all the other beads. Others have used this as a model / explanation of the experience of the God within, being the reflection of the cosmos within oneself. It is also potentially an interesting model of the interdependence of life or community.

Alan Watts

Alan Watts was originally an Anglican Priest that began a long quest for the 'Ground of Being' that exist in most religious manifestations. Studying and writing about Jung, faith, and philosophy, Watts popularized oriental metaphysics among Western intellectuals of the 1940's - 50's. The hippy generation of the 60's adopted Watts as a guru, before he finally died in 1973 in USA.

Watts main importance to concern of this discourse, is how (supplementary to Jung's work) he describes ways that Western people can be reconnected with their spiritual dimension and energy without either the intellectual hypocrisy of Fundamentalism, or the romantic superstition of much of the 'New Age Movement'.

Taoism

Again I don't want to say anything specifically about Taoism, beyond sense that the intuitive attitude it promotes in ones actions and thinking is an interesting mirror / parallel to the liberation theology's concepts of orthopraxis and orthodoxy, and that the way forward to a philosophy of hope may draw strength and insight from the teachings of the water course way.

Content , Form & Cyberspace ^[Refs.]

Ernst Fischer was an Austrian, Marxist poet and Art critic. In his insightful book "The Necessity of Art" Fischer develops both, a critic for the evaluation of art practice, and maps the necessary social function of Art. The second last chapter of the book "Content and Form" explores the dichotomy of content and form, Fischer asserting that both dynamically impinging on the other. Fischer then illustrates this thesis [6] in the working of society (though the language is Marxist, and somewhat dated given the consideration elsewhere in this essay), is a way that reflects on the task in front of the Greens to raise and change social consciousness;-

"The forms of society show a tendency to remain stable, to be passed down as an inheritance from generation to generation. Always it is the ruling classes with their political and ideological machinery that cling to the traditional forms and make enormous efforts to invest them with character of something eternal, immutable, and final"
(in the current situation one could add 'rational', 'logical', 'efficient')
"...... The oppressed classes see nothing sacred or morally superior in the traditional forms but only a handicap to human progress."

Or there is the less conspiratory but more romantic posture identified by Marshall McLuhan as the 'orgy of the rear-view mirror'. [7]

As we all in the Greens know environment, thence society is now reaching a point of ether a paradigm shift to Green ideals or environmental disasters. I wonder at the Synchronicity that this is happening at just the same cusp in time were Po Mo has disintegrated many of the traditional forms of expression, and as John Perry Barlow from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) joyfully prophesies cyberspace will fast destroy the economic viability and cohesion of the nation state if it does not radically change what it is and how it works.

The Anarchy of Cyberspace made be the perfect form for the blossoming, and realizing the Green dream?

References & Bibliography

The Need for an Articulation of Theme or Philosophy, of 'Hope'.

* "Postmodernism for Beginners" by Richard Appignanesi & Chris Garratt, published by Icon

Kandinsky's Moving Triangle

* "Concerning the Spiritual in Art" by Wassily Kandinsky, 1914, pub. Dover Publication, Inc. New York.

The Cosmos as The Measure of All Things.

Marxism

Liberation Theology

* "We drink from our own wells: The spiritual journey of a people" by Gustavo Gutierrez, pub. Dove Communication, © Orbis Books, Maryknoll, New York 1973.

Chaos & Complexity.

* "The Emperor's New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds and The Laws of Physics" by Roger Penrose, © Oxford University Press 1989

Carl Gustav Jung.
Books by and about Jung are vast and numerous the following are just some that may help in the issues mentioned;-

* "Man and his Symbols" by Jung and some of his students, pub. Pan pbck.

* "Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle" by Jung.

Nature of God

Content , Form & Cyberspace

Footnotes

Peter Singer interview "Will the Future be Ethical", pub. '21C' Autumn 1991.
Paul Feyerabend, from 'Against Method', 1988 quoted in "Postmodernism for Beginners" (see end-notes).
"Spaceships of the Mind" by Nigel Calder
Chap. 10 "The Logic of Diversity", ibid. "Spaceships of the Mind"
pp 258 in "Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid" by Douglas R. Hofstadter
pp 129 in "The Necessity of Art" by Ernst Fischer
"When faced with a totally new situation, we tend always to attach ourselves to the objects, to the flavour of the most resent past. We look at the present through a rear-view mirror. We march backwards into the future. Suburbia lives imaginatively in Bonanza-land."
from "The Medium is the Massage" by Marshall McLuhan et. al.

A Green Philosophy of Chaotic Hope