Ecology tells us we have limits

Literary critic and philosopher Tim Morris has a very smart post for the philosophically minded: Fighting Modernity with Modernity? No Thanks. What he’s against:

According to one view, humans emancipate themselves from Nature into a more total freedom over its pure plasticity. Yet this would be to continue in the aesthetic-sadistic thought that Nature is a malleable cartoon character who can be stretched and shaped to our whim. And which sadist gets to decide what to do next?

That is to say, modernity has bequeathed us the view that we have the technological tools to push Nature everywhich way we please. So, for example, we can create all the nuclear power we need, and some day we’ll figure out what to do with all that nuclear waste sitting in pools and casks, and some day we’ll figure out how to build plants that aren’t vulnerable to earthquakes and tsunamis. Someday.

He continues:

The question is, now that we know what we know, do we want to continue imagining different kinds of malleability (capitalism, communism) and is that all we want to do? Note that on my view, even if we achieve some kind of physical enactment of our dream—say we have enough political power and enough Earth shaking equipment—we will still be dreaming.

That is, now that we know we’re fouling our own nest with fracking and nuking and deep-sea drilling and all the rest, now that we know that, can we admit that we don’t really know what to do about all those unintended side-effects that keep getting in our face? Can we admit that we are limited, finite beings, and that we should conserve what we’ve got, both for us, and for the other creatures on that share this planet with us?

Do we keep on using tools from modernity’s toolkit to fix a problem created by that toolkit? Or do we see that the toolkit is a rather confusing part of a much wider configuration space?

Maybe we need a new tool kit? One that isn’t so new-fangled modern. One that is both old and newer than new. Let’s look at the truth, conserve what we got, and dance our way into a more sustainable future.