“‘England is full of magicians. Hundreds! Thousands perhaps! Norrell refused them. Norrell denied them. Norrell silenced them. But they are magicians nonetheless. Tell them this.’ He passed his hand across his forehead and breathed hard for a moment. ‘Tree speaks to stone; stone speaks to water. It is not so hard as we have supposed. […]
“‘Whoever heard of cats doing anything useful!’ ‘Except for staring at one in a supercilious manner,’ said Strange. ‘That has a sort of moral usefulness, I suppose, in making one feel uncomfortable and encouraging sober reflections upon one’s imperfections.’” ––Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, by Susanna Clarke, pg. 756 “It’s uncomfortable, at the least, […]
“Your life might be a kind of moral outrage. It might have to to change right now.” ––Moral Ground: Ethical Action for a Planet in Peril, “Climate Change Is a Moral Problem for You, Right Now,” by James Garvey, pg. 282 “‘I hope you will write occasionally? Some token of your impressions?’ ‘Oh! I […]
“The picture of reality emerging from cosmology, evolutionary biology, and ecology focuses on relations and community, not on individuals and objects. According to this picture, everything in the universe has emerged from a Big Bang 15 billion years ago when a tiny bit of matter exploded and over billions of years became the galaxies and […]
“No amount of ideology can change the profound dependence of each human person not only on other human beings, but on air and water and other species as well––the invisible ‘others,’ the great ‘cloud of witnesses’ we depend on. But whereas ‘independence’ is a word enshrined in history, ‘interdependence’ is an uncelebrated academic neologism. Efforts […]
“I have suggested that climate change poses a fundamental challenge to how we think of our lives having meaning, and that respecting those who will follow is part of how we might constructively respond to this challenge. Such a response does not depend on sweeping views about right, duties, and responsibilities but only on modest […]
“I have heard talk about a light at the end of the tunnel: Is it the brightness of day out in the world of life, or is it a train bearing down on us? Only time will tell, and our only choice seems to be to keep going toward it, whatever it may be. Perhaps […]
“In time, coyote may give rise to a dozen new canids. Collembola might found whole new orders of invertebrates, with lifeways beyond our imagining. And if some sort of upright ape is among the array, it might not bear much resemblance to those who pulled the plug, pushed the plunger, pulled the trigger on the […]
“When I die, wash my body with a cotton cloth. Bury me in a split-wood coffin crafted from trees that died a natural death. Lay me to rest in clothes I have already worn thin. Do not seal out the water and bugs and burrowing critters. Let me be absorbed back into the Earth. Let […]
“We need to become wiser than Socrates. Certainly ‘the unexamined life is not worth living,’ and certainly we should strive to ‘know thyself.’ And while the classic search in philosophy has been to figure out what it means to be human, Socrates was sometimes wrong in his search for the good life. Socrates loved Athens, […]