God, Science, Revolution: invoking soulcraft
A nondescript classroom in a public university. No windows, fluorescent lighting, beige fabric walls, plastic-and-steel chairs. White board, vague palimpsest of problems set and notes taken. Characters in unmatched garb are rearranging furniture; soon, oppositional rectilinearity dissolves into a circle. Unexpectedly, lighting dies -- darkness -- then a spotlight crackles, searches, finds. At the same time, dozens of people filter into the room, veiled, silhouetted, anonymous. The crowd murmurs, stills. A pause.
Night Crow: Welcome. Welcome to a journey we are choosing to take together. Welcome to a conversation -- a conversation already long and ornate in its history. So, we begin by asking you to listen, as preparation for speaking.
Velvet: In a moment of grave risk, our task is to renew the mysterious possibility of spirit.
j(A)de: Why? Because if we don't, we're fucked.
Jax: The grand project of the Enlightenment -- more than that, the living world-spirit that has animated the all-conquering Empire, Rome revenant -- this instrumental Reason is on the cusp of killing us all.
Max: And yet reasoning, thinking, puzzling, analyzing are leading us also at this very moment to the very borders of the Rational.
Velvet: And beyond.
Regina: What is beyond what we thought we knew, once we can no longer believe our youthful disbelief?
j(A)de: And can we use it to give ourselves a flying pig's chance in hell of making it possible for our descendants to love us?
Max: We're gonna try. All of us, we've worked together, melding our wacky melange of voices and perspectives into something like a connected series of thoughts, hoping to goad or intrigue or spark you into participation. Participation with us, yes; but more importantly, participation in one or another spirit of change greater than each of us, greater than the sum of us, great enough, perhaps, to change the world.
Nelt: To this end, we present to you four letters -- four ways of bringing together science, religion, and politics -- as an overture to the possibility that you may already be part of us.
Jax: After all, for a generation we've been told the grand narratives are dead. But on they stumble, like zombie nightmares. What's going on? What are we to make of it? How do we live in a postpostmodern world stormed by information, empty of meaning?
Maybe here lies a way. This is our testament to the possibility of life beyond the end of life as we know it.
A voice, over the intercom, with a haze of static. Calm, measured, neutral.
?Hal: (Ignore them. They get a bit carried away.)
These are just simple invitations to collaboration on an interesting project that may get you tenure, help you cope, or at least amuse the fanboys.
Static again, then an airport tritone, followed by an announcement.
Do not be alarmed. Insert immediately passe headline here. Do not be alarmed. Shopping is duty-free. Have a nice day.
Lights out, again. Longer, this time. Slowly, your eyes adjust to the gloom. One person is standing in the center.
Night Crow: (Very quietly.) Does this all seem like too much?
The world is a big place, full of life, and all this talk of doom is maybe a bit much.
OK. Take a breath, step outside, smell the air, taste the ripeness of the afternoon sun, hear the echo of the moon.
No, I encourage you. I'd insist, if I could.
A long pause, awkward, then finally rather peaceful.
Regina: If we're going to do this properly, we need you to take us with a pinch of salt. We'd like you to test what we're saying by checking your own body -- and when something's off, track that, notice what difference it makes and perhaps how to hit better notes, write richer truths.
j(A)de: We're counting on you.
Everyone, together: This journey may persuade you that disbelieving magic is superstitious. That our best bet for living the future is to remember believing in God. That the most realistic way of changing our global future is to focus on small groups, and to build meaningful alliances with the natives of our place -- if, by doing so, we participate in the material body of an alliance of spirits of wildness and love.
Letter for the Biophysicists' Review.
(Older screed available here)
Over the last few years an obscure research area has blossomed with unexpected results. These and related findings are already transforming the fundamental paradigm of how we distinguish between classical and quantum regimes -- and thus the foundations of science as a socio-technical practice. What does this mean? Do biophysicists, medical technologists, and responsible researchers generally have a crucial role to play as we navigate the mounting eco-crisis?
An Ethnographers' Epistle.
For generations, anthropology has been a field between,
negotiating the borderlands between indigenous groups
and the metropolitan centers of power.
For generations, fieldworkers have struggled to be less colonizing,
to take their hosts seriously,
and even to put their work in political service
to real-world struggles over land, resources, and collective rights.
And yet -- there is something missing.
In you, the academic disciplines struggle against "going native".
Take the ontological turn:
around the corner the spirits may be calling your name.
A Note to Radicals.
Is a revolution coming? We ebb and flow in tides: people know something's wrong, we just can't get it together to make what's right! A hundred flowers bloom, and nothing comes of it but activist identities in permanent pissing matches. And yet, we are renewed over and over by the spirit of change in the nooks and crannies. Maybe it's not our correct theories, our carefully constructed messages, that drive change after all. Maybe change drives us, as we learn to let it.
A Message for Monotheists .
Who is your God? It is a commonplace these days that in every denomination there are many ways of being a believer: evangelical, liberal, fundamentalist, charismatic; called to the social gospel or the mystic's piety. But belief is more than the words we say: it's about participating in the body of Christ. Taking the Spirit seriously, don't these and other differences mark the possibility that gods other than the Christ are living in our churches -- wolves in sheep's clothing? What makes the difference? How do we listen for the still, small voice of God in discerning the angels from the demons? How do we have faith?