Gregory Whitehead
I learned about Extinction Rebellion by way of a post by Antonio Dias linking to Gregory Whitehead's blog Desperado Philosophy. I hadn't ever known Gregory Whitehead before. What a gift that link is! There is so much to explore.
I haven't really had time to explore much, but a recent post with excerpts from Leanne Simpson's essay, Land and Reconciliation, interested me.
All of his excerpts from other people's writing are images. That practice helps to assure a modicum of connection to the original work. The writing is connected with images and links which deeply inform the narratives of the post.
I'm a bit dimwitted,often not comprehending what's right in front of me. Something I'm not sure I grok is narrative structure, for example understanding the difference between comedy and tragedy. It should be so obvious--right?
I respect George Monbiot and tend to agree with his politics--to the extent I understand them. Monbiot has stressed the importance of a new political story. He notes that stories are what animate political movements. And he observes that the stories which animate politics have the same narrative structure. He names this structure the "Restoration Story."
I'm not too clear why the Restoration Story troubles me, but it does. I'm sure part of the trouble is the revanchist MAGA story of Donald Trump. That's a story I don't like very much at all.
"An Ecology of Intimacy" is Whitehead's title for the post engaging with Leanne Simpson. Simpson tells a story of reconciliation. Reconciliation is a restoration of relationships, so indeed reconciliation may fit broadly into Monbiot's "Restoration Story." But "reconciliation" suggests nonlinear linkages past and future: Round and round instead of higher and higher.
In these times where nothing will be as it was, reconciliation, "an ecology of intimacies," right relations, pulls me in a way that restoration does not.
