The first edition of the Seeds of a Second Renaissance newsletter offers a bite-sized introduction to the work of Donna Haraway:
a leading interdisciplinary scholar in the fields of science and technology studies, feminist theory, animal studies, and environmental criticism. Haraway’s invitation to “stay with the trouble” and cultivate “response-ability” is relational medicine in our time of alienation and crisis.
In urgent times, many of us are tempted to address trouble in terms of making an imagined future safe, of stopping something from happening that looms in the future, of clearing away the present and the past in order to make futures for coming generations. Staying with the trouble does not require such a relationship to times called the future. In fact, staying with the trouble requires learning to be truly present, not as a vanishing pivot between awful or edenic pasts and apocalyptic or salvific futures, but as mortal critters entwined in myriad unfinished configurations of places, times, matters, meanings. ”
~ Haraway, Staying with the Trouble (2016), p.1
Inspired by Haraway, we might enquire:
How do we remain present to our times, not grasping for another time or place when things get knotty?
How do we avoid overwhelm, to remain responsive to the troubles we’re entangled in?
How do we assume responsibility in the sense of accountability – and cultivate our capacity to respond?
Would love to hear reflections on any of these questions, or on Haraway’s work more broadly!
Thanks Catherine, really interesting to read about Donna Haraway’s work in this area, I look forward to exploring this further, having been more familiar with her earlier work on cyborgism.
The idea of learning to be truly present in a polycrisis reminds me a little of Jonathan Rowson’s ‘tasting the pickle’.
We must act now or it will be too late! I am so tired of hearing these words. It is how books about the eco-apocalypse have nearly always ended. What is the point in continuing to tell people that they must act now or it will be too late when almost nothing anybody can actually do will make a significant difference the overall trajectory or limit the long-term damage? To sound virtuous? To inflict psychological cruelty? Who is this “we” who should act? How can it act?
“Act now or it will be too late” doesn’t work. Repeating it ad infinitum and expecting it to suddenly have a different effect is the proverbial definition of madness. I think it is time to replace this tired old chestnut with “We must deal with reality or it will deal with us” – a mantra that stands some chance of actually working. It makes sense at every level from the individual to the entire human race, and for each individual or group regardless of what anybody else is doing. Even if you live in a society which refuses to change, it is in your own interest to make decisions based on reality rather than delusion and fantasy. And it is also, on balance, in the interests of the whole of society for everybody to be dealing with reality. It’s a game-theoretical winner. “Act now or it will be too late” is a game-theoretical loser. Act now because nobody else is going to.
What would happen if we approached the ecological crisis with realism and acceptance rather than idealism and denial? What if we stopped focusing on global calls for change that rely on abstract unity, and instead concentrated on localised resilience, personal responsibility, and realistic expectations? This is not about saving the world in some grand, romantic sense. It is about dealing with the reality we actually face, understanding the boundaries within which we can act, and preparing ourselves for the storm that is actually coming. By focusing on what can be done within those boundaries we will maximise our collective impact. When enough people start dealing with reality on a personal and community level, larger systems can begin to shift.
Yes. The whole “act now, before it’s too late!” vibe is what Gebser calls “deficient mental”. It collapses everything into linear time. The roots of effective action involve far more dimensions than that, quite a few of which are beyond both our ken and our control. So discovering “reality” is a work in progress, but yes, better a mysterious reality than a bundle of off-the-shelf action programs being placed to market with a FOMO sales pitch. (From marketing class: “create a sense of urgency”).
I have a book coming out later this year. It is from that. Title is The Real Paths to Ecocivilisation. It is basically a manifesto for 2R, though it starts from first principles rather than adopting any of the existing approaches.
I have posted two important chunks of it recently in other threads.
