culture philosophy and sustainability_cemit may 2009
TRANSCRIPT
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Culture, Philosophy and
Sustainable Futures
Oleg Koefoed
Cultural Philosopher, Ph.d.
Presentation at CEMIT, SDU
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A brief background
O-Future, CultureFuture, Cultura21..
Cultures as sustainability agents
Cultures connect from the eye of the whole
Complexity is the key and the challenge
Shiftin re imes without forcin
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Addressing the invitation
Society of the future?
The role of engineers and technology?
The role of philosophy??
Is sustainability a philosophical issue? - a
cultural one? A technological one? All?
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Agenda
I. Challenges
II. Histories
III. Regimes
Break
IV. Critical uestions
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Some key events
CultureIFuture dialogues
London October 6th, 2009
Copenhagen, December 2009 (COP15)
Arup & Peter Head & other engineers
RSA, BC, ASEF & other cultural partners
Symposiums around Cultures of Sustainability
Au ust in 5 Nordic cities + event in Co enha en november 2009
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Biz: Interface a case to follow
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Interface eco-tiles & cradle-to-cradle
Interface one of the worlds largest producers ofcarpet tiles
Mission 0 - neutral on all levels by 2020
# Eliminate Waste: Eliminating all forms of waste in every area of business;# Benign Emissions: Eliminating toxic substances from products, vehicles and facilities;# Renewable Electricity: Operating facilities with renewable electricity sources solar,wind, landfill gas, biomass, geothermal, tidal and low impact/small scale hydroelectric ornon-petroleum-based hydrogen;# Closing the Loop: Redesigning processes and products to close the technical loop
using recovered and bio-based materials;# Resource-Efficient Transportation: Transporting people and products efficiently toreduce waste and emissions;# Sensitizing Stakeholders: Creating a culture that integrates sustainability principles andimproves peoples lives and livelihoods;# Redesign Commerce: Creating a new business model that demonstrates and supportsthe value of sustainability-based commerce;
Piecemeal engineering or quantum leap ahead?
http://www.interface.com/http://www.interface.com/ -
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A new model...?
# Redesign Commerce:
Creating a new business model that
demonstrates and supports the value ofsustainabilit -based commerce !
Well, how could you disagree on that one?
But just what does that imply?
What are the preconditions?What are the consequences?
Can we expand that to all policy & practice field
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I: challenges
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Challenge 1: disjunctions
Human from nature and non-humans
Human disciplines from each other
Reconnecting through thematic practise
The experiment of the Burning Points
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Challenge 1: disjunctions
The reversed Lomborg...
Let's not talk too much about CO2
Insist upon the reconnection of issues
But transcending the affordance logic
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Challenge 2: theory lags after practice
About the Open Source movement: What mattersabout the open-source movement is not so muchthe intentional actions of its main protagonists,
actions which are informed by specificphilosophies, but its unintended collectiveconsequences. (Manuel DeLanda, 2001)
About the Political Ecology movement: Politicalecology has fortunately remained marginal up to
now, for it has not yet grasped either its ownpolitics or its own ecology. (Bruno Latour, 2004)
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Challenge 3: cyclical thinking
Non-linearity is replaced by cycles
Western adaptations to Buddhism
Potentiality and cyclicity = apathy/control
Non-linearity beyond project logic
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Challenge 4: reduction to potere
Non-intended effect of wars on meaning
Panic --> control; control --> more control
Preventing the virtualisation leap
How do we become virtualised?
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Challenge 5: other insustainabilities
Challenging sustainability from outside
Invisible, illegal, multirational forces
Invisible traffic escaping potentiality
Can heteach us about sustainability??
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Challenge 6: elites vs empowerment?
Green branding only works in intimacy
- dialogue without conscious betrayal?
There are no cultures left to copy
- can we invent new ones?
Elites vs empowerment a real challenge?
- the have to work for Ille als and BOP..
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Challenge 7: (not) being right
Bringing philosophy in to let go of Truth
Not right, not true, not objective neutral?
Making new senses through crossworks
There is no time to solve the problems..
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The challen e for hiloso h
Towards positiveand proactive philosophies
Intuitive, active, generating reflections
Avoiding the Climate Change War
Transdisciplinary, transsectorial, transcultural
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The challen e for hiloso h
Beyond politics of emergency & emancipation
War /conflict blocks evolution of thought
Lots of local changes and global wars
Waiting for the next quantum leap
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What can 'culture' do?
Alternatives to the 'Battle of global warming'
Reconnecting discontinued cultur(e)alities
Carry out transdisciplinary experiments
Immerse actors in shared action fields
Be ne -entro ic but sustensive..
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II: histories
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History, sustainability, change
Towards a new philosophy of history
Because sustainability calls us to
Changing the perception of change
Changing the concept of sustainability
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Change, matter, assemblages
From discontinuity to continuations
From matter/non-matter to substances
From structures to eventalities
From time and space to time-space
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We have never been modern..
Bruno Latour's challenge and solutions
Breaking out of the cave
Networked collectivities replace divided worlds
Towards a new constitution..?
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Put nature away.. Latour II
A philosophy of nature without nature?
Nature is part of an invaliding disjunction
Collectivities as a guiding principle
Changing the myths behind sustainability
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Materialities
DeLanda and the legacy of longue dure
A history of material meshworks
Assemblage theory and complexions
Humanity beyond humanism
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III: 3 regimes
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The 3 regimes of sustainability
Regime 1: classification (600 BC -->)
Regime 2: potentialisation (1300 AD -->)
Regime 3: virtualisation (1800 AD -->)
A history of overfolding, not dialectics
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Classification the touch of science
From Carl von Linnaeus to HUGO program
Creating boxes for reality
The emperor's animals (Borges)
Ordering the mythical totality in parts
Eventality resist classification or disappears
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Classification and sustainability
Nature is the work of God, just like man
Disagreements on the power of God and Man
Discontinuity = no responsibility to nature
The rise of a new subjectivity gives way for
nature
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Potentialisation changing the world
The philosophy of modernity
Changing (id)entities
Builds on discontinuation
Interventions through power
Nature: a field for human action
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Potentialisation human, God, nature
Power shifts from God to Man
But also from God to Nature
Upgrades are the call of the new regime!
Re-organisation of all classifications
Particularisation and generalisation
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Potentialisation approaches
Rationality that separates (Descartes)
Order that intervenes (Darwin, Smith)
Possessions that move and shape (Marx)
Ubiquitous, panoptic power (Foucault)
Ca italism that shifts and ada ts Boltanski
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Potentialisation and sustainability
Problem focused approach
Change focus but discontinued
Engages knowledge in power struggles
The double challenge of climate change
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NGO's between possestand virtuality
Early days of Greenpeace and allies
Today: Online actions (avaaz.org, RainbowAction Network, etc.
Wooloo.org action beyond struggle..
Are they virtual? Collective? Or just strategic,
warlike behaviour?
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FLOSS between possestand virtuality
Open source development
Collective based on free use
Restricts restrictions
Important aesthetic dimension
Advanced potentiality towards the next state?
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Virtualisation the collective
Collectivities form before individuals- and do not go away
Collectivities are just as real as individuals
Collectivities last over time and in space they are non-local
Collectivities are auto-eco-organising
Proprietary strategies slow them down
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Sustension
Zone ofEventality
De-actualisations
V
Devirtualisations
Sustension
(Ir)radiation
(Ir)radiation(Ir)radiation
(Ir)radiation
Sustension
Zone ofEventality
De-actualisations
V
Devirtualisations
Sustension
(Ir)radiation
(Ir)radiation(Ir)radiation
(Ir)radiation
Sustension
Zone ofEventality
De-actualisations
V
Devirtualisations
Sustension
(Ir)radiation
(Ir)radiation(Ir)radiation
(Ir)radiation
Fig.2 Another graphic representation of the evental encounter
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Virtualisation eventing & complexity
The return of mythical questions
Totalities are more than just constructions
From experience to cosmogonies
From individual reason to collective singularities
Adding intuitions and excess to probabilities
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a (social) model of evental sustension
And on and on in the infinitely small..
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IV: Critical questions
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1: How is this going to happen?
Where is the urgency? Urgency IS building..
What can be done? Collaborate. Give up soleownership of the processes.
When everything needs to change from the verysmall, we are talking about a revolution (a realone). How many of us are ready for a revolution?
No answer to that one. Revolutions tend to fail.
Is this the model for the future after the worseconsequences have dawned upon us?
We should act rather than wait for that answer..
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2. Where are we going?
Good questions....
And more...
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Contactsleg Koefoed
21 /ultura Nordic Gravitations@ .leg gravitations org
. .ww gravitations org. 21 .ww cultura net
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]://www.gravitations.org/http://www.gravitations.org/http://www.cultura21.net/http://www.cultura21.net/http://www.cultura21.net/http://www.gravitations.org/mailto:[email protected] -
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Virtualisation evental sustensions