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Title: Reclus Author: Fire Date: Spring/Summer 2007 Language: en Topics: green anarchy, Green Anarchy #24, Elisée Reclus, progress, enlightenment, domestication Source: Retrieved on 26 August 2018 from http://greenanarchy.anarchyplanet.org/files/2012/05/greenanarchy24.pdf Notes: from Green Anarchy #24, Spring/Summer 2007
Just as I begin my exploration, a huge periwinkle blue dragonfly enters
my mid-autumn world. Hovering just above the pond a few feet away. I
appreciate its lacy wings that seem so delicate yet are strong enough to
carry the creature great distances. Strong enough to cause ripples
across the water’s surface. What is it doing? Is it looking for
something to eat? What shall I do with it now that it has entered my
world? An infinite number of possibilities exist for me and this unique
creature. I could study the movement of its wings and their effects on
other lives of the pond. I could capture and cage it for further
examination (or to merely admire whenever I wished). Then again, I could
kill it and dissect it to better understand the mechanics of flight. I
wonder if it’s edible? How would it taste? Would it nourish me? A
thousand possibilities, a thousand thoughts flying around inside my
head. Filling the spaces between us...I begin again.
Reclus is …
Sharp and darting movements mark my dragonfly’s maneuvers. Is it
searching for something beneath the water? Is it dancing with its own
reflection? Is it awakening to it’s conscious? Is it... ARGH! I do love
my curious nature, my inquisitive and contemplative mind. But these
qualities keep getting in the way of simply enjoying the dragonfly’s
marvelous presence. Its gift to my day. Why can’t I simply dwell in its
freedom of movement and of time; far more expansive than mine. Or so it
seems from the perspective of a one who is limited by boundaries far
more insidious than of a perceived absence of a proper consciousness or
shorter lifespan or...
Reclus is dead!
And here I am, spending my too-quickly-waning fall days aiding in his
resurrection. Bringing back to life yet another long-departed,
enlightened-European, male anarchist. Beyond the obvious academic
credentialing that his revival has brought, why do we care about the
words and activities of one dead for over a hundred-fifty years? Did he
discover something profound in his world travels as a preeminent
geographer? Can he further clarify our perspective on the current and
potential future of our worlds? Is there anything in his ancient
assessment that remains relevant today given the scale of unpredicted –
and unpredictable – human-directed geographical and social changes
(a.k.a Progress) scraped from our bones since his time?
Humanity is nature becoming self-conscious.
What is this great self-consciousness Reclus insists humankind must
develop and spread? From conscientia, knowledge-with or shared
knowledge, numerous systems of thought have evolved around the notion of
consciousness. Commonalities include subjectivity, self-awareness,
sentience, sapience, and the ability to perceive oneself in relationship
to one’s environment. It is often tied quite closely to conscience – a
moral sensibility.[1] Is it an inherent aspect of higher life forms as
most thinkers suggest? Or does it emerge from human intelligence and its
constructs? Particularly ideology.[2] Over and over Reclus speaks of
humans AND nature, maintaining the artificial separation that continues
to pervade the modern world view where humans are invariably placed
outside of – and most often above – all other life forms. Reclus does
attempt to overcome this hierarchy and concomitant domination through
rhetorical exercises that are wholly unconvincing despite any sincerity
of attempt. What was the state of Reclus’ consciousness when he chose to
explore and map the world and its human inhabitants? Did he, could he,
with his great human intelligence and moral conscious KNOW that his
works would be used by states and empires to conquer and destroy? By the
industrialists he railed against to further exploit the coexisting land
and life? By scientists and technologists to further the reach of human
domination? Reclus suffered, as surely we all do, from a certain
shortness of vision. Our eyes shaded by motivations imposed by society,
by ideological preconceptions and presumptions left unquestioned.
One test for the existence of consciousness is based on the human
observation of animals gazing into a mirror. If said authority deems the
animal has recognized itself, the animal may be conscious. If he could
look in the mirror today, what would Reclus see?
The dragonfly appears to be gazing at its own reflection. Am I
witnessing – or am I influencing – a beginning of self-awareness? Is it
situating a human morality in place of instinct, experience, and
non-linear adaptation? Oh, but wait! Could my dragonfly be giving thanks
and praise to the Buddha cemented into the artificial pond? Can it
absorb Buddha consciousness through a concrete icon? Can you? So many
possibilities. Far more than language, no matter how poetic, can
describe.
Looking through the mirror of history, all sorts of justifications and
rationalizations have been built into our consciousness. Reclus may have
abandoned the official religion of his preacher father, but he held onto
the notion that humanity would be saved by a higher purposed, globalized
morality. A morality that has ALWAYS been used to bend all of life to
others’ wills. That requires someone to determine and enforce it. What
morality and unquestioned rules and judgments frame your reality? What
ideologies underlie your perception of the world, thus consciously
directing your actions? How many and which acts have become quite
unconscious?
I don’t know if other creatures have this thing called consciousness,
but I am disturbed by Reclus’ glorification of a human consciousness
that no matter how one defines it, has brought with it a power so strong
it has overridden all other possibilities of how humans might be truly
of their world.
Is it my particular madness to think I’d be better off with the
consciousness of a dragonfly than of domesticated human?
When the cities grow, humanity progresses and when they shrink the
social body is threatened with regression into barbarism.
Reclus was a great fan of Progress so he did not sufficiently question
the pervasive notion that humans have an innate mandate to advance their
lot through the Sciences and particularly through its materialization in
more and more advanced technology. His dialectical approach to the
question of cities, culture, agriculture, institutions often seems more
an apology than a means of questioning. Cities are an absurdly complex
way of organizing human life. They require authorities and bureaucrats
in institutional settings who know how to keep them going. Cities
require the importation of even the most basic necessities: food and
water. Importation that has always meant and will always mean, theft
from other life outside the city. The city requires massive amounts of
human and non-human energy just to maintain its fragile equilibrium. How
can this mean anything other than a continued exploitive division of
labor as glorified in Reclus’ and others’ worker ? No one has yet
described how cities can continue to exist without more and more
advanced technology. Technology which first enlarges the human impact
then spreads it farther and deeper than humans with only the energy of
their bodies and simple tools in hand could ever accomplish. The polis
exerts a pressure so great upon the land and air and water – on all life
within and without – it has never failed to create an explosive discord.
If Rita had had a human conscious, would it have spared this city on the
edge?
Suddenly, the dragonfly charged right at me, aiming at my head then
quickly disappearing from my view. But, never again from my awareness.
With that single startling act even more thoughts leap into my mind. Was
it drawn to me because of my great human consciousness? Was it as
curious and appreciative of me as I was of it? Could the dragonfly have
known the thousand possibilities of its demise at my hands and so was
warning me away? Or was I just another obstacle to be dodged on its
afternoon free-flight?
Alas, the most horrific thought of all could not fail to enter into the
realm of Fire and dragonfly possibilities: this beautiful creature could
be – if not now, one day all too soon – a replicant, a robot, a spy, or
worse.[3] This thought wrenches me towards a paranoia only possible in a
world where the architects of the future go unopposed as they design the
next, new and improved version of surveillance and killing-technology to
deal with those whose wings (however weakly) send disturbing ripples
across the surface of their artificial landscape.
With this last raging thought, I am finally able to shrug away the
intellectual games and feel the simple pleasure of sharing a warm,
vibrant fall day filled with that moment of beauty, of the wild and
expansive freedom of a dragon-fly dance.
In the years since he ceased breathing – and I think it’s time I stopped
breathing for him – countless billions have joined him. The massive
human-caused extinctions that continue to escalate are a direct result
of a refusal to recognize, contemplate, and challenge every new
progressive incursion into our worlds. This is not because we do not
question authority. It is because we do not reject it at base. We rely
on the authority of official thinkers and big S scientists, politicians,
professors, leaders, and thousands of other mediators to tell us what is
right, what will work and what won’t, what makes sense and what will
bring our salvation. Layers of civilized logic have all but severed our
connection to what it is we really need and might expansively desire;
forcing us to see these two as separate far too often. We are even more
removed from how to fulfill our wildest dreams without destroying the
environment that contains it all.
All the world is ours, each one of ours. But we can only know it from
our own center where all we need-want is within our grasp. And we must
take it back from those who wrest it from us daily. Or to whom we give
it up so willingly. To live our own lives as we choose, not in servitude
to others and their ideas, but in impassioned explorations, experiments,
and uncertainties. To take all we want, but with a wholism that includes
a direct, sensual, intellectual, emotional consciousness ; what I have
come to think instinct might actually be. To locate that place where we
cannot fail to heed the warnings of others issued when we go too far;
when we may cause irreparable harm to the world we love and wish to
keep. Can we get back to our selves, those strong and free individuals
who cavort with all the natural wonders that we choose and who choose
us? How do we prepare ourselves to confront the consequences of those
choices?
Reclus was “ahead of his time” and his life’s work added a depth and
breadth in much of the early environmental movement. But we would be
foolish to lay our faith at Reclus’ enlightened feet. Faith in
scientific, technological – that is, Progressive – solutions has led us
directly to the dire straits we find ourselves trying to navigate.
Despite his atheism and break with “conservative” religion; despite his
dedication to an anarchist ideal of liberation, Reclus’ view of the
world was rooted in a belief that humans have a Special place in Nature.
He – like so many – merely exchanged his patriarchal god above for the
equivalent below, a universal morality that does not, cannot, and ought
not exist. His much acclaimed statement, “Humanity is nature becoming
self-conscious”, exemplifies my greatest concern with his legacy.
What need has the free-flying dragonfly for a human consciousness? Where
would the wild river go, once so imbued, that it has otherwise avoided?
The earth and all its inhabitants are reeling from the great human
conscious!
Until each domesticated human grasps the fullness of life in her own
eager hands; feels its possibilities coursing through his veins; screams
their own warnings; and recognizes their individual connection to the
wretched, beautiful whole that Reclus at times so eloquently described,
the “environment”and “nature” will remain separated abstractions shaped
by yet another external authority. An authority that delivers solutions
through the stick of objective universal righteousness and the carrot of
progress. Some, including Reclus, say that primitive humans understood
this symbiotic relationship with life. Perhaps this is true, but we are
here now. Can we create paths to our own liberation and release our
choke hold on all the rest?
Reclus may inspire those who seek refuge in the past. I am most inspired
by those I meet and play with today. Perhaps the whimsical words of one
of my very much alive anarchist friends, Apio, will inspire you to
explore some of the thousands of wild possibilities of being in your own
world:
Sometimes, if I am out on a cloudless night when the moon is full, I
will reach up and grasp the moon between a finger and my thumb. I close
my eyes and pop the moon into my mouth. It leaves a taste on my tongue
that is icy and sweet like wintergreen or mint. But that taste is really
the taste of a star-filled, winter mountain-top sky glowing icily in an
infinite brilliant dance of the darkest night with the exquisite light
of countless stars. I open my eyes with joy at seeing the moon still
dancing before me. It is wonderful to be able to take something so
completely into yourself without losing it, to experience it so
completely.
[1] The French word for conscience and conscious are one and the same –
conscience.
[2] Thomas Aquinas describes the conscientia as the act by which we
apply practical and moral knowledge to our own actions. Descartes
described conscious experience as imaginings and perceptions laid out in
space and time, as viewed from some point. Marx considered that social
relations ontologically preceded individual consciousness, and
criticized the conception of a conscious subject as an ideological
conception on which liberal political thought was founded. Nietzsche was
the first one to make the claim that the modern notion of consciousness
required the modern penal system, which judged a man according to his
“responsibility”. Perhaps the most accurate description of the modern
conscious is W.E.B. Du Bois’ double-consciousness – the awareness of
one’s self as well as how others perceive us, which has led to an
unconscious conformance to their perception.
[3] DARPA is asking scientists to submit design proposals that would
allow implantation of engineered material into insects, such as
dragonflies and moths for surveillance and attack.