https://douglasscarmichael.substack.com/
It has been a bit of a struggle to come up with a way of presenting the draft chapters and a good discussion environment. Ease of editing the chapters also has been important. The choices have been WordPress, Medium and Substack. Sorry for the confusions. I think we are fairly stable now at Substack, again at
douglasscarmichael.substack.com
The past numbered posts will remain here and the number sequence continued there.
are posted at
As the Anthropocene fades…….
We had education for politics – Athens.
We had education fr Bible study
We had education for Class position and style
we had till recently education for jobs
We have aduction a a holding box wiht no outlet.
We need education for common sense. Obviously pouring smoke into the air Is not good. Thoreau was clear. See Leo Marx, The Machine in the Garden. We need to be educated in
science
anthropology
history
human nature as given through the arts
if we are to master common sense about how to live with nature on this planet.
“Europe was so organised socially and economically as to secure the maximum accumulation of capital. While there was some continuous improvement in the daily conditions of life of the mass of the population, society was so framed as to throw a great part of the increased income into the control of the class least likely to consume it. The new rich of the nineteenth century were not brought up to large expenditures, and preferred the power which investment gave them to the pleasures of immediate consumption. In fact, it was precisely the inequality of the distribution of wealth which made possible those vast accumulations of fixed wealth and of capital improvements which distinguished that age from all others. Herein lay, in fact, the main justification of the capitalist system. If the rich had spent their new wealth on their own enjoyments, the world would long ago have found such a regime intolerable. But like bees they saved and accumulated, not less to the advantage of the whole community because they themselves held narrower ends in prospect.”
Excerpt From: John Maynard Keynes. “The Essential Keynes.”
“I’m studying for a future that’s currently being destroyed’; ‘Why should I get educated when politicians don’t listen to the educated?’; ‘Why go to school if we don’t have any future?’ These were typical handwritten placards at the strikes – and in Holyrood, the kids held a banner saying ‘Capitalism is crisis’; and in Cologne, they unfurled one calling on people to ‘Burn capitalism, not coal’. ”
Excerpt From
White Skin, Black Fuel: On the Danger of Fossil Fascism
Andreas Malm
Where is the culture going is more important than where is the economy going. It is more definitive. No economy without cultural assumptions.
Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness is unbounded and without some principle of responsibility. Compare to China’s mandate of heaven.
We are at the very beginning of time for the human race. It is not unreasonable that we grapple with problems. But there are tens of thousands of years in the future. Our responsibility is to do what we can, learn what we can, improve the solutions, and pass them on. — Richard Feynman
This s so reasonable – and beautiful.
We humans need to humanize the world. Gardenworld Politics is a strategic guiding vision for integrated responses to issues of turbulence — climate crisis, inequality, and governance, to make for an attractive society. Remember that we are, at the core, primates seeking survival strategies. Politics is in the title because we must move beyond policy to action.
Politics, comes from the Greek for town and means all the dynamics of power and status. Unlike mere policy, politics deals with the whole system. Getting to the future will have lots of struggle as some will lose out and will not take it lightly. There are two powerful scenarios for the future. Big tech for global management and local living. We can expect lots of effort at both. Gardenworld is a guide to transition toward renewing civilization with the best blend. We know circumstances will be difficult. Institutions and people’s character will be stressed. Gardenworld is necessary and attractive.
So much writing now is critical of the economy and government. These institutions are not delivering. Economy should be arranging mankind’s interaction with the world to produce a decent life for everyone and governments should be acting to cope with the major emerging problems of our time – but they are not. A void really. Instead of something to criticize, economy and government need to be reinvented. We need to understand how we got here and why it is broken, and what we at best can do now.
their ideas, skills, motives, awareness.
We have our work laid out around us.
GardenWorld Politics - the book 