Re: <nettime> Compost Hype

["Alberto Gaitan" <alberto@null.net>]

> Date:          Fri, 20 Jun 1997 03:07:07 +0200
> From:          Frank Hartmann <hartmann@fsf.adis.at>
> Re: <nettime> Dery on neo-biological cant (Barlow, Kelly)
> it) that is higly irritating is the notion of democracy as seen by the
> neoliberalistic mind.
>...
> (Hive Mind, in: Out of Control, p.9) Nature never lies, nature tells us
> the truth. 
> 

If that is what Kelly means by "works marvelously," he's wrong, 
I think.  Nature says nothing.  We extract meaning from Nature.

> Ernst Haeckel published his WELTRAETSEL (= world mysteries), as
>...
> world view to the process of nature: let
> all man-made formalities aside and politics will benefit. Study the
> cells and organisms and you have the best blueprint for a
> functioning society. 
> 

An extremist/simplistic point of view.

> The invocation of a slippery term like
> "nature" should trip alarms everywhere, as Mark Dery pointed out. But
> this also goes with ecology, sustainability, emergene, autopoiesis and
> so forth, especially in relation to organisational aspects of society.
> These terms do not solve, they conceal the real problems we have in a
> society of transition.

Of course they don't solve socioeconomic problems.  Metaphors are a
way of thinking about something complex.  They don't solve anything.
People do.  Bringing up eugenics every time someone brings up
bionomics is a red herring.  Even a moderate levels, Eugenics
quickly becomes an unfit strategy, doomed to failure.  Variability
in the gene pool should be maintained high.  Because a paradigm
suggests a course of action, that is no reason to take it.  Ethical
decisions need to be made.  I know how my car works but I don't let
it do the driving for me.  Just because biological metaphors provide 
a useful wrapper around economics doesn't mean you can use them as a 
cabalistic black box where you plug in a problem and it comes out 
solved.

Alberto Gaitan
=========================
alberto@null.net
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