A fundamental pause
Dilapidation's processes
Are organized Decays.
'Tis first a Cobweb on the Soul
A Cuticle of Dust
A Borer in the Axis
An Elemental Rust—
Ruin is formal—Devil's work
Consecutive and slow—
Fail in an instant, no man did
Slipping—is Crash's law.”
― Emily Dickinson
Crash's law ... the statistics
Most of us are accustomed to bad news and, as such, we anecdotally look past it as normal [which comes to us from nomos meaning customary] ... even necessary/unavoidable. Thus, when somebody suggests that we need to stop and reevaluate our fundamental assumptions for conducting life, we get impatient ... even hostile ... and demand to know "Why?" ... "What difference will it make?" ... "It's a waste of time."
In a recent Russell Moore interview, David Brooks was quite emphatic that something much worse is happening today than in many decades prior:
"There's a whole rash of statistics that are just terrible. And I'm kind of obsessing over "What's going on?", because alot of these things don't seem to have much to do with each other."
But, of course, IF the universe is organic, no thing is unrelated to any other thing ... they are only separated by propagation of cause and effect through proximate space and time ... which means "Slipping is Crash's law" ... and ruin is formal albeit gradual [evolutionary?]. Indeed, if you listen to Brooks, he quickly comes to the conclusion that something "formal" is happening [or not happening in this case].
Overcoming unbelief
The columnist's unambiguous conclusion is that something "formal" must happen to avoid ruin ... but the poet's unwavering claim is that the converse is also true ... that ruin is "formal". The appropriate question, then, seems to be
"What form both saves from ruin and ruins those who are not saved?"
The answer we have proposed is that the logos preserves things from ruin [ie. sustains them] ... but that it also ruins those whose nomos departs from it ... ecology v economy. Grasping this seems to be a hard thing for the intellect ... even when the feelings sense it is an accurate description of what is happening.
Essential dialogue
In our recent May 2022 meeting of the still rudimentary 3e's working group, at which 7 persons were present, it was obvious that, as important as a distinction between ecology and economy might be, it is no easy accomplishment but rather one which takes time in grammar and dialogue to initiate [assuming the mind is even open to a paradigm change]. But until this distinction is grasped, seen as meaningful and capable of articulation by a critical mass in the working group, there is little prospect of it becoming a new paradigm that can guide us in understanding and addressing the "cRash" of unrelated statistics David Brooks seems to be concerned about.
Assignments ... and next meeting
Here are a few assignments:
- [Re]read the 3e's Trope ... and the first few sections of the essay entitled 3e's for Sustainable Community [linked in upper right of the 3e's Blog] ... to find some keywords to combine to establish some common thoughts which may help illuminate the challenges before us as a working group.
- Those who attended the last meeting should try to briefly articulate what they heard and the challenge ahead of us as a group of individuals coming from various POVs as they see it ... and email their summary to Bob Love to record on the blog page Meetings & Minutes which will serve as a help for those who were absent and as a history of our thought formation process.
- Everyone can review the various 3e's blog entries [using a laptop to get the full view] before the next meeting which will probably occur in June.
thanks,
Bob