Three Documentaries: How to Change the World, The Corporation, and Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret

Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret (2014)

Three documentaries that may relate to our Whole Earth Vision:

How to Change the World, dir. Jerry Rothwell (2015). Narrates the origins of Greenpeace.
http://howtochangetheworldmovie.com/

The Corporation, by Joel Bakan (2003). Canadian documentary, examines the modern-day corporations—psychopathological organizations with no other goal than profit.
http://thecorporation.com/

Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret, by Kip Andersen and Keegan Kuhn (2014). Film made by crowdfunding. Explores environmental and sustainability issues, and the impact of animal agriculture. Critical against environmental organizations such as Greenpeace, Sierra Club, Rainforest Action Network, etc.
http://www.cowspiracy.com/

Some thoughts after watching these films:

-The true mission of Greenpeace founders is very inspiring.
-The 1960s could serve us as a model, but we can only see this period historically.
-Big environmental organizations function today as corporate institutions and may have lost original principles in favor to the politics of cynicism—political power, capitalist funding, and so on.

-Possible thesis—a draft history of the eternal return to vegetarian culture in three recent stages:

• 1960s: commitment; spirituality; whole Earth; respect for animal existence; influence of  eastern philosophy, zen Buddhism, Hinduism, etc.; importance of collective; decisions made by choice.
• 1990s: consumer culture; late capitalism; no whole Earth; centered in the self; material individual health, pose; individualism; decisions made by trend/pose.
• 2010s: environmentalism; back to whole Earth; sustainability; lack of resources, individual awareness -vs- environmental corporate and political cynicism; collective by technological alienation; decisions made by need.

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A science article from Nature Communications (www.nature.com)

Exploring the biophysical option space for feeding the world without deforestation

"The question is: is my thought changing?" 

John Cage's book, A Year from Monday,  is featured on page nine of the WEC. The large block from the book presented is Cage speaking on the own ebb and flow of his thought process. One particular bit, about Marshall McLuhan: "I then explained that I believe - and am acting upon - Marshall McLuhan's statement that we have through electronic technology produced an extension of our brains to the world formerly outside of us. To me this means that the disciplines, gradual and sudden (principally Oriental), formerly practiced by individuals to pacify their minds, bringing them into accord with ultimate reality, must now be practiced socially - this is not just inside our heads, but outside of them, in the world, where our central nervous now is."

For me, it's difficult to approach McLuhan non-cynically - given that techno-human extension optimism became an iphone, the "global village" a surveillance system. What can we do with McLuhan (or for that matter, Cage) today? Can a utopia (the social as non-mandated individualized mind pacifying) exist in "ultimate reality" (alongside virtual reality)?

A Year from Monday is a really great book. Interest: PDF: http://monoskop.org/images/a/a3/Cage_John_A_Year_from_Monday_New_Lectures_and_Writings.pdf

on the other hand, the potentials of TV through one of my favorite bands:
In the mid 1960s, the militia driven government of Brazil clamped down on free speech (or creative expression of any kind, really). Musical performers involved in the Tropicalia movement (really psychedelic everything but the kitchen-sink music) such as Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil were exiled. Os Mutantes (a personal favorite) used television as a forum to not only get to play their music, but to present their explicitly critical of the Brazilian government songs to a wide audience. Perhaps with less stakes, but this can exemplify how social electronic forums - social networks and camera phones being the dominant form today, but also TV - can be a valid forum for expressing a want for reform, despite the trappings. Here they are performing in France in 1969:

Edgar Cayce by Liz McCarthy

EDGAR CAYCE (1877–1945)

The Sleeping Profit


Who is this guy?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7HbknkmOf4

Writing in Whole Earth Catalogue:
http://www.ep.tc/realist/89/37.html
http://www.ep.tc/realist/89/38.html

Edgar Cayce was a Psychic and Healer that was active from about 1910-1940. He was one of the earliest forefathers of contemporary alternative medicine in the United States, merging eastern and western ideas of healing, self care, and philosophy. Most of of his wisdom was ascertained through psychic states, in which he would be put under hypnosis and then access the "collective conciseness." In these sleeping hypnosis states an assistant would pose questions which he would answer while channeling this psychic wisdom.

The Whole Body
 The concept of "holism," as it pertains to health and healing, is based on the belief that there is more to a person than just the physical body.  Therefore, health and healing involve more than just the physical/biological dimension of experience.  In other words, the "whole" person is taken into consideration. 

Areas of interest: The Body-Mind Connection

  Dreams and Dream Interpretation

  ESP and Psychic Phenomena

  Health-Related Information

  Oneness

  Philosophy and Reincarnation

  Spiritual Growth, Meditation, and Prayer

ASSOCIATION FOR RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT est. 1931 in Virginia Beach, VA

 


Holistic Health Guide:
http://www.edgarcayce.org/are/holistic-health.aspx?id=3382


THE HERITAGE STORE
place to purchase material for alternative healing
http://heritagestore.com/categories/cayce.html

Edgar Cayce recorded giving a reading:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeQ6qcZVs5E

Criticism:
Cayce and his ideas have undergone lots of criticism and skepticism. Especially regarding some of his more abstract theories, like the belief in fairies and demons, his actual psychic ability has been called into question. He has been accused of not actually drawing from psychic power, but using this hand and puppet act to give remedies that were actually rooted in his own research of folk traditions and eastern medicine. While Cayce came from a devote Southern Baptist background, he also did extensive research in eastern philosophy and healing, which were more regularly referenced regularly in his readings. As his readings have aged, some of the more abstract theories have proved rather fallible, but his holistic healing methods have emerged in many other counter-culture health and wellness movements through out the world. His theories now offer an alternative model for how individuals can choose care of their own bodies and minds.

Aaron

A few PDFs that have been sitting on my Desktop for a while now. They seem relevant to some of this week's readings, last week's discussions, etc:

Gregory Sholette's Dark Matter Archive:
(http://www.gregorysholette.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/05_darkmattertwo1.pdf)

Jan Verwoert's essay "Exhaustion":
(http://www.artsheffield.org/2008/pdfs/exhaustion-exuberance.pdf)

Tiqqun's "The Cybernetic Hypothesis":
http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/tiqqun-the-cybernetic-hypothesis

The Whole Earth + Music

David Bowie predicts the way the internet will impact music.

Todd Rundgren discusses the transition from analog to digital. He discusses the discarded use of the video disk and predicts that technology will eventually become computer software based rather than permanently recorded physical media such as a CD or laser disk, etc.

"Information Wants to be Free"

Hello,

Here's an interesting interview with the author of the biography of Aaron Swartz, a data moralist and developer of Reddit. I heard it on the radio recently and it brought up some relevant topics from the class and mentions The Whole Earth's founder's Stewart Brand.

About half an hour

Michael Lopez

Aaron Walker

Hi Dan!

Just a few links for you here that were talked about briefly in class last week. Thought I'd send them along while I was thinking about it.

Here's a link to episode 1 of "All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace" by Adam Curtis. All three episodes are available to watch for free on Vimeo: (https://vimeo.com/groups/96331/videos/80799353)

Also, here's a link to ARE.NA, a web link/video/pdf sharing site that I've found useful in the past when working in large groups. You can isolate streams of content in interesting and helpful ways: (https://www.are.na)

All the best and talk soon!

Readings

Whole Earth Catalog website    
link to website and articles


Understanding Whole Systems:

2025, If...   R. Buckminster Fuller

Places to Intervene in a System   Donnella Meadows

Shelter and Land Use:

Home Economics--Analysis of US Agricultural Policy          Wendall Berry




Additional suggested readings:

The Future of Jobs    World Economic Forum  2016