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Henry Sheerwater's avatar

I guess im being silly. I guess Plato and Descartes and Bacon are inflection points, where human violence became enculturated?

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Henry Sheerwater's avatar

I've never liked Plato, or the tiny bit I've understood of his idealism. But idealism lives in me, very strongly. I can't see Plato as originator. He lived 400 years BC ... after many anthropogenic extinctions of other animal species, and after agriculture, and after mining of tin iron and copper. I want to look elsewhere for ultimate causes of the polycrisis which will cause the collapse of our civilization and perhaps even of our species. Iain McGilchrist's fractured mind? The part of our self which doesn't know why but does know what for? Toxic masculinity? Testosterone poisoning of male primates?

Alfie and Me sounds like an interesting book. I love stories of bonds across species.

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