Culture Philosophy and Sustainability_CEMIT May 2009

8/14/2019 Culture Philosophy and Sustainability_CEMIT May 2009

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Culture, Philosophy and

Sustainable Futures

Oleg Koefoed

Cultural Philosopher, Ph.d.

Presentation at CEMIT, SDU


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A brief background

O-Future, CultureFuture, Cultura21..

Cultures as sustainability agents

Cultures connect from the eye of the whole

Complexity is the key and the challenge

Shiftin re imes without forcin


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Addressing the invitation

Society of the future?

The role of engineers and technology?

The role of philosophy??

Is sustainability a philosophical issue? - a

cultural one? A technological one? All?


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Agenda

I. Challenges

II. Histories

III. Regimes

Break

IV. Critical uestions


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Some key events

CultureIFuture dialogues

London October 6th, 2009

Copenhagen, December 2009 (COP15)

Arup & Peter Head & other engineers

RSA, BC, ASEF & other cultural partners

Symposiums around Cultures of Sustainability

Au ust in 5 Nordic cities + event in Co enha en november 2009


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Biz: Interface a case to follow


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Interface eco-tiles & cradle-to-cradle

Interface one of the worlds largest producers ofcarpet tiles

Mission 0 - neutral on all levels by 2020

# Eliminate Waste: Eliminating all forms of waste in every area of business;# Benign Emissions: Eliminating toxic substances from products, vehicles and facilities;# Renewable Electricity: Operating facilities with renewable electricity sources solar,wind, landfill gas, biomass, geothermal, tidal and low impact/small scale hydroelectric ornon-petroleum-based hydrogen;# Closing the Loop: Redesigning processes and products to close the technical loop

using recovered and bio-based materials;# Resource-Efficient Transportation: Transporting people and products efficiently toreduce waste and emissions;# Sensitizing Stakeholders: Creating a culture that integrates sustainability principles andimproves peoples lives and livelihoods;# Redesign Commerce: Creating a new business model that demonstrates and supportsthe value of sustainability-based commerce;

Piecemeal engineering or quantum leap ahead?
http://www.interface.com/http://www.interface.com/


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A new model...?

# Redesign Commerce:

Creating a new business model that

demonstrates and supports the value ofsustainabilit -based commerce !

Well, how could you disagree on that one?

But just what does that imply?

What are the preconditions?What are the consequences?

Can we expand that to all policy & practice field


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I: challenges


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Challenge 1: disjunctions

Human from nature and non-humans

Human disciplines from each other

Reconnecting through thematic practise

The experiment of the Burning Points


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Challenge 1: disjunctions

The reversed Lomborg...

Let's not talk too much about CO2

Insist upon the reconnection of issues

But transcending the affordance logic


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Challenge 2: theory lags after practice

About the Open Source movement: What mattersabout the open-source movement is not so muchthe intentional actions of its main protagonists,

actions which are informed by specificphilosophies, but its unintended collectiveconsequences. (Manuel DeLanda, 2001)

About the Political Ecology movement: Politicalecology has fortunately remained marginal up to

now, for it has not yet grasped either its ownpolitics or its own ecology. (Bruno Latour, 2004)


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Challenge 3: cyclical thinking

Non-linearity is replaced by cycles

Western adaptations to Buddhism

Potentiality and cyclicity = apathy/control

Non-linearity beyond project logic


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Challenge 4: reduction to potere

Non-intended effect of wars on meaning

Panic --> control; control --> more control

Preventing the virtualisation leap

How do we become virtualised?


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Challenge 5: other insustainabilities

Challenging sustainability from outside

Invisible, illegal, multirational forces

Invisible traffic escaping potentiality

Can heteach us about sustainability??


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Challenge 6: elites vs empowerment?

Green branding only works in intimacy

- dialogue without conscious betrayal?

There are no cultures left to copy

- can we invent new ones?

Elites vs empowerment a real challenge?

- the have to work for Ille als and BOP..


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Challenge 7: (not) being right

Bringing philosophy in to let go of Truth

Not right, not true, not objective neutral?

Making new senses through crossworks

There is no time to solve the problems..


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The challen e for hiloso h

Towards positiveand proactive philosophies

Intuitive, active, generating reflections

Avoiding the Climate Change War

Transdisciplinary, transsectorial, transcultural


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The challen e for hiloso h

Beyond politics of emergency & emancipation

War /conflict blocks evolution of thought

Lots of local changes and global wars

Waiting for the next quantum leap


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What can 'culture' do?

Alternatives to the 'Battle of global warming'

Reconnecting discontinued cultur(e)alities

Carry out transdisciplinary experiments

Immerse actors in shared action fields

Be ne -entro ic but sustensive..


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II: histories


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History, sustainability, change

Towards a new philosophy of history

Because sustainability calls us to

Changing the perception of change

Changing the concept of sustainability


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Change, matter, assemblages

From discontinuity to continuations

From matter/non-matter to substances

From structures to eventalities

From time and space to time-space


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We have never been modern..

Bruno Latour's challenge and solutions

Breaking out of the cave

Networked collectivities replace divided worlds

Towards a new constitution..?


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Put nature away.. Latour II

A philosophy of nature without nature?

Nature is part of an invaliding disjunction

Collectivities as a guiding principle

Changing the myths behind sustainability


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Materialities

DeLanda and the legacy of longue dure

A history of material meshworks

Assemblage theory and complexions

Humanity beyond humanism


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III: 3 regimes


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The 3 regimes of sustainability

Regime 1: classification (600 BC -->)

Regime 2: potentialisation (1300 AD -->)

Regime 3: virtualisation (1800 AD -->)

A history of overfolding, not dialectics


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Classification the touch of science

From Carl von Linnaeus to HUGO program

Creating boxes for reality

The emperor's animals (Borges)

Ordering the mythical totality in parts

Eventality resist classification or disappears


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Classification and sustainability

Nature is the work of God, just like man

Disagreements on the power of God and Man

Discontinuity = no responsibility to nature

The rise of a new subjectivity gives way for

nature


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Potentialisation changing the world

The philosophy of modernity

Changing (id)entities

Builds on discontinuation

Interventions through power

Nature: a field for human action


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Potentialisation human, God, nature

Power shifts from God to Man

But also from God to Nature

Upgrades are the call of the new regime!

Re-organisation of all classifications

Particularisation and generalisation


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Potentialisation approaches

Rationality that separates (Descartes)

Order that intervenes (Darwin, Smith)

Possessions that move and shape (Marx)

Ubiquitous, panoptic power (Foucault)

Ca italism that shifts and ada ts Boltanski


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Potentialisation and sustainability

Problem focused approach

Change focus but discontinued

Engages knowledge in power struggles

The double challenge of climate change


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NGO's between possestand virtuality

Early days of Greenpeace and allies

Today: Online actions (avaaz.org, RainbowAction Network, etc.

Wooloo.org action beyond struggle..

Are they virtual? Collective? Or just strategic,

warlike behaviour?


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FLOSS between possestand virtuality

Open source development

Collective based on free use

Restricts restrictions

Important aesthetic dimension

Advanced potentiality towards the next state?


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Virtualisation the collective

Collectivities form before individuals- and do not go away

Collectivities are just as real as individuals

Collectivities last over time and in space they are non-local

Collectivities are auto-eco-organising

Proprietary strategies slow them down


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Sustension

Zone ofEventality

De-actualisations

V

Devirtualisations

Sustension

(Ir)radiation

(Ir)radiation(Ir)radiation

(Ir)radiation

Sustension

Zone ofEventality

De-actualisations

V

Devirtualisations

Sustension

(Ir)radiation


(Ir)radiation

Sustension

Zone ofEventality

De-actualisations

V

Devirtualisations

Sustension

(Ir)radiation


(Ir)radiation

Fig.2 Another graphic representation of the evental encounter


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Virtualisation eventing & complexity

The return of mythical questions

Totalities are more than just constructions

From experience to cosmogonies

From individual reason to collective singularities

Adding intuitions and excess to probabilities


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a (social) model of evental sustension

And on and on in the infinitely small..


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IV: Critical questions


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1: How is this going to happen?

Where is the urgency? Urgency IS building..

What can be done? Collaborate. Give up soleownership of the processes.

When everything needs to change from the verysmall, we are talking about a revolution (a realone). How many of us are ready for a revolution?

No answer to that one. Revolutions tend to fail.

Is this the model for the future after the worseconsequences have dawned upon us?

We should act rather than wait for that answer..


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2. Where are we going?

Good questions....

And more...


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Contactsleg Koefoed

21 /ultura Nordic Gravitations@ .leg gravitations org

. .ww gravitations org. 21 .ww cultura net
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]://www.gravitations.org/http://www.gravitations.org/http://www.cultura21.net/http://www.cultura21.net/http://www.cultura21.net/http://www.gravitations.org/mailto:[email protected]


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Virtualisation evental sustensions

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Culture Philosophy and Sustainability_CEMIT May 2009