Geology Reference
In-Depth Information
dynamic ways of engaging the senses and modulating the body. Each thing, each phe-
nomenon has the power to reach and to influence us. Every phenomenon, in other words,
is potentially expressive.” Everything speaks.
According to Abram, then, our direct, spontaneous perception of the world is inher-
ently animistic; only as perception came to be mediated by various technologies was this
spontaneous and instinctive experience transformed in a way that robbed the perceived
things of their felt vitality, draining them of their inexhaustible otherness and mystery.
Abram holds that a genuine environmental ethic is not likely to emerge through the lo-
gical elucidation of new philosophical principles and legislative strictures, but rather
“through a renewed attentiveness to this perceptual dimension that underlies all our lo-
gics, through a rejuvenation of our carnal, sensorial empathy with the living land that
sustains us”.
Modern science itself, for all its cool detachment, remains rooted in the soil of our
direct sensorial experience. In the words of Merleau-Ponty, “The whole universe of sci-
ence is built upon the world as directly experienced, and if we want to subject science
itself to rigorous scrutiny and arrive at a precise assessment of its meaning and scope,
we must begin by reawakening the basic experience of the world of which science is
the second-order expression.” From Abram's perspective, it is only by returning to our
senses, reawakening the forgotten intimacy and solidarity between the human animal
and the animate Earth, that we have a chance of slowing and finally constraining the
onrushing pursuit of knowledge and technological progress that we manifest at the ex-
pense of this breathing world.
Feeling:
Arne Naess and the Deep Ecology Movement
Arne Naess, the distinguished Norwegian professor of philosophy, first saw the moun-
tain Hallingskarvet in south-central Norway when he was seven years old. Even at such
a young age he sensed that the mountain was a living being that emanated benevolen-
ce, magnificence and generosity. So great were these feelings that Naess vowed to live
on his mountain as soon as he was old enough, for as long as he could. He held to his
dream, and in his late twenties he built himself a cabin high up on the mountain, at the
place called Tvergastein—the place of crossed stones.
During his long periods of living close to his beloved mountain, Naess gradually
began to ask himself how the astonishing, and sometimes overpowering living qualities
in the rock, wind and ice which encircled his eyrie high up above the tree line could help
him to discover the
right way to live.
Naess's answer, which he calls 'deep ecology',
aims to help individuals to explore the ethical implications of their sense of profound
