Think Like a Commoner
The commons is essentially a parallel economy and social order that quietly affirms that another world is possible. And more: we can build it ourselves, now.
Society
Paying for parking, or, we’re all Shoupistas now
Every so often when reading an obituary of someone, or an awards citation, you realise that you have internalised their work into your thinking without having read it directly. So it was with Donald Shoup, the California transport academic who spent his life working on the problem of urban parking, and who died in February.
Dialogue of Knowledge: Yolchikawkayeknemilis “Energy for and from Good Living”
This experience of collective construction, centered on energy, has led me to rethink my approach to knowledge and local wisdom, viewing them with greater respect and understanding that they don’t need to make sense to everyone to be valid.
Homo Aestheticus: Philosophical Fragments on the Will to Art: Excerpt
This is an original book only in the sense that it weaves together other people’s ideas and perspectives in novel ways. I believe the result is something new, but more importantly, I think it offers a necessary counter-narrative to the disenchanted materialism that defines modernity.
Sankofa Part Two – Pathways, Lessons and Challenges for the Future
The pathway that will be followed and the future that will emerge are of course inherently unknowable, being subject to the chaotic dynamics of complex systems. Put another way, for some possible pathways, there be dragons of the type that Sankofa part one described, whilst down other pathways much more hopeful visions beckon.
Why do we not recognize that a river is alive?
The question isn’t “is a river alive?” It is why do we not recognize that a river is alive?
Frankenstein and Kant’s beauty come from Dutch Indonesia
It took the Anthropocene to create an aesthetic of the environmental crisis and self-reflection in the cultural canon. And it sparked a long process of going back over famous works that had been taken for granted as artworks devoid of environmental violence.
Declaration on Autonomy, Radical Democracy and Self Determination
Across the world, grounded practices of radical democracy and autonomy demonstrate alternative models of politics, economy, and society—rooted in solidarity, reciprocity, and mutual aid among humans and the more-than-human world.
Mulberries in the Rain: Excerpt
Plants, like music and food, feed our culture. They create our community; they are our community, and this book offers a model for how to build both plant and human communities.
Human Nature Odyssey: Episode 13. The King Is Dead, Now What? The 250-Year Struggle for Democracy (Part 2)
We continue that epic struggle across centuries and continents—from the upheavals of the Russian Revolution, to the rise of fascism, the global crucible of World War II, the tense Cold War standoff, the youth protests of 1968, and the ongoing battle for power, equality, and freedom.
Care Home Farm – Fibre and Clothes
Given how absolutely fun it is to make clothes that you wear, and wear clothes that you make, I expect this equation to come out better than what people might think. And I expect that to be the same for every beautiful handcrafted item we create and use at Care Home Farm. But either way, it will be real, and that’s relaxing.
Spare Capacity
Life is made of extraordinarily complex arrangements that exceed our design capacity by such a tremendous gulf as to be ridiculous—triggering many to engage in dubious “god-of-the-gaps” style speculation to paper-over the scary gulf.
