The reductionism of scientific forestry

'Scientific forestry' was the false universalization of a local tradition of forestry which emerged from the narrow commercial interests whcih viewed the forest only in terms of commercially valuable wood. It first reduced the value of diversity of life in the forest to the value of a few commercially valuable species, and further reduced the value of these species to the value of their dead product – wood. The reductionism of the scientific forestry paradigm created by commercial industrial interests violates both the integrity of the forests and the integrity of forest cultures who need the forests in its diversity to satisfy their needs for food, fibre and shelter.

Vandana Shiva, Monocultures of the Mind (Zed Books Ltd., 1993) p. 18

We must make a distinction between technique and mode of production

But we must then also make a distinction between such techniques of production and the mode of production which is their particular social form. We call the technical changes improvement and progress, welcome some of their effects and deplore others, and can feel either numbed or divided; a state of mind in which, again and again, the most abstract and illusory ideas of a natural rural way of life tempt or at least charm us. Or we can fall back on saying that this is the human condition: the irresolvable choice between a necessary materialism and a necessary humanity. Often we try to resolve it by dividing work and leisure, or society and the individual, or city and country, not only in our minds but in suburbs and garden cities, town houses and country cottages, the week and the weekend. But we then usually find that the directors of the improvements, the captains of the change, have arrived earlier and settled deeper; have made, in fact, a more successful self-division. [...] An immensely productive capitalism, in all its stages, has extended both the resources and the modes which however unevenly, provide and contain forms of response to its effects.

Raymond Williams, The Country and the City (Oxford University Press, 1975) pp. 293-294

Commodity, the bias of the world

Commodity, the bias of the world,
The world, who of itself is peised well,
Made to run even upon even ground,
Till this advantage, this vile-drawing bias,
This sway of motion, this Commodity,
This bawd, this broker, this all-changing word,
Clapp'd on the outward eye of fickle France,
Hath drawn him from his own determin'd aid,
From a resolv'd and honourable war,
To a most base and vile-concluded peace.
And why rail I on this Commodity?
But for because he hath not woo'd me yet:
Not that I have the power to clutch my hand,
When his fair angels would salute my palm,
But for my hand, as unattempted yet,
Like a poor beggar, raileth on the rich.
Well, whiles I am a beggar, I will rail,
And say there is no sin but to be rich;
And being rich, my virtue then shall be
To say there is no vice but beggary.
Since kings break faith upon commodity
Gain, be my lord, for I will worship thee.

William Shakespeare, The Life and Death of King John (The New Temple Shakespeare, 1935) pp. 28-29

What I believe

When I consider what I believe, which I can do only by proceeding from what I do not believe, I seem in a minority of one, –and yet I know there are thousands like me: Liberals without a belief in progress, Democrats who despise their fellow-men, Pagans who still live by Christian morals, Intellectuals who cannot find the intellect sufficient, –unsatisfied Materialists, we are as common as clay.

Cyril Connolly, The Unquiet Grave (Hamish Hamilton, 1945) p. 5

FREEDOM: a state emptied of preconceived value, use, function, meaning; an extreme state of loss within which choice is unavoidable; a condition of maximum potential, realised fully in the present moment.
[...]
KNOWLEDGE: the invention of the world in all the complexity and multiplicity of its phenomena.
ARCHITECTURE: instrument for the invention of knowledge through action; the invention of invention.
[...]
HIERARCHY: a predetermined vertical chain of authority that works from the top down.
HETERARCHY: a spontaneous lateral network of autonomous individuals; a system of authority based on the evolving performances of individuals, eg, a cybernetic circus.
[...]
CONSTRUCTION: the invention of reality.
REALITY: a state necessitating the invention of construction.
OBJECTIVE/SUBJECTIVE: terms of dualism divorcing experience from reality.
[...]
BEAUTY: 'knowledge without interest'; ideas embodied in and transcended by forms.
[...]
MEANING: the free interaction of values.
[...]
RELATIVITY THEORY: the great destroyer of hierarchies; description of the world according to an observer.
[...]
CONSUMERISM: a state of becoming limited by the total entropy of a system.
MASS CULTURE: a system diminishing the autonomy of individuals; a state of undifferentiated nature within which the making of distinctions is difficult.
REVOLUTION: self-cancelling mass political machinations; the necessity of formlessness.
[...]
FORM: the condition of boundaries, perceived as exterior to self.
SPACE: the condition of boundaries, perceived as interior to self.
[...]
STRUGGLE: the essential condition of freedom.

Lebbeus Woods, 'Glossary' in ANARCHITECTURE: Architecture is a Political Act (Academy Editions, 1992) p. 142

Förnyelse? Man bör då minnas, att enligt konsumismens lagar innebär förnyelse enbart en förnyad anpassning till gällande samhällsstruktur. Konsumism och populärkultur var ursprungligen inte nödvändigtvis samma sak. Men har blivit det, helt postmodernt. Därför att konsumismen, lössläppt och nu sanktionerad som svensk överideologi – och ständigt ekande i kulturministerns ord – förgiftar allt den tränger in i. Alltså också populär- och genrekulturen. Det är skillnad mellan att befinna sig på en marknadsplats, och att ses, och att se sig som enbart uttryck för marknadskrafter. Marknadsplatsen erbjuder trots allt många möjligheter, och levande, gnistrande, rykande gränsöverskridanden mellan fin- och populärkultur, skuggor att tillfälligt dra sig tillbaka till, tidsbegränsade allianser, provisoriska möjligheter; marknadskrafterna däremot jämnar ut allt detta till en trist homogen hegemoni. Den vi nu är på väg in i.

Carl Erland Andersson, 'Dags att återvinna det autentiska' in GP, Nr 15, Årgång 153 (Göteborgs-Posten, 2010) pp. 50-51

Sara Granér, 'Jul Utan Gränser' in GP, Nr 349, Årgång 152 (Göteborgs-Posten, 2010) p. 67

What would I do with money? I have enough for my needs... If I had more money I would have to spend time taking care of it and that is not the way I want to live.

Marcel Duchamp, Marcel Duchamp - The Art of Making Art In the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
(Harry N. Abrams Inc., 1999) p. 157

"Houses and furniture and clothes, they are all terms of an old base world, a detestable society of man. And if you have a Tudor house and old, beautiful furniture, it is only the past perpetuated on top of you, horrible. And if you have a perfect modern house done for you by Poiret, it is something else perpetuated on top of you. It is all horrible. It is all possessions, possessions, bullying you and turning you into a generalization. You have to be like Rodin, Michael Angelo, and leave a piece of raw rock unfinished to your figure. You must leave your surroundings sketchy, unfinished, so that you are never contained, never confined, never dominated from the outside."

D.H. Lawrence, Women In Love, (Penguin Books, 1976) p. 402

Originally published in 1921