476
If human consciousness and ecology together incite this consciousness beyond a
tedious and most troubled history of nullification, then the assertion of a positive
scenario—Don Quixote dreaming the impossible dream—must somehow manage
to address the mismatch of individual numbers, social contracts, and our nearly lost
ability to exercise restraint; to front tenacious positivity against a massive inferno
whose documentation has become a cultural obsession. All the troubling headlines,
as we continue into the long night of its escalating inflictions. Its most primal mathematical equation—and its searingly poignant human fall-out—is the very dialectic
at the heart of that ecological inferno now upon us (Fig. 50.3).
Fig. 50.3 To Dream the Impossible Dream, Engraving by Gustave Doré, from the two-volume
1863 French Edition, L’ingenieux Hidalgo Don Quichotte De La Manche, by Miguel De Cervantès
Saavedra, Librairie De L., Hachette, et Co. (Private Collection). (Photo © M.C.Tobias)
50 Unthinkable Nullities, Negative Proofs
If human consciousness and ecology together incite this consciousness beyond a
tedious and most troubled history of nullification, then the assertion of a positive
scenario—Don Quixote dreaming the impossible dream—must somehow manage
to address the mismatch of individual numbers, social contracts, and our nearly lost
ability to exercise restraint; to front tenacious positivity against a massive inferno
whose documentation has become a cultural obsession. All the troubling headlines,
as we continue into the long night of its escalating inflictions. Its most primal mathematical equation—and its searingly poignant human fall-out—is the very dialectic
at the heart of that ecological inferno now upon us (Fig. 50.3).
Fig. 50.3 To Dream the Impossible Dream, Engraving by Gustave Doré, from the two-volume
1863 French Edition, L’ingenieux Hidalgo Don Quichotte De La Manche, by Miguel De Cervantès
Saavedra, Librairie De L., Hachette, et Co. (Private Collection). (Photo © M.C.Tobias)
50 Unthinkable Nullities, Negative Proofs