498
Rolston examines how a behavioral manifestation, by logical turns, would invite
“reciprocal altruism” and “close kinship” in any other number of species, versions of “cultural cooperation,” and more.
6
Duke University Law Professor
Jedediah Purdy examines the famed “poet of the American Revolution,” Philip
Freneau (1752–1832) to glean yet a different inroad to that ecological mechanism
which turns upon the politics of tyranny, citing Freneau’s conviction that “Nature
… was the unfailing ally of republican freedom, and kings were usurpers against
her.” So as to evince, “All, nature made, in reason’s sight, is order all, and all is
right”.
7
Such “freedom” and its absolute ethical lure presupposes the experience
of it. In the same way, Kitty Ferguson renders an intriguing commentary on the
nature of rational numbers and universal harmony, versus irrational numbers,
infinite inconclusiveness, when she discusses the Pythagorean thinking about
right triangles and the fact there is no whole number square root of the hypotenuse: “In order to have had a devastating crisis of faith resulting from the discovery of incommensurability, they [the Pythagoreans] had to have had the faith first,
not the crisis”.
8
Genetically, or in any evolutionary sense of the purposeful, we have neither
physiological nor moral claims on anything; no privilege, no special gift, or
empowerment. Ours is, at best, a humble beginning that has seized up into what,
earlier, we have described as a likely near-term extinction candidacy. But what
does remain, at our slightest embrace of it is the possibility of re-connecting to
other species, and thereby fulfilling a dream. It is saturated with the very Arcadian
mythopoetics that have sporadically guided us; the more than 100 “Peaceable
Kingdoms” painted by Edward Hicks (1780–1849) and his predecessors and contemporary folkloric artists seeking to use esthetic responses and techniques to
tease from our tired rhetoric and bedeviled depths a renascence of emotional ties
to trees and cows and every conceivable invertebrate or cluster of moss. To reinvent ourselves through those reciprocal exchanges that matter, both within and
outside our heavily burdened consciousness. To both liberate and grasp the readiness and reciprocity potentials that could shake us from our slumber. These are not
linear mechanisms, but those that are activated when another soul is forthrightly
spoken to, believed in, patiently, inquisitively addressed with full dignity, innocence, and a collaborative zeal. That is the Nature we knew in the beginning of our
frenzied odyssey.
6 ibid., pp. 397–405.
7 Purdy citing Freneau from “On the Uniformity and Perfection of Nature, from Poems of Freneau,
ed. By Harry Hayden Clark, Harcourt, Brace, New York, 1919, pp. 423–424, in Purdy’s After
Nature -A Politics for the Anthropocene, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, &
London, UK. 2015, pp. 104–107. See also, Philip Freneau, Poet of the Revolution, by Richard
Nickson, New Jersey Historical Commission, Trenton, New Jersey, 1981.
8 See Pythagoras – His Lives And The Legacy Of A Rational Universe, by Kitty Ferguson, Icon
Books, London, 2010, p. 87.
53 Non-linear Reciprocity
Rolston examines how a behavioral manifestation, by logical turns, would invite
“reciprocal altruism” and “close kinship” in any other number of species, versions of “cultural cooperation,” and more.
6
Duke University Law Professor
Jedediah Purdy examines the famed “poet of the American Revolution,” Philip
Freneau (1752–1832) to glean yet a different inroad to that ecological mechanism
which turns upon the politics of tyranny, citing Freneau’s conviction that “Nature
… was the unfailing ally of republican freedom, and kings were usurpers against
her.” So as to evince, “All, nature made, in reason’s sight, is order all, and all is
right”.
7
Such “freedom” and its absolute ethical lure presupposes the experience
of it. In the same way, Kitty Ferguson renders an intriguing commentary on the
nature of rational numbers and universal harmony, versus irrational numbers,
infinite inconclusiveness, when she discusses the Pythagorean thinking about
right triangles and the fact there is no whole number square root of the hypotenuse: “In order to have had a devastating crisis of faith resulting from the discovery of incommensurability, they [the Pythagoreans] had to have had the faith first,
not the crisis”.
8
Genetically, or in any evolutionary sense of the purposeful, we have neither
physiological nor moral claims on anything; no privilege, no special gift, or
empowerment. Ours is, at best, a humble beginning that has seized up into what,
earlier, we have described as a likely near-term extinction candidacy. But what
does remain, at our slightest embrace of it is the possibility of re-connecting to
other species, and thereby fulfilling a dream. It is saturated with the very Arcadian
mythopoetics that have sporadically guided us; the more than 100 “Peaceable
Kingdoms” painted by Edward Hicks (1780–1849) and his predecessors and contemporary folkloric artists seeking to use esthetic responses and techniques to
tease from our tired rhetoric and bedeviled depths a renascence of emotional ties
to trees and cows and every conceivable invertebrate or cluster of moss. To reinvent ourselves through those reciprocal exchanges that matter, both within and
outside our heavily burdened consciousness. To both liberate and grasp the readiness and reciprocity potentials that could shake us from our slumber. These are not
linear mechanisms, but those that are activated when another soul is forthrightly
spoken to, believed in, patiently, inquisitively addressed with full dignity, innocence, and a collaborative zeal. That is the Nature we knew in the beginning of our
frenzied odyssey.
6 ibid., pp. 397–405.
7 Purdy citing Freneau from “On the Uniformity and Perfection of Nature, from Poems of Freneau,
ed. By Harry Hayden Clark, Harcourt, Brace, New York, 1919, pp. 423–424, in Purdy’s After
Nature -A Politics for the Anthropocene, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, &
London, UK. 2015, pp. 104–107. See also, Philip Freneau, Poet of the Revolution, by Richard
Nickson, New Jersey Historical Commission, Trenton, New Jersey, 1981.
8 See Pythagoras – His Lives And The Legacy Of A Rational Universe, by Kitty Ferguson, Icon
Books, London, 2010, p. 87.
53 Non-linear Reciprocity