Well…I attributed the qualification ‘hopeless’ to the concept of monkey wrenching. That, of course, is a personal qualification. It tells more about me, or the choices I make, than about ‘truth’. As truth is relevant only in restricted time and space, I used the qualification ‘hopeless’ to describe the instantaneous results. Not for intentions and ‘the process’.
Let me illustrate, on the risk of hearing my daughter say ‘Yes or no, daddy, please no stories…’.
One is on politics and morality. I don’t want to get into a new round of polemics on the legitimacy of violence. I remember very well having discussed the ‘Rote Armee Fraktion’ as its impact held hostage the West-German society for a couple of years in the seventies. There is no justification for the use of violence in politics.
There is, however, in morality, to defend what is placed in one’s responsibility. Morality has a general and a specific aspect. On both levels it involves careful examination on first principles. I feel in no way entitled to postulate an ‘a priori’ qualification as ‘truth’, it is opinion and it expresses what I feel.
I think, generally, the reckless exploitation of Planet Earth is ‘injust’. But specifically, I cannot judge FI the Chinese for taking a share. I think there’s no ‘compassion’ in computerized drone bombings to eliminate political opponents. But specifically, I can understand the ‘rage-de-bol’ against terrorism. I could go on examining ‘courage’, ‘wisdom’ and ‘self-restraint’, but I hope you get my ‘wassistderpunkt’.
The other is on the arts. I once waited for hours to have a glance at Botticelli’s masterpiece ‘Primavera’ (resulting in a somewhat blank experience). Later that morning I coincidentally visited an improvised exhibition on English artists having visited Tuscany in the nineteenth century. The specific impact it had on me was enormous. I remember well the original text written by John Ruskin (…give us our Athens back…) and the amazing quietness in these flood-prone basements of the Uffizi, allowing me to receive a compelling blow of neo-romantic mistrust in the achievements of modern industrial society.
I hope Neven will inform us on what he got from ‘Deep Green Resistance’.
Meanwhile, I feel comforted on a specific level having read Prousts’ ‘A La Recherche du Temps Perdu’. Every now and then, I am invaded by this sense of unity in the world. The whole edifice of nature’s creation rises up, and it is perfect.
I may never get to see a whale. But I know they’re possible. And, in a way, they’re immortal.
There is hope, but it will be wasted by violence.