PRODUCTION SPRING 1- Notes/contextualization/research
THE GOOD ANCESTOR-ROMAN KRZNARIC (see full notes)
How can we be good ancestors?
We live in the age of the tyranny of the now, driven by 24/7 news, the latest tweet, and the buy-now button. With such frenetic short-termism at the root of contemporary crises – from the threats of climate change to the lack of planning for a global pandemic – the call for long-term thinking grows every day. But what is it, has it ever worked, and can we even do it?
In The Good Ancestor, leading public philosopher Roman Krznaric delves into history and the human mind to show that we can. From the pyramids to the NHS, humankind has always had the innate ability to plan for posterity and take action that will resonate for decades, centuries, even millennia to come. If we want to be good ancestors and be remembered well by the generations who follow us, now is the time to recover and enrich this imaginative skill.
The Good Ancestor reveals six profound ways in which we can all learn to think long, exploring uniquely human talents like ‘cathedral thinking’ that expand our time horizons and sharpen our foresight. Drawing on radical innovations from around the world, Krznaric celebrates the time rebels who are reinventing democracy, culture and economics so that we all have the chance to become good ancestors and create a better tomorrow.
- The struggle for the human mind is currently taking place on a global scale between the opposing forces of short term and long term thinking.
- Tempus nullius: the future is seen as ‘nobody’s time’
- Intergenerational justice and indigenous perspectives of planetary stewardship can also play a key role
- ‘Our empathy doesnt extend far forward in time (Brian Eno)
- ‘cognitive empathy’ or ‘perspective-taking’ empathy
- … if we harness the power of collective action to forge radical change.
- Here and now instincts : from when ‘individual survival depended upon fierce competition for resources’ Peter Whybrow neuroscientist
-Prospective psychology: argues that what makes humans unique is our ability to think about or ‘prospect’ the future. We are Homo prospectus (Martin Seligman) a species guided by IMAGINING ALTERNATIVES STRETCHING INTO THE FUTURE.
- if alien scientists wanted to destroy our species they wouldn’t send down little green men (...) instead they would invent something like global warming (...) because we simply AREN’T GOOD ENOUGH AT ACTING ON LONG-TERM THREATS.
ON TIME
- Most societies, especially in the west, have lost touch with cyclical time and its inherently long-term perspective of eternal return, where time is forever recommencing. The ancient idea of time as a circle has been replaced by the notion of the linear time (...)
-
- Cyclical time began to unravel with the invention of the mechanical clock in europe in the 14th century. (...) they became instruments of power that could regiment, commodify and accelerate time itself. Who controls time appeared as a new question in human history. P 41
-
- In 1355, a new clock in the french town of Aire-sur-la-lys chimed to denmark the hours when trade could take place and the labouring hours of tactile workers, all for the benefit of the merchants who ran the commune. P 41
- Historian jaqcues le goff: the communal clock was an instrument of economic, social and political domination’ that enabled the rise of comercial capitalism. P 41
- The factory clock then became a primary weapon of the industrial reovlution. P 41
- The greed for speed embodied in the factory clock signalled the triump of linear time. Now it was the artificial construct of minuted and seconds that mattered rather than the natural cycles of the moon or seasons. P 43.
-
- The war for time has also severed our links with the ecological choreography of the planet, formed by natural cycles of eternal return. P 44
- On tree-time
- The wisdom of tree time: such experiential encounters with ancient trees have the power to connect us with the wonders of deep time (...) they act as a bridge to such colossal expanses of time by having lifespans that can extend far longer than our own. P 54
- Knowing that the trees could easily outlive me gave birth to a feeling of humility and respect for the living world as something so much larger than my own flicker of existence. Trees embody our symbiotic relationship with the natural world. They act as our external lungs (...) we can also think of trees as slow-time clocks, not only marking the years with their gradually expanding growth rings but also marking the cyclical rhythms of nature by changing with the seasons. P 55
- Richard powers, novellist: trees teach us about life at the speed of wood.’ the art of long term thinking may lie in the capacity to think in ‘tree time’ p 55
- Making a monthly pilgrimage to an ancient tree p 55
- On legacy- how can we be remembered well
- For many people it is important to leave material possessions than to pass down their values and culture, whether in the form of religious belief, native languages or family traditions. p 58
- Aspiration to leave family legacy, in the form of inheritance written into a will ranging from money to heirlooms. It is valued ba aristocrats but also by immigrants who work long hours in the hope of leaving enough money for their children to have more opportunities in life than they did (paraphrasing from p 58)
- We need to expand our concept of legacy not just as inheritance but as ‘a practice of everyday life that benefits all future people’. P 58
- We can cultivate this through three approaches : the death mudge, intergenerational gifts and the wisdom of whakapapa. P 58
- Social cooperation requires an imaginative capacity to see into the future.
- The war for time has also severed our links with the ecological choreography of the planet, formed by natural cycles of eternal return.
- Richard powers, novellist: trees teach us about life at the speed of wood.’ the art of long term thinking may lie in the capacity to think in ‘tree time’
- The wisdom of tree time: such experiential encounters with ancient trees have the power to connect us with the wonders of deep time (...) they act as a bridge to such colossal expanses of time by having lifespans that can extend far longer than our own.
- Wayfinding: a capacity to orient themselves in physical space and navigate from place to place. Part of this skill involved generating ‘cognitive maps’ in their minds that helped them record key landmarks, follow familiar routes and return safely home. P 26 This also means mapping time, not just place (being able to tell how long it will take to get from point a to point b)
- ‘The cognitive capacity to image those places and imagine the time required to get to there were thus both geographic (where the stream is in relation to the forest) and temporal (how many days and nights it will take to get to both the stream and the forest). P 28 Thomas Princen ecologist
- The grandmother effect: derived from a biological peculiarity of our species: the extended period of dependence of a human child. (...) it is not just parents who help rear children so they can eventually pass on their genes: studies show that the presence of grandparents- especially maternal grandmothers- is important for reducing infant and child mortality. The presence of older post-reproductive females increases the survival chances of the young because the elders know where to find food or water in times of scarcity, so a human grandmother provides care, knowledge and other valuable forms of support. P 28
- The presence of grandmothers enabled everyone to survive
-
- Our deep instinct for social cooperation: natural selection works at the level of the group, not just the individual: when food is scarce or predators are on the prowl, working together is the best way to ensure survival. This explains how we developed cooperative traits such as mutual aid, empathy, altruism and trust. P 29
- Social cooperation requires an imaginative capacity to see into the future. Relationships of trust and reciprocity work best when people know that the help they give someone in the present will likely be returned at a future date, when they are in need of it themselves. P 29
- Similarly, empathy is based on an ability to anticipate the needs, feelings and goals for others (...) we are prospecting the future by simulating an array of possibilities. P 30
- Tool-making: making tools required an ever clearer conception of the finished product, along with the ability to work backwards mentally to plan the multiple stages of stone knapping required to create it. (...) this could be done by developing an ability to invert causal sequences in the mind (‘A causes B, so if I want B to happen I have to do A). p 31
DIANA-BERESFORD-KROEGER - THE GLOBAL FOREST & TO SPEAK FOR TREES