This lovely post pinged my memory. I read Michael Pollen’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma this year. Better late than never. A farmer he was speaking to said, with some resignation, about what had become of the Organic food movement “Eventually everything becomes the way the world is.” That seems deeply H2- to me now. But I also wonder…I wonder if there is a nascent political philosophy to be had around food. Food is universal. Communal. Personal. Private and public. It could literally get us back in touch with the Earth. Which could then ignite the heart and open the mind. If we and those we disagree with travel to the same farmer to buy our food, maybe we could slowly become neighbors, even friends, over time.
My wife and I were in Sudan when Al-Bashir was deposed. Three wars in the country and a genocide. Through it all he remained in power. His undoing? The price of flour quadrupled. Empty bellies opened people to change.
Food puts us in touch with Raworth’s donut in a literal and practical way. From there we might image new was to expand it, improvise. I loved that book and was inspired by it.
Your post brought all these strands to mind. I wonder if there is something H2+ in all this. A place to start…
I like your thinking on food Aaron. I'm thinking a lot about ways of coming together - forms of communitas - that can be a small bubble in time and space, of a new kind of world. I think the cultivation of new cultural forms, especially around eating could be fruitful. I wrote a brief post about the metacrisis recently and mentioned a charity called Longer Tables, which hosts community meals inviting people from all walks of life to share a meal around one long table. Here's the post: https://michaelbready.substack.com/p/the-many-headed-hydra-of-the-metacrisis Seems to me they're creating bubbles of a brighter future
Thank you, Michael. It really feels like there is something there. It’s a center of energy that touches every life on the planet. I love the longer tables idea. That’s a lovely beginning.
Jonathan, this is a brilliant post. I'm much encouraged by your networked effort and breadth and dept of vision -- not just on your own part, but that you've so actively linked with others. In the context of this positive reading though, a few small points on wording. The first is a caution about the fashionable word "hegemony." This seems a lazy concept, lumping the vast diversity of peoples and powers in a way which only helps alienate those accused as being within the presumed "hegemonic" sphere. It's one of those terms like "post-colonial" which sounds smart -- yet some of the most historically significant post-colonialists were British Whigs who strongly supported independence for the American colonies -- despite their evident material, "hegemonic" interests in continuing the empire.
Similarly the term "growth" may be too coarse-grained for nuanced discussion of the direction of societies. A finely-wrought piece of jewelry is a "growth" of wealth, for the jeweler, and for the wearer. We need not a gaudy world, but you might agree a more spiritually bejeweled world -- a more finely-wrought integration of the whole of nature, including the human. This is growth! Our crisis is one of retarded growth; spiritual growth and economic growth must now be twined and interleaved -- growth inward and outward at once, while establishing larger areas for nature, inward and outward too, more temperately tuned.
The call to stop growing is only, by default, to leave the current norms and power structures in place. We are, as humanity, no longer children, but now as teens who must become adults, not by reverting somehow to the magic of childhood, against all nature shrinking our stature, but by taking on response-ability to the wide world we are presently emerging into. It's not "growth" or "anti-growth," but which growth, which investments, where to focus? Stasis or shrinkage can only serve the most reactionary of our "hegemonic" lords, who even now build their enclaves for retreat in New Zealand and the Rocky Mountains as they work to hasten civilization's collapse.
Thanks Whit, the growth point is familiar and well-taken (and I thought already implicit in what I wrote but I guess not). It risks being facile too though, because it’s the indefinite nature of economic growth that’s the issue not growth as such, though arguably all forms of growth need maturation someone once called growth for growth’s sake the ideology of a cancer cell).
The hegemonic qualm is more complex for me because “the h2 minus vortex” is arguably another name for hegemony in the Gramscian sense. I’ll think further, but it’s difficult to write a long post without some kind of question-begging terminology…
Hi Jonathan, appreciate the dialog. What of the indefinite definition of "economic"? Theater, music, art are all importantly economic, under most any definition, and as well important to spiritual exchange and cultivation. Central pillars of culture are thus economic. Should the arts' growth be limited, or declared "mature" at some point and growth halted?
Now, we can find cultural critics who claim the arts themselves are hegemonic. Hitler, Putin and Xe have all made that accusation, echoed by Christian nationalists in the US. From the more liberal side, there's Neil Postman's old concern that we're "entertaining ourselves to death." Also, Sturgeon's law, "ninety percent of everything is crap." When European artists embraced Asian and African expressive themes in the last several centuries, was that hegemonic appropriation, or a spiritual infusion producing a stronger, hybrid, cosmopolitan culture?
In Europe and America both now, we see anti-green, anti-immigrant, anti-cosmopolitan, and largely anti-culture nationalists growing in power. So yes, not all growth is good! Outside my window in Vermont's early Spring, I witness growth's exuberance. To survive the meta-crisis, let's encourage a cultural Spring. How can memes against "growth" but help suppress that?
Nor are our arts separate from our technologies ... or our wisdom.
Heya, it's great reading you! I am currently deepening my reflection on the growth to goodness fallacy. Is there any way you could replace the link to the Independence Day film extract for more fullness? Thank you! :)
I loved both this post and the First Horizon Gossip post. I am replying to both here, because comments on the FHG post are set to paid subscribers only. Much as I love your substack, I'm afraid I am in no position to make it a paid subscription at the moment.
My comment, though, is... Mainly, I think they're great. As someone who likes to use H2+ and H2- as if they were in the dictionary, I think the concepts of the H2- Vortex and First Horizon Gossip are excellent and both your explanation of the Hs and your elucidation of these new concepts are second to none. The First Horizon Gossip post left me wanting slightly, insofar as it felt like you explained the idea of FHG but the elucidation was more rehash of the H2MV post than another lightbulb moment. But that may well be excess hope on my part rather than an actual issue in terms of your writing!
I actually think these posts should form the starting point (in conceptual terms) of an essay using the Three Horizons model to elucidate and search for (/ posit?) a solution for getting past the stuckness. Two major issues I think developing this thinking can resolve quite a bit are: 1) many H3 visions don't seriously address the H2+ routes necessary to turn them into reality, and 2) mainstream discourse needs to recognise that it's essential that we (society as a whole) reach *an* H3, and we need a serious discussion of the what and the how (the H3 and the H2+) of it. There's probably a 3) and a 4) and maybe more but those two immediately spring to mind as problems you are making inroads into with these posts.
And thank you very much for both these posts and your substack in general, which I love.
The H2Minus Vortex sounds like we (haha, the impossible we) are stuck in an attractor basin, unable to ascend to a higher level orbit as a collective. So, what is going to disrupt our decaying, unsustainable orbit? We put energy into the system (what energy? where?), or the stabilizing factors of the attractor basin are altered (which is ministry for the future territory). So, is the "energy" a renewed recognition of the sacred as you allude to, a multi-faith reconnection to the importance of factors above mercurial, extractive markets? If we let a thousand experiments in Bildung bloom, does that reach the Taleb tyranny of the minority (https://nassimtaleb.org/2016/08/intolerant-wins-dictatorship-small-minority/) threshold to push us into a higher orbit?
I think we need like an all of the above approach, see what is getting traction, and then resource that through our networked connections.
This lovely post pinged my memory. I read Michael Pollen’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma this year. Better late than never. A farmer he was speaking to said, with some resignation, about what had become of the Organic food movement “Eventually everything becomes the way the world is.” That seems deeply H2- to me now. But I also wonder…I wonder if there is a nascent political philosophy to be had around food. Food is universal. Communal. Personal. Private and public. It could literally get us back in touch with the Earth. Which could then ignite the heart and open the mind. If we and those we disagree with travel to the same farmer to buy our food, maybe we could slowly become neighbors, even friends, over time.
My wife and I were in Sudan when Al-Bashir was deposed. Three wars in the country and a genocide. Through it all he remained in power. His undoing? The price of flour quadrupled. Empty bellies opened people to change.
Food puts us in touch with Raworth’s donut in a literal and practical way. From there we might image new was to expand it, improvise. I loved that book and was inspired by it.
Your post brought all these strands to mind. I wonder if there is something H2+ in all this. A place to start…
I like your thinking on food Aaron. I'm thinking a lot about ways of coming together - forms of communitas - that can be a small bubble in time and space, of a new kind of world. I think the cultivation of new cultural forms, especially around eating could be fruitful. I wrote a brief post about the metacrisis recently and mentioned a charity called Longer Tables, which hosts community meals inviting people from all walks of life to share a meal around one long table. Here's the post: https://michaelbready.substack.com/p/the-many-headed-hydra-of-the-metacrisis Seems to me they're creating bubbles of a brighter future
Thank you, Michael. It really feels like there is something there. It’s a center of energy that touches every life on the planet. I love the longer tables idea. That’s a lovely beginning.
Jonathan, this is a brilliant post. I'm much encouraged by your networked effort and breadth and dept of vision -- not just on your own part, but that you've so actively linked with others. In the context of this positive reading though, a few small points on wording. The first is a caution about the fashionable word "hegemony." This seems a lazy concept, lumping the vast diversity of peoples and powers in a way which only helps alienate those accused as being within the presumed "hegemonic" sphere. It's one of those terms like "post-colonial" which sounds smart -- yet some of the most historically significant post-colonialists were British Whigs who strongly supported independence for the American colonies -- despite their evident material, "hegemonic" interests in continuing the empire.
Similarly the term "growth" may be too coarse-grained for nuanced discussion of the direction of societies. A finely-wrought piece of jewelry is a "growth" of wealth, for the jeweler, and for the wearer. We need not a gaudy world, but you might agree a more spiritually bejeweled world -- a more finely-wrought integration of the whole of nature, including the human. This is growth! Our crisis is one of retarded growth; spiritual growth and economic growth must now be twined and interleaved -- growth inward and outward at once, while establishing larger areas for nature, inward and outward too, more temperately tuned.
The call to stop growing is only, by default, to leave the current norms and power structures in place. We are, as humanity, no longer children, but now as teens who must become adults, not by reverting somehow to the magic of childhood, against all nature shrinking our stature, but by taking on response-ability to the wide world we are presently emerging into. It's not "growth" or "anti-growth," but which growth, which investments, where to focus? Stasis or shrinkage can only serve the most reactionary of our "hegemonic" lords, who even now build their enclaves for retreat in New Zealand and the Rocky Mountains as they work to hasten civilization's collapse.
Thanks Whit, the growth point is familiar and well-taken (and I thought already implicit in what I wrote but I guess not). It risks being facile too though, because it’s the indefinite nature of economic growth that’s the issue not growth as such, though arguably all forms of growth need maturation someone once called growth for growth’s sake the ideology of a cancer cell).
The hegemonic qualm is more complex for me because “the h2 minus vortex” is arguably another name for hegemony in the Gramscian sense. I’ll think further, but it’s difficult to write a long post without some kind of question-begging terminology…
Hi Jonathan, appreciate the dialog. What of the indefinite definition of "economic"? Theater, music, art are all importantly economic, under most any definition, and as well important to spiritual exchange and cultivation. Central pillars of culture are thus economic. Should the arts' growth be limited, or declared "mature" at some point and growth halted?
Now, we can find cultural critics who claim the arts themselves are hegemonic. Hitler, Putin and Xe have all made that accusation, echoed by Christian nationalists in the US. From the more liberal side, there's Neil Postman's old concern that we're "entertaining ourselves to death." Also, Sturgeon's law, "ninety percent of everything is crap." When European artists embraced Asian and African expressive themes in the last several centuries, was that hegemonic appropriation, or a spiritual infusion producing a stronger, hybrid, cosmopolitan culture?
In Europe and America both now, we see anti-green, anti-immigrant, anti-cosmopolitan, and largely anti-culture nationalists growing in power. So yes, not all growth is good! Outside my window in Vermont's early Spring, I witness growth's exuberance. To survive the meta-crisis, let's encourage a cultural Spring. How can memes against "growth" but help suppress that?
Nor are our arts separate from our technologies ... or our wisdom.
Heya, it's great reading you! I am currently deepening my reflection on the growth to goodness fallacy. Is there any way you could replace the link to the Independence Day film extract for more fullness? Thank you! :)
I didn’t realise it was broken, but this should work: https://youtu.be/0SA1iJR8HzY?si=OnvwYbHMA-tNkmG3
I loved both this post and the First Horizon Gossip post. I am replying to both here, because comments on the FHG post are set to paid subscribers only. Much as I love your substack, I'm afraid I am in no position to make it a paid subscription at the moment.
My comment, though, is... Mainly, I think they're great. As someone who likes to use H2+ and H2- as if they were in the dictionary, I think the concepts of the H2- Vortex and First Horizon Gossip are excellent and both your explanation of the Hs and your elucidation of these new concepts are second to none. The First Horizon Gossip post left me wanting slightly, insofar as it felt like you explained the idea of FHG but the elucidation was more rehash of the H2MV post than another lightbulb moment. But that may well be excess hope on my part rather than an actual issue in terms of your writing!
I actually think these posts should form the starting point (in conceptual terms) of an essay using the Three Horizons model to elucidate and search for (/ posit?) a solution for getting past the stuckness. Two major issues I think developing this thinking can resolve quite a bit are: 1) many H3 visions don't seriously address the H2+ routes necessary to turn them into reality, and 2) mainstream discourse needs to recognise that it's essential that we (society as a whole) reach *an* H3, and we need a serious discussion of the what and the how (the H3 and the H2+) of it. There's probably a 3) and a 4) and maybe more but those two immediately spring to mind as problems you are making inroads into with these posts.
And thank you very much for both these posts and your substack in general, which I love.
The H2Minus Vortex sounds like we (haha, the impossible we) are stuck in an attractor basin, unable to ascend to a higher level orbit as a collective. So, what is going to disrupt our decaying, unsustainable orbit? We put energy into the system (what energy? where?), or the stabilizing factors of the attractor basin are altered (which is ministry for the future territory). So, is the "energy" a renewed recognition of the sacred as you allude to, a multi-faith reconnection to the importance of factors above mercurial, extractive markets? If we let a thousand experiments in Bildung bloom, does that reach the Taleb tyranny of the minority (https://nassimtaleb.org/2016/08/intolerant-wins-dictatorship-small-minority/) threshold to push us into a higher orbit?
I think we need like an all of the above approach, see what is getting traction, and then resource that through our networked connections.
An oldie of mine but feels relevant > https://cassierobinson.medium.com/funding-the-third-horizon-ef76a60be9bb
I think you might be talking about religion....