"Don't try to solve serious matters in the middle of the night." - Philip K. Dick

***

Quotes:

[On Callicott's Land Ethic] What if there's a conflict between a species of virus and a species of human being? Bird flu virus. H5N1 virus.

A good theory should be able to defend itself against Murphy's Law.

[On ecocentrism] I'm sacrificing myself to protect that tree?

[On financial planning] Diversification... Don't put all your money in the stock market... Put some in the stock market, put some in property, put some under your pillow and so forth and so forth.

[On Arne Naess] Strictly speaking, we in the English speaking world would say he's not much of a philosopher, because he's not systematic.

The reason why we have to know about Deep Ecology is that it's very influential. I think it's a stupid theory, but nevermind... It's a hotch-potch collection.

This is where it gets stupid. We have to be 'deep'... Deep Ecology requires us to ask 'deep' questions, he says.

[On Arne Naess and 'egotist'] Actually it should be 'egoist', but he's not much of a philosopher. He uses terms in a very confusing way.

He calls it the big Self, with an 'S'. It's getting sillier and sillier... And then, of course, he doesn't stop there. He brings in Indian philosophy. He brings in Buddhist philosophy. He brings in all the mystical things.

[On Deep Ecology] I am identifying myself with this bigger Self. How this works is not entirely clear.

[On more vital interests having priority over less vital ones] When confronted with this issue, Naess pulls out another rule from thin air, in addition to all these other rules... It doesn't seem to be so environment-friendly after all... Deep Ecology borrowing from here and there in order to plug up all these gaps.

We just have to exert wisdom. How exactly, I'm not sure... I'm reminded of this series of advertisements... Chevron... 'The world needs more energy. We do it wisely, respectfully'.

Bookchin reserves his harshest criticisms for Deep Ecology. He says it is 'vague' and 'formless'. It's a “bizarre mix of Hollywood and Disneyland. It's 'spiced with homilies from Taoism, Buddhism, spiritualism'. It's a form of 'reborn Christianity' and 'eco-fascism', 'a ‘black hole’ of half digested and ill-formed ideas. Being a nice person I wouldn't use such strong terms, but I think they're mostly justified... He calls it 'eco-la-la', 'eco-babble'. Not a philosophy at all... As a philosophy you cannot get away with name-calling... That's not good enough. You gotta have arguments... so okay, apart from the name-calling... What are the arguments against Deep Ecology? Well, of course there are a lot of them.

[On the alleged deindividualism of capitalism] No one cares about you... Mass production... They make clothes that don't fit anybody. You have to get them altered.

David Foreman is an eco-fascist, according to Bookchin... According to Bookchin, Foreman said, and I'm sure Foreman said this: 'the best thing would be to just let nature seek its own balance, to let the people there', that is the Ethiopians, 'just starve'... [Bookchin] doesn't want to comment on it... Nevermind about Ethiopians, but there are lots of examples of this kind of thinking... If you've been watching TV, you must be aware of this example. There was a polar bear... the mother decided to reject the baby. The zoo officials decided to raise the bear themselves... Many ecologists said this was bad... In Nature, sometimes, the mother will abandon the bear. Sometimes the mother will eat a cub... Foreman says the best thing in this case is to let the Ethiopians die... They call themselves ecologists. They think they are the deep thinkers.

There are even worse people, according to Foreman, than eco-fascists, and these are eco-anarchists... And so we shouldn't really do anything. After all, H5N1 strain of bird flu virus - that's part of Nature. Smallpox, polio, that's part of Nature. We human beings should not try to wipe them out. Of course, we try not to get infected, but we don't try to wipe them out.

What is Social Ecology? It is neither deep nor tall nor fat nor thick. It is just social.

[On Ian Wilson's 'Jesus: The Evidence'] I wouldn't use it as a primary source for an essay. But then, if it was a primary source for an essay, I wouldn't read it.

I used to eat the BK burger, even though I didn't eat the beef noodles, but ever since Kevin Cheng said he doesn't eat beef, I don't want to eat beef already

To mystify this further, he says 'This is a philosophy'. He calls it 'ecosophy'. To complicate things further, he calls it 'Ecosophy T'. At this point, many people just give up... Why T? T is just a letter. Wisdom takes many forms. Why not U?

It's so loose and so diverse that anything can be part of Deep Ecology if you think deeply enough.

'Other philosophers have been influenced by what I said.' And lo and behold, he named me as one of them... The following week I'll get two of you to do presentations on my writings to see how wrong he is.

[On Kegel exercises for guys] You lie. It doesn't train the middle abs. I've been trying.

[Female student:] If I had a lesbian friend I'd keep laughing. Then I'd ask her, 'How do you have sex?'

Sex and religion. I prefer sex. [Me: Why not both...] Not in mine. [Student 3: Not in mine either]

In India if you say 'Tea without milk' they'll shoot you for blasphemy or something.

[On the Middle East] You can't say 'Shisha', you'll get arrested. 'Shisha' means drugs... [Student 2: When did you find out?] [Student 3: After he got arrested.]

[On Student 2's T-shurt] Same brand. [Student 2: No, mine's Threadless.] Mine's Threadless too... What's that offensive tone? Not everything I wear is from Bangkok, okay?

Triple 9 helped us remember that the phone number is 999 and not 911... I thought it was 911.

Romantism (Romanticism)

Copper'nice'shyers (Copernicus)

Angels and wild bee'sers in the desert (beasts)

This view was also supported by Cannes (Kant)

He believed that the best antidote of an overly civilised modern life was regression to a simpler, primitive life. Like the Flintstones (to)

He said that Civilisation leads to a loss of masculinity. Now you'd say a reshaping of Manhood. More political correctness.

[On Kant's answer to what to tell a madman looking for your friend to kill him] You can stamp your foot and say 'he's not here'... Kant will say: 'Where's the conflict? Where's the problem? Obviously, people are not happy with this... I have actually defended poor Immanuel Kant from this... In Australia it is advised that if you go out at night, you turn on the light and leave the TV on... You're deceiving the robber. Are you doing anything wrong? Of course not. A lady will, before going out, put on lipstick... She is deceiving us. Her lips are not red. Or she can get breast implants, to make her breasts look like this. She is deceiving you. People are not happy.

Nobody has heard about Albert Schweitzer. That is not good. He's as big as they come. Today, he'd get the Nobel Prize in Medicine, the Nobel Prize in Literature, everything else.

[Instructor: Another environmental hero.] Captain Planet

haha I just told my friends about you
and that girls have it easier

[Me: Girls have it easier.] Girls have it easier. Are you jealous? [Me: I have a packet of chocolate and a packet of jellybeans with me now. Are you jealous?] No. [Me: Good for you.] The quality of being male and the quality of being female are mutually exclusive. The quality of having a packet of jelly beans... is not mutually exclusive.

[On me] One day if he gets married to a Malaysian, I'll laugh at him. Or if he gets married to a feminist.