Dark Green Religion: Nature Spirituality and the Planetary Future
Added 2022-02-17 02:45:24 +0000 UTCEARLY RELEASE: Bron R. Taylor is an American scholar and conservationist. He is professor of religion and nature at the University of Florida. Taylor works principally in the areas of religion and ecology, environmental ethics and environmental philosophy. He is also a prominent historian and ethnographer of environmentalism, especially radical environmentalist movements. Taylor is also editor-in-chief of the Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature and founded the International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture, serving as its president from 2006 to 2009. He also founded the society's affiliated Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture, serving as its editor since 2007.
Professor Taylor joins Breht to discuss his book Dark Green Religion: Nature Spirituality and the Planetary Future.
Outro Music: "Forest Green" by Wolf Parade
Comments
Yea, Id love to do an episode on them for sure. Darwin in particular has always been fascinating to me.
Revolutionary Left Radio
2022-02-19 20:58:48 +0000 UTCBoth Darwin and Einstein have come up a few times recently . Might be interesting potential episodes . Great episode you’ve been on a roll lately
Mackenzie parvin
2022-02-19 04:43:01 +0000 UTCYea, I sympathize with that criticism for sure, and of course have points of disagreement with many of my guests. But yea, overall I believe in the very human idea of sharing across cultures various things, and I think the cultural appropriation rhetoric can often go way too far; having said that, we should always be mindful of how the history of colonialism, white supremacy, imperialism, and capitalism shape us and our relationships to other - especially non euro - cultures. I didnt get his views on this, but cant image they diverge too intensely from my own. I have gone into more depth wrt this issue on other episodes as you say, but my primary point would be to engage with these traditions in not only a respectful way, but in a way that strives to understand and deeply value the historical, culture, religious, etc. context in which these traditions were developed. For me, that means that my engagement with Buddhism, for example, is inseparable from my fascination, appreciation, and investigation of the cultures which created and preserved these traditions for millennia. Any attempt to take these traditions out of their cultural contexts does violence to these traditions and creates a context in which more vulgar forms of appropriation can emerge. The Amazon Zen Booth, for example, is grotesque and appropriative. To a lesser extent, the attempt by westerners to strip buddhism of its culture, and try to "secularize" or westernize some of their features while leaving everything else behind is often orientalist, and imo, radically degrades buddhism. But at the end of the day, if one were to ask the Buddha whether 21st century americans should study and practice the dharma, he would say "of course", because these truths are universal and human, not the sole property of any one culture or country. So as with everything, its a matter of balance, of respect, of appreciation, and of being mindful about ones own conditioning and cultural blindspots, assumptions, etc. Lastly, I do think humanity is at the beginning stages of forming a truly global civilization (a process that will take centuries), and the obliteration of cultural dams, as it were, is a part of that natural process, and the gems of every tradition across space and time are open to all of us in a way that has never been the case in all of human history. We should embrace this cultural globalization and let it deepen us individually and collectively, while maintaining the integrity of each specific culture.
Revolutionary Left Radio
2022-02-18 19:15:19 +0000 UTCSuper interesting, thanks Brett! I’d be curious to hear your - or would have been curious to hear his - take on the need to take orientalism/shallow appropriation seriously with respect to the incorporation, mostly by us white folks, of bits and pieces of other cultures and religions in the formation of these movements. I know this is something you cover & discuss a lot, especially with respect to spirituality, but hearing the guest mention Avatar did make me cringe a little bit given how gross that film is in a few different levels. Food for thought.
Gabriel Ellison-Scowcroft
2022-02-18 17:29:08 +0000 UTC
