More Vocal Gulls: The Art of Philosophy without Philosophizing

To be animal is to be on the lookout; this is the job of every philosopher. Gilles Deleuze

We live in a world now where it seems you can't say anything critical now without having to face a jury of a million idiots collectively throwing their toys out of their prams. Whether it's criticising the uneconomic economy and the people that celebrate and support it, or the 'perverted' way of being in the world that so many are now accustomed to (called 'civilization'), the critical view is a rare beast. Yet, the importance of the critical view has never been so urgent. We have become so distracted (by small-minded notions of work, family, love...) that the contract between thought and time has been broken, and with it our souls and minds.

This aspect of critical thinking, of insight and deep awareness of what is actually going on, is lost to the glitter and noise of the modern day world, and its apparent inability to attend, sensitively and naturally, to the animate Earth at large. Distraction is not just part of the problem, it is the whole problem. Whether through work, family, or indeed love, we have been sidelined into become something that we are not: a permanent gullible consumer devoid of spirit whose life revolves around the non-essential. Our existential awareness has dulled as a result, as has our own locomotive/locating forces in an effort to uncover things for ourselves. The end result of all this is a pallid acquiescent zombie who grows more pallid and more acquiescent by the day. Like a prisoner, and if we can zoom out a little from the apparent choice-laden society that capitalist man inhabits, people simply do what conventions tell them without radically asking why.

It is this radical asking that these here gulls are involved in. I rarely meet creatures (humans included) who are as vocal and exuberant and animated as gulls, yet also sensitive, caring and endearing to the questioning soul. These animals are aware in a way that man is not, or that man does not care for. These animals, as the etymology of the word awareness (from Proto-Indo-European root *wer meaning to perceive, to look out for, to be vigilant) suggests, are true philosophers without actually being philosophers. In other words, they are the voices we ignore at our peril.


Thus, the seventh day - which in our day is supposed finally to have arrived in so many ways -is used not to rest from historical work but to criticize. 
 
Soren Kierkegaard, The Concept of Irony

In thinking about technology within the present climate of technological worship, emphasize the negative. This brings balance. Negativity is positive.
 
Jerry Mander, In the Absence of the Sacred