Sheldon Wolin: Can Capitalism and Democracy Coexist? Part 6, interviewed by Chris Hedges

For us, the Sun, our local Star is all-powerful. Our human knowledge of our native Sun-star, is born of evolved intelligence. The world cannot exist without it this furnace of life; and we as the intelligent eyes and ears of planetary life cannot exist outside a wholesome and healthy biosphere. Our coherent understanding depends on these fundamental principles.

We cannot act intelligently without recognizing these empirical facts; and “politics” is impotent when it ignores or elides the consilient relevance of such basic insights and pragmatic orientation.

That is what true enlightenment implies, and it is up to us to realize the the fullest possibilities that those implications invite.

david llewellyn foster | November 3, 2014 at 5:32 AM

…apologies for typos…
- dandelionsalad | November 4, 2014 at 4:04 AM
  
  Never worry about typos, David. I changed one that I found and the other was a misspelling but I couldn’t figure out exactly what word you intended so I left it as you typed it.
  - david llewellyn foster | November 4, 2014 at 5:53 AM
    
    Thank you Lo, can’t be overly fussy…only consilient is from consilience with an ‘s’ ~ literally “leaping together…” as in intellectual/academic convergence & reciprocity, implicit order, inter-disciplinary coherence etc…
    
    In 1998 E O Wilson wrote what was seen by some, as a “controversial” book by that name ~ about the importance of the fluency of knowledge vis-a-vis specialised fragmentation within academic disciplines & how the integral function of biology is critical with respect to the nested hierarchies of scientific inquiry, how they relate to the humanities and so on.
    
    Arguably, his truly great achievement has been the Encyclopedia of Life http://eol.org/discover
    https://www.ted.com/participate/ted-prize/prize-winning-wishes/encyclopedia-of-life-eo-wilson
  - dandelionsalad | November 4, 2014 at 6:00 AM
    
    Thanks for explaining the “new” word for me. I changed the spelling in your original comment now.
    
    Thanks for the link, too. Sounds fascinating.

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