Friday, April 13, 2012

Neo-Romantic ? So now you're calling COMMENSALITY 'neo-romantic' ?

Michael Marshall
When we compare it to the Modernist Science of 100 years ago ( the science of just before World War One ), Commensal Science does appear to be a near-perfect exact opposite.

Appearances can be deceiving, but in broad strokes, it does seem to oppose the basic tenets of Modernity root and branch.

But venture back two hundred years ago,  and Commensal Science at first blush seems to be an awful lot like the Romantic Science of the era ( from roughly the 1790s to the 1840s).

But appearances are deceiving, once again, and Commensal Science both agrees with and disagrees with Romantic Science enough to be more fairly called Neo-Romantic Science.

I don't really like using terms like neo- or post- , they seem so loose, so cliched.

But like everyone else, I use them when no other term appears to convey what I mean any better.

The very self-consciousness in the use of the term neo- is exactly what I want to convey --- because so many of today's Green or Commensal scientists do deliberately hearken back to Romantic Science (and Romanticsm generally) for inspiration with which to attack The Enlightenment Project and Modernity.

Like Plato and Aristotle, these things ebb in and out of fashion:

Classicalism/Romanticism/Positivism/Commensalism.

On and on and on - ever onward - like the eternally alternating ins and outs of election results in a democracy.....

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