Cohabitation¶
As we read the highlights a fil rouge arose and intertwined itself with us.
We live in a complex reality; as author⁄Gramsci says:
there are multiple facets of one reality,
and it’s hard to think about the idea of defining, studying, experiencing, and understanding what we are exposed to. We would like to keep many different highlight⁄points of view focusing on the idea of contradicting and opposing elements in the next highlights to grasp the totality of this complexity.
The city, while itself a complex entity, is opposed to the natural world. However, as editor⁄Dario noted, quoting author⁄Italo Calvino,
each city is shaped by the desert next to it.
With this in mind, we must better understand the natural world around us in order to understand the human environments that we have created. However, it is not only a question of understanding and interpreting. As Marx famously wrote,
The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it.
And yet, when it comes to the natural world, we must become aware of the way we change it. As author⁄Murray Bookchin writes,
Human beings alone are able to intervene to change the course of the natural world through technology and innovation. The question is whether they will do it rationally, in the service of ever greater freedom, or destructively.
Thus, to paraphrase Marx, humans have only changed the natural world, in various ways; the point is to love it. And as the Tunisian shepherd states in the film of author⁄Habib Ayeb, it is not enough simply to love the Earth, but to love it unconditionally.