Red Alert!

Red Alert! Intro-ch1&2
1. Who is the Spiritual Person of the universe? Is the subject of the book's epigraph to be understood as standing outside the universe? In what sense is it a person? Do humans possess spirit, in this sense of the term? Is it a naturalistic concept? How, in general, should we understand "spirit" in native/indigenous contexts?

2. Is there anything wrong with "using" (as well as knowing) reality? Is knowledge a static relation or a verb?

3.Is "cultural genocide" an accurate description of the late-19th century attempts to (re-) educate native Americans?

4. Do you agree that we must renounce any interest in trying to "manage nature," in order to live sustainably with our web of life? Do you see attempts to control nature as "mechanical"?

5. Is it fascination with technology per se that produces "ecological amnesia"? Haven't our "media windows" helped to raise global awareness of the climate crisis and build support for reform through movements like 350.org? Can we recover lost ecological memory and connect activists worldwide by leveraging technology?

6. Why can't "place-shaped knowledges" expand to include the entire planet and a consciousness of the human tribe as singular and inclusive?

7.Does it require anything beyond the local presence of intelligent and purposive humans, to make the cosmos spiritual? Would it be a spiritual world without us? Is the statement that Mother Earth "is trying to tell us something" merely symbolic?

8. What does it mean to live seven generations (as opposed to five or two or none) into the future?

9. How do you distinguish "faux shaman reveries" from the real thing?

10. Wildcat blames the "self-absorbed individualistic popular culture" for creating a sky-is-falling alarmist backlash. Would it be better if popular film (eg) simply ignored the climate crisis?

11. "Nature exists right outside our doors, beyond the monitors and screens we ironically look at in order to feel 'connected.'" How does being outdoors connect you to other people? How does being online disconnect you?

12. Wildcat deplores "the pseudo-evolutionary idea that tribalism is somehow categorically savage and uncivilized." On the other hand, there are no tribal (or national) boundaries visible from space. We are one planet and one species. Indeed, it is one cosmos. Why shouldn't we consider this way of thinking an evolutionary advance?