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Being Ecological | Timothy Morton | Royal Society of Arts | Lecture

Royal Society of Arts

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Timothy Morton, named one of the world's most influential living philosophers, and a cross-disciplinarian who has collaborated with Björk, Pharrell Williams and Hans Ulrich Obrist, is at the forefront of a group of thinkers offering new insights into ecological awareness and the human experience in the Age of the Anthropocene.

In his new work, Morton confronts the information-dump fatigue of the digital age, by offering no ecological 'facts' but instead a radically invigorated and liberating approach to understanding ourselves, our interconnectedness with each other and the biosphere that sustains us.

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0:00 Becoming an educator
1:45 Parenting and ecological roles
3:55 Reframing ecological discourse
8:01 Curating cultural perspectives
10:26 The impact of agriculture
13:43 Moving beyond guilt
16:59 The paradox of collective action
20:52 Ontology and the whole
24:25 Objectivity and reason
27:21 Truth and ambiguity
30:56 Intellectualism and physicality
34:48 Trusting the audience
37:21 Audience Q&A: Ecology and guilt
43:21 Refining the ecological thesis
47:26 Closing thoughts on change

20 Comments

@Helena-dt6bc 8 years ago

Morton's thoughts extend far beyond the realms of ecological criticism, reaching into every domain of existence. Sit with his ideas. Listen deep. His message is, in the truest sense of the word, vital.

@smnt404 3 years ago

37:56 I enjoyed the talk but this person is also right.

@illustratornamedkasper 4 years ago

I love Timothy Morton. His way of communicating abstract philosophical matter, subjects such as nature and ecology are so original. Plus, his humour and examples of how weird human nature is always calms me down when I think too much about the climate crisis.

@leeloohad 6 years ago

I could read his books or listen to his speeches all day :)

@copypaste3526 8 years ago

One can say a lot about Timothy Morton. But nobody can criticise his excellent fashion sense.

@angelacockayne3538 8 years ago

Wonderful and imperative - a kindly light on our moral responsibility to protect biodiversity

@KMHill 8 years ago

The opening seems to be missing.

@patronatiluminat4785 8 years ago

without opening, indeed...

@muzwot9603 3 years ago

His air conditioning invention, "not America's fault", was particularly unhelpful. 'Let one of the world's most influential nations off the hook' because of your own dual national status bias?! Their attitude to ecology has long been abysmal. Never forget the US had a chance to sign the Kyoto agreement and point blank REFUSED

@mh7169-z5g 4 years ago

Interesting how the guy who disagreed with Morton on how the media aggressively communicates climate change factoids—he reported on a widespread sense of climate denialism in the media (not wrong about that)—ends up saying so with the tone that seems to me to be eerily similar to what Morton is skeptical of w/r/t ecological communication: often intense jeremiads that aren’t conduce to open conversation. If you felt yourself tense up when this guy spoke on the mic to Tim, then you’ll understand what I mean

@space_eko 7 years ago (edited)

In regards to what Tim says about constituents being greater than wholes.. it reminds of something Alan Watts says in Man, Woman, and Nature. Essentially the idea is that what there is, ontologically, is not a would of disparate facts, but a world of relationships. The one thing is greater than the whole thing because the one thing can be broken down into innumerable relationships (and the one thing IS the whole thing) therefore the boundary between thing and other thing is a meaningless abstraction.

@PollisDrake 1 year ago

Analogy with psychotherapy: you are not to blame for your trauma, but you are responsible for healing it.

@Artistic-g9l 1 year ago

Why is problem making trash if i put it in garbagw? It will go into burning for energy or into deponiums which turn to golf areas or parks. Whats wrong with those facrs?

@simonaschmidt 7 years ago

This guy is cool.

@projectmalus 8 years ago

The whole is simpler than the sum of its parts, but isn't it on a higher level? Nothing to do with value, of course, and I'm not sure exactly what "higher level" refers to...perhaps only a scale of size from quantum to universal.