Condemned to be Cultural Beings
January 6, 2026Reading time: 3 minutes
This is a phrase from Leonardo Boff's book Cry of the Earth, Cry of the Poor, which connects ecology and liberation theology in a way I have drawn from since the mid eighties. Many of the 'Valiant Women' I mention in my long poem The Wren in the Ash Tree (Haggards 2018) demonstrate this worldview, and many of the makers, permaculturalists and writers I follow and learn from are increasingly drawn into it as world politics descends into end-game capitalism and supremacist thinking.
But Boff also points out that a shift towards greener industries, more inclusive politics depends not only on adopting better strategies, but also a shift in mindset. He points out that we do not exist in isolation, but through the medium of our interactions with other beings, and more particularly, other people.
I’m logged in all the time, to a web
of constant dialogue, the garden, river,
weather, birds - the whole jingbang.
(from Whooper Swans, The Well of the Moon, 2021)
More than that, our dialogue is not simply transactional, an ebb and flow of benefits and damages, but involves knowledge and understanding, and a sense of the sacred, which he uses in a way that does not limit it to the awareness of the divine. The world is more than a mirror of ourselves, it is full of the 'other', the different, the unknown, and we must reverence it in order to deal with it in a way that will enhance all of us. In such a world, culture cannot be an add-on, a mere nice-to-have when the important things are dealt with. It becomes the essential tool for justice, for peace, for healing and reconciliation, for joy - and at this moment when all digital life is threatened by the use of AI, for our very survival. To understand ourselves and our place in the world, to express it, to listen and engage with all the other beings of the earth as they are, rather than how we can make best use of them, is what it means to be fully ourselves.
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