Word's Paradox

{multiple layers of 'absolute' and 'symbiosis'}

Words are living, millenary actors blown by different bodies and landscapes. They carry multiple layers and meanings. They represent themselves in different ways and convey various facets of their vast kinship territory.

Because they are alive, words change and transform, often opening up paradoxical meanings or ambiguous territories. Fortunately, no word is homogeneous, good, or bad, not even the word 'absolute'.

I care about the valuable multiverse of each word. Each word is a key or a door to multiple different resonances, which can deepen or superficialise how we 'understand the world'. I'm opening up a little of the vast territory of two words: 'absolute' and 'symbiosis'. I use them a lot, and here, I aspire to break away from the false and reductive dualisms of 'good or bad'.

Absolute

I tend to use the word 'absolute' as a negative, that is, as a nullification of intertwining. I mention it in the context of the modern psyche, full of purist, universal, and permanent ideations —all dogmatic expectations that reduce the interwoven complexity of ecological thinking. I often speak of absolutism as a superficial veneer of a collective psyche addicted to the transcendent, which neglects the contextual, eager for universal, global and absolute models that solve everything without effort or responsibility. This is a positioning of the 'absolute' as a denial of direct participation in the ecological conversation of Life, as a linear abstraction of clean concepts without blemish, wrinkles, or crumbs.

On page 3 of her book Vibrant Matter — A Political Ecology of Things, Jane Bennett, quoting de Vries, defines absolute as follows: "that which tends to loosen its ties to existing contexts". The etymology of absolute recounts the following kinship legacy: ab (out) + solver (loosen). Bennett goes on to say: "The absolute is that which loosens and is loosened (...) (...) a thing that is not an object of knowledge, that is disconnected or radically free from representation and, therefore, that is not a thing." From this perspective, in the presence of the absolute, we cannot know. It is from human thought that the absolute has separated itself; the absolute names the limits of intelligibility.

The word 'absolute' contains, at its core, the subjectivity of the mystery of what is unknowable.

Despite its thirst for control of linear knowledge and rational discernment, the 'absolute' is also sacred and deeply connected to divine territories. Despite its tendency towards transcendence, a becoming of decontextualisation towards the 'whole', it also names more-than-human frontiers of what we don't know or can't know. Its paradox is the superficiality of taming concepts anchored in a depth of profound mystery.

Symbiosis

As for more-than-human kinship in the Western ecological paradigm, it is mostly ignored. The full, complex, and vibrant network of Life is reduced to human resources and a hungry, fierce competition between animals, plants, and humans. Lynn Margulis, despite all the violent criticism she has received, has saved us from our ignorance by bringing up the idea that evolution is not just based on unbridled competition but on symbiotic relationships. I tend to use this word, 'symbiosis', in lectures and books as a positive, as a concept to be rediscovered in the ruins and fragments of our Western collective psyche, as a visceral and sacred reminder of kinship.

But like any living territory, symbiosis also carries its own paradoxes. Precisely because it is not linear or static, but a broad subjective spectrum of interaction. It opens up complex and delicate interactions between organisms, a testimony to the interconnected fabric of life itself. Dr. Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian open this spetrum on the Advaya Queer Ecology course.

In the intricate dance of relationships, the spectrum of symbiotic relationships reveals that we all live together in profound interdependence. This challenges the understanding and imagination of our deeply individualistic and anthropocentric psyche.

Symbiosis, derived from the Greek word for 'living together', illustrates the spectrum of biological relationships of intimate interaction. It is usually read through the lens of mutual benefit, harm or neutral impact, but it goes much further. It is a complex, dynamic and evolving relationship that challenges our understanding of the reciprocities of life. At its core, it whispers that no organism exists in separateness, that each life form is a node in an intricate ecological network, influencing and being influenced by countless others.

In a simplified spectrum, symbiotic relationships range from mutualism and commensalism to parasitism; these relationships reveal the porous and multifaceted interactions that cross-fertilize life.

This more in-depth understanding of life's interconnectedness reminds us to beware of dualisms that reduce the complexity of relationships. More than positive or negative, the spectre of 'symbiosis' helps us fertilise our perception of the deep ties that bind all forms of life, rediscovering fractal places in the symbiotic web of ecological kinship.

Originally written in Portuguese here: https://serpentedalua.com/o-paradoxo-da-palavra/