Andrew Frederick Smith 
The Threefold Struggle 
Pursuing Ecological, Social, and Personal Wellbeing in the Spirit of Daniel Quinn

We members of settler colonial culture—the latest form of what novelist and cultural critic Daniel Quinn calls
Taker culture—are constrained by myriad institutions that leave us with little choice but to engage in practices that are profoundly damaging to the planet, to others, and to ourselves. Our path to living otherwise, Andrew Frederick Smith argues, lies in the threefold struggle, which is inspired by Quinn’s focus on the interweaving roots of ecological, social, and personal wellbeing. These three forms of wellbeing are co-implicated. We cannot enjoy one without equally enjoying the others; they are a package deal. As such, what works for people individually and collectively works for the planet, and vice versa. Reclaiming our lives and revitalizing our human and more-than-human communities are salient acts of resistance against Taker culture. They offer means of escape from our cultural captivity and an opportunity for full-spectrum wellbeing.

Зміст

Preface

Acknowledgments

List of Abbreviations for Quinn’s Texts



Prologue: The Threefold Struggle for Ecological, Social, and Personal Wellbeing




Part I: Taker Culture: Fashioning a Mosaic



1. The ‘Quinn Method’ of Cultural Criticism: Memes, Martian Anthropology, and Maieutics



2. Axiomatic Lies: Totalitarian Agriculture and The Great Forgetting



3. Egress Regress: The Antisavior’s Devotional




Part II: Leaver Culture: Charting a Certain Road



4. Lessons in Success: Fire of Life, Law of Life, Community of Life



5. Remembering How to Be Human: Gifts of Wisdom and Awareness of the Sacred



6. Vitalizing a People, Becoming a Person: Seeds of Reclamation and Resistance




Part III: A New Story to Be In: On to Croatoan



7. Beyond Civilization: The Rise and Decline of Hierarchalism



8. Unlocking the Food: In Defense of Symbioculture



9. Ending the Food Race: From Biomass to Human Mass and Back Again



10. A Farewell to Miseducation: Unschooling and the Circus of Learning



Epilogue: Changed Minds, Changed Options, and the Schematic of a New Vision



List of Mentioned Characters

Notes

References

Index

Про автора

Andrew Frederick Smith is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Environmental Studies at Drexel University. His previous books include
A Critique of the Moral Defense of Vegetarianism and
The Deliberative Impulse: Motivating Discourse in Divided Societies.