Heart-spaces: sentiment & emotion

Chris Presland from the Southern Rivers Catchment Management Authority (CMA) introduced himself to us on Tuesday afternoon in two ways. Firstly, and briefly, he spoke from what he called the "logic-space", that world of action-plans, strategic partnerships, facilitations and outcomes. But then he unfurled a canvas across the floor and spoke from what he called a "heart-space". The canvas was something he and his CMA colleges painted under the guidance of an indigenous artist who asked them to think about their life-stories in terms of what sort of land they wanted to leave to their grandchildren.

Chris' heart-space sentiment was re-iterated by Pia Winburg who spoke about the passion that underpinned her scientific practice as well as her sea-weed advocacy, and Ivars Reinfeld said how much of a privilege it was to have studied the river for the last five years. All three of them, as biological farmer Marrten Stapper had done the previous day, used those familiar dichotomies of reason vs. emotion, passion vs. cold logic, intuition vs. facts. And while I'd never contradict the necessity of attempting to think beyond or outside of our own interests, assumptions, limitations and investments, I'd like to suggest that this opposition of the rational to the emotional is a false one. And Chris, Pia and Ivars, and their presence here at Bundanon, are the embodiment of why it is a false opposition. Clearly they feel a powerful sentiment towards the complex ecosystem of the river, and clearly the emotional attachment to the river is why they dedicate their lives to a better understanding and management of it. And this sentiment and emotion is in no way the opposite of rationalism or logic. There's a very good reason to be emotional about the proper management of a river. It's entirely logical to be sentimental about complex ecosystems, since those ecosystems are what give rise to us, and which sustain us, and to which we will return.

Sentiment and emotion are both Latin words, relating to sensation and movement. Sentiment comes form sentire, which is to feel, and emotion comes from movere, outward movement. Put back in their etymology like this these words reverberate an embodied engagement with the world. And if we place sentiment and emotion at the level of the body in its environment (as opposed to a psychological category of the mind) then we open the way for a philosophical practice in tune with a living-practice that is properly ecological.

Let's call it sentimental logic or emotional reason. Let's use it to counter the "cold" dogmas of techno-scientific and economic rationalisms that have been the drivers behind so much degradation, and yet not discarding those crucial elements from technology, science and economics that we need. The aim being to be neither dominated by nor irrationally dismissive of the products of technological, scientific and economic processes.

When I leave Bundanon I will be going back to Sydney to help compile an application for a large-scale research project with my boss (and friend) Ross Gibson. He has a wonderful idea to create a "sentimental mapping network" which would be investigating "how citizens generate and lodge emotions in particular places". The aim would be to understand how we can "improve our care for places by understanding how and why people care about those places", and to produce a "national map of the emotional intensities lodged in Australian landscapes, regions and cities... to engage the passions and energies of local communities in processes of care for the Australian environment."

If we get the funding for this project I would be wanting in the first instance to talk to Charlie Weir about the Shoalhaven river, since I can think of no better exemplar of someone with their very life-force lodge in the landscape. He embodies the sentimental logic that I have been talking about.

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