Papers by Justin Good
An account of the Navajo Sun Dance ceremony as a learning ecology for kinship worldview and decol... more An account of the Navajo Sun Dance ceremony as a learning ecology for kinship worldview and decolonized ethics.
Introduction Chapter One: What it means to see: A reading of Wittgenstein's discussion of the... more Introduction Chapter One: What it means to see: A reading of Wittgenstein's discussion of the seeing aspects Chapter Two: Theories of visual meaning: Epistemology of early vision research Chapter Three: The experience and expression of sight: Subjectivity, ineffability and realism Chapter Four: Causality and visual form: Naturalism and aesthetics in the study of perception Epilogue: Wittgenstein's love of wisdom: Ethics as the ecology of meaning.
This essay develops a way to think about the aesthetics of wind energy systems. The inquiry begin... more This essay develops a way to think about the aesthetics of wind energy systems. The inquiry begins by considering an increasingly familiar clash between aesthetic responses to wind farms: the NIMBY appreciator of wind farms who likes their ecological rationality but not their look, and the aesthetic appreciator who sees the wind farm as beautiful, in part because of its ecological rationality. I raise the following questions: Is one of these perceptions more objective than the other? Is one of the aesthetic judgments uttered more truthful than the other? Or is this simply a question of subjective or intersubjective preferences? The essay goes on to explore dialectically the various ways we can think about the different aesthetic responses to wind farms. I lay out an argument, using a concept of beauty from complexity theory as the perception of wholeness, to argue that the aesthetic perception of wind farms as beautiful is objectively more truthful than the NIMBY response.
Elephant Journal, 2014
This article is the third in a series with originally published online at Elephant Journal, Septe... more This article is the third in a series with originally published online at Elephant Journal, September 2014, based on the work of Cherokee Philosopher Four Arrows
Elephant Journal, 2014
The second essay in a short series I wrote about indigenizing education based on the work of Cher... more The second essay in a short series I wrote about indigenizing education based on the work of Cherokee Philosopher Four Arrows.
Elephant Journal, 2014
The first of a series of articles about indigenizing education, inspired by the work of Cherokee ... more The first of a series of articles about indigenizing education, inspired by the work of Cherokee Philosopher Four Arrows.
Humanity at the Turning Point: Rethinking Nature, Culture and Freedom, 2006
An human-ecological analysis of automobiles using the framework of Marshall McLuhan media ecology.
Human Ecology Review, 2006
This essay develops a way to think about the aesthetics of wind energy systems. The inquiry begin... more This essay develops a way to think about the aesthetics of wind energy systems. The inquiry begins by considering an increasingly familiar clash between aesthetic responses to wind farms: the NIMBY appreciator of wind farms who likes their ecological rationality but not their look, and the aesthetic appreciator who sees the wind farm as beautiful, in part because of its ecological rationality. I raise the following questions: Is one of these perceptions more objective than the other? Is one of the aesthetic judgments uttered more truthful than the other? Or is this simply a question of subjective or intersubjective preferences? The essay goes on to explore dialectically the various ways we can think about the different aesthetic responses to wind farms. I lay out an argument , using a concept of beauty from complexity theory as the perception of wholeness, to argue that the aesthetic perception of wind farms as beautiful is objectively more truthful than the NIMBY response.
Oursanctuary.org website, 2018
A first person account of a week-long engagement with the Lakota wisdom keeper and author Eagle M... more A first person account of a week-long engagement with the Lakota wisdom keeper and author Eagle Man Ed McGaa (1936-2017) at the Sanctuary in East Haddam, CT.
Capitalism Nature Socialism, 2007
We all know that it takes less money to save energy than to produce more of it. The Rocky Mountai... more We all know that it takes less money to save energy than to produce more of it. The Rocky Mountain Institute's manual for sustainable development drives home this truth with the leaky bucket model of municipal development. 2 Focus on plugging the money leaks in your local economy with import-replacement and efficiency measures, rather than trying to attract more new businesses in order to raise tax revenues. Not only is it cheaper energetically to save than to produce more, it allows you to develop qualitatively without having to grow quantitativelya knack that our economic system will need to learn as it struggles to maintain life while coming to terms with the ecological limits of a finite planet. Now from a spiritual perspective, this focus on energy efficiency is necessary and well-intentioned, but it leaves out the most important energy leaks there are. For the biggest energy leak in your life you haven't fixed yet is your own attention. Buddhist Sage Thich Nhat Hahn speaks literally of mental distraction as an energy leak 3 in our supply of mindfulness -the energy which allows consciousness to be present, to be focused, to be cognizant, ultimately, to be awake. What are the riches of the world, natural or built, or even the riches of human community and connection, to a self which is asleep?
Teaching Documents by Justin Good
A statement of my pedagogical philosophy.
Talks by Justin Good
Testimony delivered before the CT Banking Committee in March 2021 in support of Bill 150 which wo... more Testimony delivered before the CT Banking Committee in March 2021 in support of Bill 150 which would establish a state-owned infrastructure bank.
Drafts by Justin Good
This essay offers an interpretation of the “Laws of Chaos," one of the most mysterious and unsett... more This essay offers an interpretation of the “Laws of Chaos," one of the most mysterious and unsettling but profoundly illuminating of the teachings from A Course in Miracles. The account is found near the beginning of Chapter 23, which is titled “The War Against Yourself.” I say disturbing because they point out, with a directness which I personally feel is unmatched in the great spiritual-metaphysical literature of the world, the very root of our self-denial. As such, they also offer great insight into the key to recover awareness of True Self. Every metaphysics, every theology, every human story has an account of the origin of the Self. In the Laws of Chaos, we find A Course in Miracles’ baffling nondualistic version of the Creation - an account of a momentous cosmological event which actually never happened.
Conference Presentations by Justin Good
This paper explores two basic ideas. The first is that, when it comes to identifying the foundati... more This paper explores two basic ideas. The first is that, when it comes to identifying the foundations of the unethical design and use of money, the decolonialist lens offers the deepest and most relevant frame with which to identify the ethical problems of the current money system while pointing to possible solutions. This idea is borrowed from social justice philanthropist Edgar Villanueva6, specifically, his succinct formulation that colonialist money creation practices exemplify the three basic goals of the colonization paradigm, being to divide, control and exploit, while decolonized money, or money used as medicine, serve the restorative goals of connect, relate and belong. The second idea is that public banks and the social movement to create city- and state- owned, democratic banks in the US and elsewhere, offers a very satisfying ethical resolution, and realistic political strategy for addressing these structural problems with colonizer money.
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Papers by Justin Good
Teaching Documents by Justin Good
Talks by Justin Good
Drafts by Justin Good
Conference Presentations by Justin Good