These are fragments of and links to my Substack newsletter ‘I have questions’.
Who has to speak?
and what our brains do to try and protect us.
Questions
When is representation necessary, and when does it make explicit something that we need to leave in the dark if we want to continue functioning in the world?
When do we engage with representations of issues that are applicable to us because we want to, or when we feel a responsibility to?
What even is that sense of responsibility – a desire to support the creator? A pressure to self-help in any way possible? A feeling that we’re not doing our part if we don’t?
Weather talk
In a week of heavy winds, unpredicted rain, and the promise of sun
Questions
How do we write about the changing climate in a way that recognises the incremental changes, and not just the catastrophes?
Is climate anxiety a legitimate response to the world, or a fear we should learn to control?
Why do I keep writing about climate change, when I feel generally indifferent to it?
Life in little pieces
Braids or mosaics or fragments, but never a whole
Questions
Why is writing fragmentary prose so much easier than cohesive prose?
Why am I resisting the urge to say it’s a necessary form to use when writing about climate catastrophe?
Are our brains fragmentary or just brains?
This boat is ours
When survival is a shared endeavour, who comes first?
Questions
What does safety mean in catastrophe?
Does survival depend on conformity or rebellion? And what happens if you disagree with the people you’re trying to survive with?
Who gets to be saved?
The Three Cs: Choice, Children, Care
In which I go in circles pretending fictional characters have real moral obligations.
Questions
Why did my undergrad philosophy degree not include Care Ethics?
Why does being cared for feel so great in some situations, and so diminishing in others?
How does choice, based on our own wants needs values, rub up against our ethical duties to others, especially those we care about?
Alison Theresa 