Naltruism

My friend Nigel Pugh @nspugh digs a deeper refuge for pondlife on community-owned land near Cardiff. An act of naltruism. Photo by me.

 

Life on Earth is now under obvious duress from dominant human action in all living systems.

Human empathy exists as part of a topography of the moral imagination. We who are wired this way feel the pain and suffering (or the comfort and exhilaration) of other living beings and symlings as well as our own species. This is not exclusively a human trait. It is a feeling that needs to be nurtured and grown in resistance to individualistic Western culture and is a pre-requisite for survival – not simply of our own species but of all life as we know it.

What it means to be alive may be expressed in kindships, mental and emotional healing being an important bi-product. Mutualism is a symbiotic reference that exists as a word to describe equality of flow between two beings, commensurable benefits to both organisms involved. Reciprocity is another keyword applied to the human-nature accord to describe the process (Wall Kimmerer). Altruism is a word to describe the actions that may come at some cost to one being for the benefit of the recipient. Each term is used, to a large degree, in human sociologies only (e.g. Mutualism and Proudhon, et al).

Fluminism as an ethic of love and ecology is mutualistic but also altruistic to all living beings. Here, I create a simple extended term that is more specifically dedicated to altruistic actions of love and care towards teresapien lives which may involve interacting with both organic and inorganic materials to that end.

Naltruism

N is for nature

Alter- latin for the “other” of the two

Ism – English for practice, system, doctrine, teaching of a thing.

 

Examples vary between small acts of love, care and generosity, wildlife, pet, and livestock support and rescue, children missing school to “strike for climate” relating to species extinction, dedicating human space to wildlife in housing and commercial properties, using fewer minerals so shutting down ecosystem-destroying open cast mines, using less electricity (use beyond well-being), to full locaceding of land and sea for Rewilding, refugia and migration. Some may consider it a privileged position, but I would contend those ancient cultures still living close to nature already do it on a daily basis. This is not the same as sacrifice and is a voluntary practice or responsibility.

Altruism for fellow humans under duress continues to be an important and significant force for good.

I usually and deliberately use the term “Nature” and root suffixes to include both organic and inorganic. So I am using the suffix letter “n” as I did in creating nagorasphere.

“Nal” also happens to be a suffix relating to “belonging” e.g. maternal, paternal.