AlastairMcintosh.com A personal webpage about writer Alastair Mcintosh
Title
Alastair McIntosh's Home Page
Description
The purpose of this website is to represent myself professionally in self-employment and to make available material unearthed over more than three decades of exploration, action and reflection. It comprises a constantly growing range of work, linked together by always asking such questions as, "Is what I'm doing now feeding the hungry?", "Is it relevant to the poor or to the broken in nature?", "Does it contribute to understanding and meaningfulness?", and, "Does it give life?"
Central to Scottish thought is the "democratic intellect". It is a principle that knowledge should be useful and serve the community, otherwise it merely creates self-serving elites. Other Scots philosophical principles that I deeply value are generalism (so as to see things within the big picture), metaphysics (not fearing the dark so long as it's deep), the holding together of opposites (productive of great energy and insight) and common sense. These things lead me to be an academic, yes, but a campaigning academic - one who is more at home in the grove than the ivory tower.
The articles reproduced here are normally material that has already been published in print media elsewhere and has therefore passed through a third party refereeing or editing process. The contents range from items that appeared in small local newspapers to national newspaper features, papers in scholarly journals, reports and deliveries at conferences. In sum, the material reflects what I have so far found human ecology to be about, and in this respect I might be described professionally (as in "professing one's vocation") as a human ecologist - one who is concerned with the inter-relationships between the social and the natural environments in ways that speak to our troubled world and the human condition. (This is easier done in Scotland than elsewhere: according to Harvard University's law school, this website has been one of 854 blocked by the People's Republic of China . How's that for a bit of armchair persecution!)
Additional Information
Related Domains
