“What you’re doing now, or have done in the past, need not determine what you can do next and in the future” Ken Robinson.
I spent the last few posts discussing a probable history of our modern destructive ‘Taker’ worldview. I’ve had people come up and shake their heads after I talked about this at conferences I attended. They obviously disagreed with me, but then had nothing to add, preferring to believe the orthodox ideas and that civilization was somehow the acme of human achievement and therefore accepting the ruination of the planet as the most natural, although regrettable, thing for a civilized being to do. They were also technophiles believing that somehow at the last moment, we would brilliantly recognize a technological solution that solves everything. It’s about something I’ve mentioned many times, these true believers of modern civilization believe that all we have to do is find a better way to tweak the system, and not to do something original, like go beyond civilization. The notion that Leavers were (are) also civilized but in a different way is oblivious to them.
Taker civilization as we know it is a long failed experiment, but we seem afraid to try another worldview. The original Leaver cultures obviously worked, but we wanted something different for a new situation (agriculture). The original agricultural revolution seems to have worked fine for 3-4000 years with a ‘Leaver’ worldview, but we still developed a ‘Taker’ worldview when we needed to adapt to drastic climatic variations some 5,500 years ago. But humans have this incredible stubbornness in that they do not like to readily admit when they make a bad decision. The hierarchies, however, have always liked the hierarchical idea, benefiting immensely from it at the expense of the rest of us. So, the masses began working like slaves – literally in many cases as this was probably one of the many cultural innovations necessary for the hierarchy to justify its authoritarian position – just to make it work.
History records endless revolutions to overthrow tyrannical hierarchies, but nearly always with the same mindset that accepted the hierarchy as the acme of human achievement, not willing to accept that this was what was wrong all along. “A sum can be put right: but only by going back till you find the error and working it afresh from that point, never by simply going on” C. S. Lewis. Daniel Quinn puts it succinctly, “Old Minds think: How do we stop these bad things from happening? If it didn’t work last year, let’s do more of it this year (and throw more money at it). New Minds think: How do we make things the way we want them to be? It if didn’t work last year, let’s do something else this year”
Shortly before his death, Sir Ken Richardson made a short video (A Future for us all) and a major point that he makes is that people flourish when the ‘culture’ is right and wither when it is otherwise. Our aim ought to be finding the conditions under which we all flourish instead of always ‘making do.’ The sustainability revolution, unlike previous bloody revolutions to change the hierarchy, is to find conditions in which all people flourish, and I believe it can be done peacefully.
I laid out a string of these conditions in my Principles of Sustainable Living book published in 2012. Obviously, it hasn’t gone viral, since we are no better off today than when I wrote it. But while I didn’t think it would go viral, I did hope it would further stimulate discussion as an alternate way to see our global problems. There are lots of thinkers out there with great ideas for sustainable change. We have begun, but we haven’t yet addressed the flaws in our thinking that perpetuate the ‘Taker’ worldview. Richardson identifies clearly what we need to do differently but still doesn’t identify why we have such a hard time in getting there.
Andrés R. Edwards in his 2005 book The Sustainability Revolution: Portrait of a Paradigm Shift, overviews the start and early development of the sustainability revolution (as we currently experience it) and in particular differentiates how it differs from both Conservationism and Environmentalism. He laments, “The mainstream often confuses sustainability with ecological concerns, pitting conservation groups against business interests. This situation leads to a deadlock, with polarized viewpoints and inability to compromise…Although sustainability often is marked by environmental causes and protest campaigns, its values represent a broad context of issues that have spread underground in all sectors of society throughout the world.” While specific courses of potential action create some disagreement, there is much consensus on intentions and objectives in moving forward. These include, “concern for the environment, the economy, and social equity,” an understanding of interconnectedness with the natural world, recognition of ecosystem limits and detrimental impacts of human activities, and intergenerational equity.
The revolution has begun – worldviews are already in transition, but we still haven’t fathomed out the historical root problem of the ‘Taker’ worldview that still controls our thinking. The world is changing and there is no reason we should think it will just be a modified, kinder, friendlier version of what exists currently. If humankind is to thrive, it will be a radical change, as unprecedented in its way as the industrial revolution was in changing our thinking and ways of living. This revolution was framed though a newer lifestyle predicated on the Taker mentality. It just took the destructive aspects to a whole new level as standards of living rose but care for the natural world diminished further. The sustainability revolution is not about technology but more psychology.
I covered the Psychology of Sustainability in an earlier series of posts (The Psychology of Sustainability parts 1-6 {June 2020}). Adding to that earlier discussion, Cultural Cognition Theory (Scott, Amel, Koger and Manning, Psychology for Sustainability 2016) asserts that people are ‘biased thinkers,” that is, they look at the same information but interpret it differently based on their worldviews as described through. People, “are influenced not just by knowledge, but also by the values of the social groups with which they affiliate and identify.” These values towards the natural world can framed in three ways: egotistical where only personal concern is primary; altruistic where other people’s needs are emphasized; and, biospheric where ecological concerns take an overall priority. This fits somewhat with worldviews that frame through anthropocentrism (human centered), biocentrism (life centered), or ecocentrism (ecosystem centered) values.
As the importance of the natural world grows in our worldview evolution, worldviews tend to be moving, albeit slowly towards the biospheric or ecocentric end of a continuum; what ecophychologist Theodore Roszak called ‘Ecological Unconsciousness’ – a natural, almost archetypal, sense of interconnectedness with the natural world – an idea popularized as ‘Biophilia’ by Biologist E.O. Wilson (see my earlier posts Biophilia parts 1-4). This is crucial since it is our way back to a ‘Leaver’ mindset and recognition of that point historically when we created the ‘error’ to be corrected as Lewis emphasized (paragraph 3 quote).
The way forward to a new ‘Leaver’ civilization is to start healing the split between planet and self. Our story has been about various materialistic worldviews of humans towards the environment in which they lived and the natural resources they acquired to create a lifestyle. Scott at al. comment that, “…people don’t love nature unconditionally… Both attraction and aversion to nature can be explained evolutionarily… Ecopsychologists warn us that contemporary urban-living damages us at our cores. Biophilia advocates insist that we have an instinctive yearning to commune with nature.” While not everyone is an avowed nature lover, I find it notable that almost everyone has a preference for natural settings.
This can be seen on places where we go to relax (natural Parks and gardens), recreate (outdoors), Zoos and wildlife areas (to view wild animals), vacation (often monumental scenic areas), and even how we buy our homes (scenic views with natural perspective). This latter option is termed biophilic architecture and is often where natural features are incorporated into the building or simply where the home has a spectacular view (e.g. ocean, lake, grassland, hills, mountains, etc.…). One only has to look at the price of a home ‘with a view’ versus a similar dwelling without that view to see that we are willing to pay more for the view – it’s a deeply rooted part of our connection to the natural world we understand, if only on a subconscious level. “What makes biophilic organic design new is that it is based on theory and research about how humans respond positively to natural materials, lighting and shapes” Scott et al.
The idea that nature is important to our psyches was popularized by Richard Louv in 2006 (Last Child in the Woods). There has been extensive transdisciplinary research done showing the benefits of natural settings in reducing stress, improved physical and mental healing, and general improvements in community building that promote more feelings of well-being. When we observe Indigenous ‘Leaver’ cultures, overwhelmingly they are spiritually connected within the natural world.
To Be Continued …………….
0 Comments