Normal Dissonance

The best way to describe my generation is angst-ridden. We feel as though we are at the precipice of a cultural revolution, but can’t pinpoint the method for instigating such a change.  

Many of us spent our college days studying the depth of institutional corruption, impunity, and the general sustainability-crisis. By day, we sat in desks, Macs at attention, saluting grassroots campaigns, fair-trade, ‘glocal’ movements, and cursing the corporatocracy. By night, we argued about ethics over micro-craft brews, all in consensus that change was in order, feeling fulfilled that we were contributing to that shift in our status as students producing work.

In an ever-capitalistic flair, our culture equates production with worthiness; the more you produce, the more worthy a member of society you are. In college you exist in a in a verbal matrix where written and spoken word carry the weight of ‘progress.’ When you get an ‘A’ for your sustainability proposal or extra credit for your reproductive rights campaign, this is positive feedback that you are ‘okay,’ you are worthy, you have produced something in line with your values. As students, our production beast is fed with the institutional stamps of approval.

The thing is, once you leave college, lip-service no longer pays. And we are tasked with carving a unique niche in which we can provide for ourselves while also (ideally) contributing to the type of society we so vehemently advocated for in the classroom. Sadly, our education system arms us abundantly with an abstract knowledge of the current problems at hand, but leaves us high and dry when it comes to actualizing a life that counteracts those issues. Our generation has been given the precious gift of awareness and the curse of bushwacking new routes for change.  

The feeling I get is that we are all overwhelmed. Psychologically, it makes sense that we would throw up our hands, get a job serving or a 9-5 in a corporation, while continuing to pay homage to our ideals with literature and newspaper articles. This is comfortable.

In essence, this is what we have been doing our whole lives—talking about the necessity of change without follow-through.

Hey, we all gotta pay the bills and it’s no doubt a relief to have all of your I’s dotted and T’s crossed when it comes to explaining your ‘plans’ to the  people at large. The pressure of expectation builds the mental infrastructure for feverish hamster-wheel spirals—going through the motions to bite the cheddar because it’s just ‘what you do.’

 This cultural script of externally placed worthiness is deeply embedded in us. Even if we don’t agree or recognize the irrationality in it, we can’t help but be influenced by the cognitive grooves of social perception. When we are not on a societally condoned path towards ‘success,’ it takes a conscious effort to not make choices from a place of fear and/or ambivalence. We have a culturally programmed fear of the unknown, of taking risks, of listening to our intuition even when the outcome may not be reasonable.

It seems that cognitive dissonance is as quotidian in adult life as mortgages, infidelity, and psychotropic medications. Such realizations could tempt any aware individual into the spiral of nihilism, but we must have hope, for these ‘normalities’ are the very reasons why we should seek to confront and rewrite the stories undergirding the tide of our time. 

Global Language

 

Two years ago, in the dwindling days of December, I found myself wandering round a bustling marketplace in downtown Cape Town. This was my first trip to Africa and usually when I visit a new place, I go downtown to get a feel for the culture, the language. Before my departure, as always, I did some research and had a feel for the predominant tribal groups, ethnic minorities and majorities. In South Africa, with its eleven official languages, I expected to hear some Afrikaans, Zulu, or Xhosa in the streets; yet amidst my meandering between booths, heavily laden with stylistically streamlined African artifacts, I heard only English.

English is being described as the new global language, dominating science, medicine, academics, business, government, technology, media and most of all, the Internet. One quarter of the planet is fluent in English, native and non-native speakers, and this number is growing exponentially (Crystal, 4). Of course, with any global issue, there is a heated debate as to its advantages and disadvantages. Many individuals view the spread of English as an inevitable result of globalization. With English as a baseline mechanism for communication for the ‘global village,’ business runs easier, travel is less daunting, information can be shared without tedious translation, and people of many different backgrounds can come together to express ideas in a common tongue. At the same time, many, including myself, see the domination of the English language as an expression of cultural imperialism and homogenization, fearing for a loss of diversity within the realm of human experience. In this essay I will vouch for the preservation of diversified language because I believe each human’s identity and culture, both of which are intrinsically connected with language, contain ineffable value that should not be suppressed by the powers-that-be.

To critically analyze an issue, one must have an idea of its roots and mechanisms of maintenance. David Crystal, in his book, English as a Global Language, describes a global language as one that is recognized internationally for its special uses and purposes (Crystal, 2). Crystal claims that languages spread, not due to the inherent nature of the language itself but because of the power of the people who speak it, particularly military and economic power (Crystal, 7). He applies this concept to 19^th and 20^th century politics, when Britain and America were thriving as militant, economic and technological superpowers. British colonization and the growth of the United States as an economic heavyweight spread English around the world. With this financial padding, Anglo-phonic countries invested more in research and technology, marketing this knowledge through the multinational corporation and further entrenching the supremacy of English. This empire was finally consecrated with the invention of the Internet (8).

Around 72% of Internet pages are in English and majority of telecommunication infrastructure resides in developed, English aware countries (Ngai, 2012). Obviously the Internet is a huge wealth of information, available only to those who speak English. One doesn’t only need to learn English to be tech-savvy, but to be a member of the global marketplace, to have a chance at economic and social mobility, to communicate with younger generations, the list goes on. In the words of Mark Warchauer, a professor of education and informatics at the University of California, "English has become the second language of everybody. It's gotten to the point where almost in any part of the world to be educated means to know English,"(Mydans 2007). It seems in today’s world the mantra rings, assimilate or perish.

The spread of English and globalization have been like twisting strands of a double helix, complementing and supporting each other. As Warchauer comments, “"Having a global language has assisted globalization, and globalization has consolidated the global language,” (Mydans 2007). As with globalization, there have been countless benefits to the ubiquity of this language. For one, a mono-linguistic comportment has provided a platform for international communication in the public and private sector. For example in international business meetings, Saudi Arabian, Chinese and Brazilian individuals could use English as a common ground of communication instead of hassling with interpretation. Costs of translation and interpretation within global relations definitely factor in the promotion of a lingua franca (The Guardian 2001). Some proponents claim that a global language would reduce cultural misunderstandings although there is no empirical support of this notion (Crystal 13). Learning English can be a ticket out of poverty in developing countries and many families prefer sending their kids to English schools because they feel it will serve them better in the long run.

There is also an overall sentiment that English is already a global language and therefore we might as well use it to our advantage. Some people take the middle ground by promoting a bilingual stance to linguistic globalization; that is, people should utilize local languages as well as English depending on the context. This is keenly expressed in an article written for The Guardian, an online news source based out of the UK, “there is no need to set up an old-fashioned dichotomy between local languages and English as the "hegemonic aggressor": there is a place for both, because they fulfill different functions,” (The Guardian 2001). In other words, many supporters of a lingua franca believe that people don’t have to identify themselves, culturally or socially, through English, but should recognize the language’s relevance in modern society. In a globalized world we need to have a global language; indigenous languages have no use in the world of blogs and happy meals.

At first glance, the aforementioned statements are rendered intuitively sound; unfortunately the relationships between language, identity and society are not so cut and dry. Individuals are against making English a global language for numerous reasons: they believe it promotes the homogenization of humanity; it is a mechanism of cultural imperialism; it will result in a loss of indigenous knowledge, music, poetry, stories—a loss of culture. But there is a question that presupposes all of these adverse conclusions, a question linguists and psychologists have been quarreling over for decades: does language affect thought?

In his chapter, Babel Revisited, Peter Mühlhäusler, describes two theories through which to understand the relationship between language and the world: mapping theory and the linguistic relativity hypothesis (Mühlhäusler 104). The mapping or labeling theory contends that our world is made up of fundamental units for which language has different labels. This view is expressed by linguist and psychologist Steven Pinker, who claims that language is an adaptation; language evolved out of necessity to label the things around us and communicate cognitions (Pinker 2003). Pinker expands on Noam Chomsky’s ideas of universal grammar by claiming that all languages can be broken down into basic cognitive categorizations, in other words, language doesn’t shape our thoughts (and therefore our experiences), but language works as it does by virtue of innate, adaptive biological mechanisms (Chomsky 1977, Papineau 2007). In the words of Mühlhäusler, "according to this theory, the differences between languages are only superficial and all languages are fully inter-translatable,” (Mühlhäusler 104); therefore a global language is neutral because all languages end up communicating the same universal labels and cognitions.

The second theory through which to understand the role of language in society is referred to as the Sapir-Whorf or linguistic relativity hypothesis (Mühlhäusler 104). The idea of linguistic relativity is expressed eloquently by David Crystal, during his feature in the documentary, In Languages We Live: Voices of the World, a film by Janis Billeskov Jansen and Signe Bryge Sørenson, “the world is a mosaic of visions, and each vision is encapsulated by a language… every time a language is lost, one vision of the world disappears;” in other words, language defines how each human experiences the world (Jansen and Sørenson 2005). In an article for the New York Times, “Does Your Language Shape How You Think?” Guy Deutscher comments on re-vamped understandings of linguistic relativity, “if different languages influence our minds in different ways, this is not because of what our language allows us to think but rather because of what it habitually obliges us to think about,” (Deutscher 2010). For example, English is a gender-neutral language and therefore its speakers are less focused on gendered dichotomies in their comprehension, whereas a Spanish or French speaker would view this information as vital to their understanding of the world (Deutscher 2010).

Deutscher continues to comment on how language demands us to speak, feel and think about concepts differently, such as space, color, perception, time, geography etc. Peter Mühlhäusler also describes the immense diversity between languages with regards to communicating certain phenomena: specifically with nature, plants, weather, color, kinship ties, parts of the body, emotions, states of mind, religion, spiritual ideas, social distinctions, and metaphors (Mühlhäusler 106). For example: some indigenous cultures having thousands of names for plants, whereas the western knowledge of nature is quite generalized; the Hopi of North America have no word for ‘depression’; the Tofa people of Siberia have many terms for ‘reindeer’ similar to the Tuvans who use special names for colors, body patterns, and head marking of horses, cows, and yaks (Harrison 2007, Sommers-Flanagan 2012). David Harrison in this chapter, An Extinction of (ideas about) Species, contends that humanity is at risk of losing an amazing vault of eco-knowledge with the extinction of languages (Harrison 2007).

There are around 6000 languages left in the world it is predicted that in 100 years, half of those languages will be extinct. If this occurs, as David Crystal describes, not only will we lose specialized knowledge of the natural world, “[but] if we do nothing…half of the world’s heritage will be gone,” (Jansen and Sørenson 2005). Crystal’s statement alludes to the idea that we experience reality through language, we experience ourselves, and this is only so pure in our mother tongue. The book, Counseling and Psychotherapy Theories in Context and Practice, written by John Sommers-Flanagan and Rita Sommers-Flanagan, describes the self as a narrative concept, birthed in the cultural parameters of language. Language and identity are two sides to the same coin; if our concept of the self is intrinsically linked to our personal narrative, then taking away that understanding and filtering it through another cultures’ perspective is very undermining and detrimental to psychological and emotional health (Sommers-Flanagan 2012). As Director Janus Jansen describes, “to lose my mother tongue would be like being forced into language exile. I would lose my family’s history and culture,” (Jansen and Sørenson 2005).

I believe the only way to truly observe issues of global injustice are through a holistic lens. In the documentary, The Color of Fear, a group of mixed-ethnicity men explore issues of racism. At one point in the documentary, a white men comments that he doesn’t understand himself as part of an ethnic community and is perplexed at why race has to be such an issue, “why can’t we all just be members of the human race?” Two African American men retort,

“This is the problem with racism…As a white man, he doesn’t have to think about his position in life, his place in the world. The history books tell him, as they are written, that this is his world…he doesn’t have to think of himself as a white person because the way the world is set up, America in particular, white is a human-being…they step into a world that is theirs.” (Mun Wa, 1994)

Similarly with language, those who grow up speaking English don’t understand why globalizing the English language has to be such a problem, because they are already privileged in that they speak it. I have noticed this paradigm of globalizing homogenization in which what it means to be human is to be a white male who speaks English, dresses a certain way, expresses emotion a certain way, eats certain foods, celebrates certain traditions, practices a certain religion. This idea of English as global language, which is supported by many valid points, is just another veiled expression of white supremacy. What English as a global language is saying to the marginalized peoples of the world is that their cultural contribution does not matter; they do not matter unless they assimilate and essentially ‘lose themselves.’

I am against promoting English as a global language not only because I support the aforementioned arguments that there will be a loss of diversity, culture, and knowledge; I also believe this trend to be another form of Anglo-phonic oppression on minorities. From the moment I first inhaled, my senses were inundated with stimuli of privilege. For example: I was born in a sanitary hospital, with all the necessary accoutrements to meet my medical needs; I was taken to a warm home where I was fed properly and loved; my genealogical heritage is such that my skin color is defined as ‘white’; the first words I heard were English words and English is my mother tongue. All of these things, probably reminiscent stories of many individuals born in the United States, although seemingly basic, are flagrant status symbols, laying the bedrock for my certain success in the world. I agree with Crystal when he claims,

“a global language will cultivate an elite monolingual linguistic class, more complacent and dismissive in their attitudes towards other languages…[who] will be more able to think and work quickly in it, and to manipulate it to their own advantage at the expense of those who do not have it, thus maintaining in a linguistic guise the chasm between rich and poor,” (Crystal 2003).

            The promotion of a mono-linguistic world disrespects my basic tenet that each human has something very unique to share with the world and this ability to share is an intrinsic right that should be protected. With the extinction of language not only will we lose culture and knowledge, but also we will be affirming a paradigm that doesn’t respect the inherent value of human beings. Although there are some advantages to English as a global language, economically, corporately, communicatively, the advantages seem to favor the privileged. I believe accepting these veiled rationales without digging deeper into the perpetual top-down injustices would be an ignorant conclusion. And while those who speak English can remain linguistically blind to their true advantage and vouch for everyone to be like them for sake of convenience, I believe that forcing people to eschew their mother tongue and essentially, their identity for the sake of a further globalized, homogenized, interdependent monoculture is not worth the price.

Works Cited

“A Stateless Language that Europe Must Embrace.” The Guardian 18 April. 2001: Web. Accessed 5 Dec. 2012.

Chomsky, Noam. Essays on form and interpretation. New York: North-Holland, 1977.

Crystal, David. Why a Global Language? New York: 2003. Cambridge University Press. New York, NY. Print.

Deutscher, Guy “Does Your Language Shape How You Think?” New York Times.  26 Aug. 2010: web. Accessed 9 Dec. 2012.

Harrison, David. “An Extinction of Ideas about Species.” Oxford University Press. 2007. Print. p. 23-55.

Jansen, Janis Billeskov and Signe Bryge Sørenson, dirs. In languages we Live: Voices of the World. Final Cut Productions, 2005. Documentary.  

Muelenhausler, Peter. “Babel Revisited.” Print. p. 103-108.

Mydans, Seth. “Across Cultures, English is the Word.” New York Times 9 April. 2007: Web. Accessed 5 Dec. 2012.

Ngai, Phyllis. Power Point. Lesson 2: Globalization, Informatization and Communication. 2012.

Papineau, David. “Caveman Conversations.” Rev. of The Stuff of Thought, by Steven Pinker. The Independent 5 Oct. 2007. Web: Accessed 9 Dec. 2012.

Pinker, Steven. “Language as an adaptation to the cognitive niche.” In: Kirby S, Christiansen M Language evolution: States of the Art. Language evolution: States of the Art. New York: Oxford University Press; 2003. p. 16-37.

Sommers-Flanagan, John and Rita Sommers-Flanagan. Counseling and Psychotherapy Theries in Context and Practice: Skills Strategies, and Techniques. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2012. Print.

The Color of Fear. Dir, Lee Mun Wa, 1994. Documentary.

Women Weave the Web

Exciting news! I just got recruited to work on a campaign with Word Pulse , an activist organization based in Portland, called Women Weave the Web , which is focused on breaking down the digital divide for women to get their voices heard globally. Here is a blurb about it from the website:

World Pulse is the leading network using the power of digital media to connect women on the ground around the world and bring them a global voice. We are powered by a network of 50,000 including women from 190 countries. Our mission is to lift and unite women’s voices to accelerate their impact for the world. 

Through our growing, web-based platform, women are speaking out and connecting to create solutions from the frontlines of today’s most pressing issues. With a focus on grassroots women change leaders, our programs nurture community, provide media and empowerment training, and broadcast rising voices to influential forums. 

With an online, global community of grassroots women leaders, World Pulse has developed a methodology to rally their voices around the issues that they say matter most. Our digital action campaigns elicit powerful content from women on the ground, strengthen their confidence, and ensure that influencers and powerful institutions hear their stories. 

Past campaigns have facilitated opportunities for grassroots women to advise the new UN Women agency on its strategy, Silicon Valley executives on increasing women’s access to the Internet, world leaders at the Rio+20 ‘Earth Summit’ on ensuring gender inclusive outcomes, and at the 57th Commission on the Status of Women on ending violence against women. These campaigns have produced two primary benefits: 

 Increased individual empowerment through new opportunities for grassroots women to be heard at global forums and represent their communities as vocal leaders. Women who participate frequently report newfound self-confidence and leadership, as well as new relationships, opportunities, and mentors through interacting with the online community and World Pulse partners. They also gain social media skills and broadened knowledge of the issue through the content generated by the campaign. 

 Increased effectiveness for advocacy work reported by our partners who have enriched their quantitative data with the powerful narrative from our community of grassroots women leaders. Our campaigns have motivated UN leaders to visit refugee camps and send out urgent alerts, drawn the attention of media, politicians and celebrities, and helped move forward important legislation and policies. 

WWW: Women Weave the Web 

World Pulse is excited to announce the launch of our WWW: Women Weave the Web Campaign! You are joining World Pulse in supporting women who are using the Internet to transform the world. From the streets of Nairobi to the plazas of Buenos Aires, women are logging on and sparking change. Now is the time to break down the digital divide. 

Our newly launched campaign will crowd-source the wisdom of grassroots women leaders on issues related to digital inclusion and empowerment. Through the three phases of our Campaign (Digital Access, Digital Literacy, and Digital Empowerment), women and their allies around the world will speak out on challenges they have accessing the Internet, the solutions communities are developing, and the ways in which the Internet empowers them to create change on the ground. World Pulse will analyze the submitted testimonies and, in conjunction with our partners, present them to important international forums, policy leaders, media outlets, and technology companies in order to better advocate for digital inclusion and empowerment for women. 


You can support me by checking into the Word Pulse platform from time to time, reading women's stories, signing up for their free emagazine, and following World Pulse on Twitter or on Facebook.

Nature & Society--A Final Learning Synthesis

 
           

I just recently returned from a trip to Jackson Hole, WY—a place not unlike scenic Missoula, filled with outdoor enthusiasts, proud dog owners, and beer connoisseurs. In an effort to spark inspiration for this paper, a final learning synthesis, I inquired with individuals whom I encountered as to their choice in living locale. I was greeted with an almost unanimous answer— “uhhh, have you looked around,” pause for a smile or a swig; “the nature here man, I tell you it’s where the magic happens.” The environment of Teton County truly is magical— moose troll around your backyard in the shadow of insurmountable jagged peaks, while national forests, parks, and private preserves border the township. Yet what makes places like Jackson Hole so special is the vibe in which its inhabitants connect with raw nature.  

            On my drive back up to Montana, I was contemplating the similarities between Missoula and Jackson—the folk are likeminded and wilderness abundant. However, the most salient similarity I found was the deep connection people feel to the environment in which they live. Coming from Colorado, I have always defined myself as a mountain girl—there is something about the safety of deep river valleys nestled between rugged peaks that gets under your bones.  Perhaps it is the crisp air, or the fresh headwaters; maybe it’s the infinite trails less traveled or the encounters with forest creatures, going about their lives in no rush above 12,000 feet. Spending a smidgen of time in nature enlightens you as to its true intrinsic value.

            It wasn’t until I traveled a bit, poked my head around, that I recognize what a blessing my ‘home’ has been in the formation of my ecological worldview. I have always lived in a place where wilderness is accessible and life laid back. It is only through recurring jolts of historical contextualization and bare-bones reality checks that I can acknowledge the extent of my multifaceted privilege. I interact with my surroundings with a new consciousness, one laden with socio-historical breadth and geopolitical depth. And as I have found with many intellectual endeavors, once the pot is stirred, questions of contradiction arise: how is it possible that so many individuals, myself included, adulate their natural surroundings also participate daily in a system that is destroying the very object of their ardor?

            The drawing of these parallels, adjacent tangents from the relationship between nature and society were etched in a darker shade after exploring ‘the explaining story,’ as laid out in Professor Spencer’s course, instigated with the intriguing novel, Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn. The book Ishmael provided a framework of key terms and ideas to siphon through the convolutions of history, philosophy, religion, and science flushed out through the semester. Ishmael poses many critical questions whose nascence lies in the labyrinth of environmental thought and action. And while the depth of this tale will not be given due course within the confines of this essay, I will seek to identify the key turning points in Euro-American history that led us to our current ideological and behavioral setting. While contemplating and elaborating on the historical bricks laid in the path to our modern Western paradigm, for the sake of brevity I will fast-forward through thousands of years of humanities’ dynamic relationship with nature and focus on paramount shifts.

. Many revolutions mark the history of our species: Neolithic, urban, industrial, technological, globalizing, etc. What they all have in common is their ecological complexity that can be viewed through the sociological acronym, POET, which stands for population, organization, environment, and technology (Palen 76). To use the Neolithic revolution as an example: the technology of food storage allowed for a surplus of food, the surplus in food enabled an increase in population, which created a space for new social and political organization into hierarchal city-states, which all in turn had numerous effects on the environment such as soil degradation and pollution. This model is useful for examining the complexities between nature and society; where advances may occur in one letter may proliferate impediments in another. Such is the paradoxical nature of our world’s current predicament. Many people benefit from the current organizational system ruled by corporate monopolies; technological advances continually raise the bar on desirable living standards; population soars, providing a cheap workforce for the production of more goods for the privileged; the environment and ‘Othered’ individuals, rendered morally obsolete by the powers that be, are heinously exploited.

            Call it philosophy, mythology, religion, or pragmatic reasoning, it is essential to unearth the cerebral nuggets of the aforementioned system, which can be understood as an amalgamation of Judeo-Christian and Enlightenment rhetoric. I have come to understand Christianity as a mélange of Hebrew biblical values and Classical Greek philosophy. While it is difficult in modern times to recognize the extent of Christian influence on our worldview, many key themes persist— particularly those of dominion, transcendence, and dualism. One specific theme from Hebrew texts is the ‘p-story’ of the genesis—in which God entrusted man with the duty of dominating the earth (Genesis 1). This theme was reflected in Ishmael with the myth, “the earth was made for man, and man was made to rule it (Quinn, 61).” The notion of dominion is a prodigious base for our modern Western paradigm and will be examined through a feminist lens later in the essay.

Other contributions the Hebrew religion made to our Western paradigm were notions of monotheism and transcendence. Due to recurring displacement in various environments, the Hebrew people came to see overarching patterns in nature; this was reflected in their belief of a monotheistic god who was transcendent from the natural world. This separation of the ethereal from nature played out in numerous ways, most importantly casting anything reminiscent of the natural world in a pejorative light. Since nature was not of god, it was devalued as a mere instrumental object of satisfaction in the present physical world before eternal rewards in heaven. And due to contributions from Socrates and Aristotle, definitions of nature were expanded to include anything beyond pure reason, such as emotional subjectivity (an obvious micro-insult at feminine comportment), which was conveniently a capacity only possessed by privileged [white] men. Therefore, the mistreatment of animals and ‘beastly’ humans alike was morally legitimized by Judeo-Christian doctrine (Marshall 189).

This separation also inspired another influential ‘split’ as laid out by Descartes cogito, “I think, therefore I am.” Descartes’ fascination with reason finds its roots in the work of Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle. This dualistic mind-frame as reflected by Hebrew notions of transcendence is vital for understanding our Western ‘story’ because it defines humans in terms of the mind, as separate from the body. This step-back, to extol mind over matter so to speak, led to a deleterious logic well-articulated by Metropolitan John of Pergamon, a modern eco-theologian and priest; “Since the human being may be conceived without its relation to the natural world, in the final analysis it matters not at all whether or not the natural world surrounding him will be annihilated,” (Pergamon, 2010).

 Cartisian thought also contributed to the exaltation of objective truths, which brings us to the current arbiter of nature and humanity: science. The idea of an overarching god also segued into early scientific pursuits for absolute laws of nature. Science and technology quickly became the new religion as people sought to become masters and possessors of nature; this was due to the growing consensus that, in the words of Francis Bacon, ‘knowledge is power.’ Note nuances of the dominion story as articulated by the genesis; it was seen as human’s moral duty, “to improve and perfect fallen nature through…science,” (184).

With the advent of science, nature became something to be studied to further manipulate and control resources for the benefit of humans. This utilitarian view of nature is very Aristotelian, who attributed value to nature insofar as it could benefit the flourishing of humans; I daresay many humans would still agree with this statement. And even though Darwin significantly de-centered humans from the main evolutionary stage, notions of man’s superiority and right to ‘dominate,’ remain entrenched. Currently, the scientific paradigm is two-faced; science can be used for further destruction of the earth and each other, or science can realign humans with nature by enlightening us with new information and/or technologies for a sustainable future.

Despite histories’ tendency to bog down students in calamitous ruts, I will shift the focus of this essay towards great American thinkers to whom we owe our unremitting gratitude for cumulatively spearheading any notions of environmentalism. Thinkers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry David Thoreau totally reshaped our vision of nature. It was made beautiful again, something to be appreciated, protected, glorified, and revered. One could even go so far to say that without Thoreau, environmentalism would have never emerged with such vigor, for all subsequent environmental students or enthusiasts surely quote his work: Aldo Leopold, Bob Marshall, Rachel Carson and the like made colossal progress to protect, promote, and preserve nature through top-tier interventions. These environmental advocates politicized the degradation of the natural world and put the value of nature at the forefront of generalized discussions of justice.  

            During the decades of consciousness-raising with the American public, as well as with elected officials, an ecological mind-frame emerged. Ecology as described by Nash, “enables [us]…to conceive of nature as an intricate web of interdependent parts, a myriad of cogs and wheels each essential to the health operation of the whole,” (195). This was particularly salient for Aldo Leopold, who took it a step further in extending ecology’s reach to the ethical realm, which this quote fluently encapsulates:

 “One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds. Much of the damage inflicted on land is quite invisible to laymen. An ecologist must either harden his shell and make believe that the consequences of science are none of his business, or he must be the doctor who sees the marks of death in a community that believes itself well and does not want to be told otherwise,” (Leopold, A Sand County Almanac).

I currently find myself in that ‘world of wounds,’ as Leopold describes— sifting and melding my personal ecological worldview to balance many tracks of consciousness. While I have a personal affinity for the promotion of social services, books like Ishmael, along with countless other readings from this course, have allowed me to recognize the ecological nature of my actions—that I cannot be concerned with the trials of humans without connecting them to the tribulations of nature. In the words of Peter Marshall, “[the earth] is a living whole,” and in an ever Gestaltian manner I must proclaim that the sum is greater than its individuals parts—that is, holism must be central to the way we identify, define, and approach social and ecological problems alike (Marshall, pgs. 391, 406).

Something to keep in mind while digesting this sweeping panorama of Western ideological history is that humans are a fairly young species in terms of Earth’s history. And although we act, as though our existence on Earth has been the headlining performance of evolutionary bravado, there is hope in humility (Quinn 56-58); we don’t have all of the answers, and there much to learn from the very forces we have been attempting to dominate. As our guest lecturer from BioMimicry Institute, Briony Schwan, related, “everything we need to do [to reverse the damage we have wrought] has already been done in nature,” (5-3-2013).

Thoreau once said, “in wilderness is the preservation of the world,” (Marshall 403). To follow this rumination, I look to nature for a metaphor to encapsulate my idea of what human’s relationship with nature should look like. There is a well-known biological phenomenon in nature called mutual symbiosis; this is a particular type of long-term interdependent relationship can be thought of as a ‘biological barter,’ in which each tradesman behaves as to enhance the well-being of the other. We need to find our mutualistic balance with nature. We need to transform our culture so that people organically act in sustainable ways. Having a little brother has taught me that if you try and tell him what to do, he may grudgingly partake, but if he is inspired to act, it is a beautiful thing. We need to be inspired to act on the behalf of the environment and our fellow humans. I think everyone has a particular chord that need to be struck. For me, it is the linkage between social and environmental oppression as illustrated by the environmental justice readings. 

To paraphrase the ever eloquent Jack Turner, who fortuitously echoes ideas in Ishmael, the current environmental crisis is one of character, not social or political crisis—and the paradox of this conclusion is that we have yet to determine what a ‘modern character’ is, “and since character is determined by culture, [we face a] crisis of modern culture,” (Turner, 1996). I believe this crisis to be institutionalized patriarchy in a society where the ‘highest good’ is equated with masculinity and masculinity is defined by dominance and control.

Yet, I believe many individuals are hesitant to recognize the connection between ecological, institutional, and interpersonal violence and our western conceptualizations of masculinity. Environmentalists and women’s advocates alike often confront defensiveness when they speak out about the crisis at bay; this is because humans do not see themselves as active participants in pernicious behavior and seek to separate themselves from the ever-insidious blame game often observed within petitions for change. Here I will once again take from Ishmael to reiterate that humans themselves are not the problem, it is the system in which humans operate and the ‘stories’ we enact that perpetuate men’s violence against women and/or ecological destruction.

            Taking from a lecture I attended last fall by feminist advocate Jackson Katz, we must recognize how norms go unquestioned. Katz articulated this in reference to the pervasiveness of men’s violence against women—that we have become to accustomed to hearing about a man committing an act of violence and don’t even pay attention to the gendered nature of the crime. Similarly, we have become desensitized to the atrocities committed against our natural world as a result of cultural norms. We experience the destruction of nature in a similar way we experience a bout of psychological illness—it is something statistically common, almost expected. We take a pill and continue with business at hand without ever stepping back to question a society that profits off pathology or condones the decimation of our mother earth.

Given the depth of philosophical frameworks for viewing nature, I suppose I am now equipped with the language to identify myself as a radical ecologist; as described by Marshall, I am calling for, “a fundamental reorientation in the way we think and act in the world,” founded on (what I would prefer to be) a moderately holistic view of the self as, to contradict biblical ideation as Ishmael does (John 17:6-16), in the world and of the world—not partitioned by Cartisian dualism or deemed superior by reasoning metabolics. We must also begin to shift our views of humans towards a more humanist understanding of individuals as inherently good. Simultaneously, to resonate with eco-feminist demands, we should seek to dissolve entities that promote the four pillars of patriarchy: sexism, racism, class exploitation, and ecological destruction.

I believe that for the human species to move forward, we have to start protesting what is normalized in seeking to build a world where social, political, and environmental justice is possible and in fact, quotidian. Martin Luther King once said, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”  I truly believe our society is capable of change; if anything, to name a few examples in a stupendous stockpile— courses like Nature & Society available at the University of Montana, bestselling books like Ishmael, Walden, Silent Spring, the mere exponential growth of farmers markets, and the coining of phrases such as ‘local is the new global,’ are all testaments to the fact that culture is capable of transformation and indeed is currently undergoing dramatic shifts.

The ‘explaining story’ is one of patriarchal dominance; much of the suffering we cause one another and to the environment is the result of systemic oppression and institutional violence. And while many psychological studies support the notion that violence generalizes, that is the violence we perpetrate against nature can be correlated to intra-personal violence, psychology also claims that violence is a learned behavior. There is hope in that all of our dysfunctional behaviors and worldviews can be unwritten and reconditioned in future generations to come. From Jackson Hole to Missoula, Montana, I sense a new ecological consciousness with which we towards the future, thankful for the current spaces we inhabit, yet invigorated to amass and contribute to a collective awareness that will prove the impetus for a final bend in that arc towards justice for Earth’s community.

References- (beyond course readings)

Pergamon, John. Address of Metropolitan John of Pergamon at the Sixth Ecological Symposium on the Amazon River, "Humanity and Nature: Learning from the Indigenous" Accessed May 7, 2013 http://www.patriarchate.org/documents/humanity-and-nature

Turner, Jack. (1996). The Abstract Wild. University of Arizona Press.

****ask me for the references to class texts if you are curious!!!