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Philosophical
Storms |
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Should climatic change become more
rapid and drastic than the previous course of evolution has prepared
us for as organisms we are threatened, and if the added adaptive
flexibility granted our human species through cultural transformation
or even desperate scientific survival strategy is insufficient,
our cultures, our species and maybe even life on this planet are
doomed. Philosophers might convince us that there is neither ultimate
failure nor ultimate success in the venture of Mind. The ecological
relations of our planet would not desist with the demise of the
human population, human cultures or the human mind. But this is
little consolation. It is entirely natural and necessary for our
own survival that we try to look after our own human interests in
this ongoing struggle or beautiful Dance of Life. However, should
human purposiveness and human survival success become too dominant
in the ecological system of the Whole, the whole of the current
system is threatened and thereby also ourselves as part of it. |
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While this is the dilemma of all life
forms within the greater life of Mother Earth, the human species
today has attained a special expression of what might be called
this Mixed Blessing. The remarkably accelerating impact of humankind
upon the biosphere steers us toward increasing ease of self-fulfilling
prophecy with respect to it, and, as pointed out by Gregory Bateson
30 years ago, our ideas about ecology become part of the ecological
problem. In effect, our own ecological precepts become manifest
to a degree never attainable by pre-industrialized tribal peoples,
though maybe imagined by indigenous cosmologies. |
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Thus our ideas concerning not only
the ecological science of modern western man, but also concerning
the ecological understanding of indigenous peoples are crucial to
the survival venture. The modern-day researcher might smile wryly
at the thought that the animal spirits and shamanic personages of
indigenous cosmologies have upheld the World Order, secured the
rising of the sun and kept the stars aligned. And yet, the very
fact that these cosmologies have not tipped the balance of systemic
wholeness so effectively toward human success has indeed promoted
human continuity and spared us many of the serious problems facing
humanity today. Of course it is useful for any scientist with a
purposive mission to respect the traditional knowledge of indigenous
peoples. Indigenous scientists of the hunt possess generations of
practical experience and intimate knowledge of their habitat and
their prey. But the mere facile appendage of indigenous data onto
the scientific repertoire fails fundamentally to embrace the essence
of indigenous knowledge. Indigenous knowledge comprises far more
than ineffectual cosmologies, unknowingly non-harmful cosmologies,
or detailed environmental observations; it often contains as well
deep understanding of the balance required by humankind to maintain
a place in Nature. Most importantly, it also forces upon us a purposiveness
perspective other than our own, one dedicated to indigenous survival
even if unified with us on the general humanitarian level. |
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