Environmental Ethics: "Blessed Unrest" Qs

Saturday, September 8, 2012

"Blessed Unrest" Qs

I've asked students in our Environmental Ethics & Activism class to help me identify worthy questions for discussion & exams. Here's a kickstart. First, for discussion:

What do you find either objectionable or salutary about the Native American perspective on ecology and human rights?
Do you find Hawken's claims about the number of grassroots organizations working toward ecological sustainability and social justice credible?
Does the planet have a life-threatening disease whose primary symptom is climate change?
What do you think of Hawken's attitude toward "reconsidering" our place in the environment? What's the relevance of his etymology ("Consider, con sidere, means "with the stars")?
What are your thoughts on the epigrams from Martha Graham and Barry Lopez on p.9?
What do you think of the "Mother Earth" and "Gaia" models of ecology? Is humanity part of a singular planetary organism? If so, how do you see our role? (Parasite? Central Nervous System? Antibodies?)
Is environmentalism still widely perceived as a "children's crusade"? Is that a problem?
Do you agree or disagree with the statement that one's relationship to the earth is a "true gauge that determines the integrity of one's culture, the meaning of one's existence, and the peacefulness of one's heart"? Elaborate.
Do we need a Highlander Folk School for environmental activists?
What do you think of Wade Davis's concept of the "ethnosphere"? Are languages and cultures "unique visions... inherently right?" [Note Davis's TED Talks on this topic.]
What do you think of the late Christopher Hitchens' view of the Arawaks? (95)
Is it possible to "discover" an inhabited land? (96)
Are indigenous peoples better integrated than westerners, in a mind-body sense ("their bodies were not something that merely carried their brain around..." 100)
["We Interrupt This Empire"]
Is it plausible to think of "the movement" as operating independently of any individual person's intent, for the good of the social organism? What do you see as the strengths and weaknesses of "Gaia" (141f.)?
Is "culture jamming" (149) a constructive form of activism?
How do you regard the "real billionaires" and corporate figures (Soros, Gates, Burffett, Moore, Branson, Omidyar, Skoll...) in the movement?
Do you agree with what Michael Chabon said to his kid? (154)
Is "slow" the way to go, in general?
Is it true that we'll either unify as one species or "will disappear as a civilization"? What do you think healthy unity looks like, intellectually, socially, governmentally?
["Restoration"]
[Add your suggestions here, students]

And factual questions for possible inclusion on the first exam at the end of the month:

What is the the Native American perspective on ecology and human rights?
How many organizations does Hawken claim may be working toward ecological sustainability and social justice?
What unprecedented condition now afflicts the planet, according to PH?
Is Blessed Unrest focused mainly on what's currently wrong on Earth?
Where does the book's title come from? What does it mean?
What are "the movement's three basic roots"?
Do most indigenous cultures distinguish social from environmental movements?
What & where was the Highlander Folk School? (80) [Ask me about this place, I stayed there for a weekend once.]
Who was Fitzroy? A: Darwin's captain on the Beagle, full of missionary zeal (90)
Did Darwin greet the Fuegians and other indigenous peoples with cosmopolitan openness? Did he consider them fully human? A: Nope (91)
How does the Feugian language compare with English? What does yamana mean?(92)
What does Wade Davis mean by "ethnosphere"? A: "sum total of thoughts, dreams, ideals" etc. (94)
How have most people historically regarded the world's profusion of languages? (94)
What "crimes against humanity" do we usually not hear about on Columbus Day? (97)
How does Hawken define "globalization"? (102)
Does PH say he agrees with the Gaia hypothesis ("earth itself an organism")? (113)
["We Interrupt This Empire"]
Who proposed the Gaia hypothesis? Who were some of his philosophical precursors? (141)
Is the power of webs, links and networks rooted mostly in technology? Or what? (144)
Who is Stewart Brand? What Brand project did Michael Chabon tell his kid about? (153-4)
How does the brain relate to the immune system? (164)
["Restoration"]
[Add your suggestions here, students]

If you will all add your questions here daily, students, we'll have a convenient crowd-sourced study guide... and never a loss for something fun to discuss in class.

And if any non-students happen to be reading along with us, feel free to propose questions in the comments space as well.

4 comments:

SchwarzwaldSeptember 10, 2012 at 12:00 AM
I assume this is a factual question, but could be expanded into a discussion Q.

Hawkens alludes to a reemerging movement called "the great underground", who does this concept date back to, and what is the central theme behind it?
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PhilSeptember 12, 2012 at 6:11 AM
In keeping with Morgan's suggestion: let's provide the A's as well as the Q's. It's Gary Snyder's expression, "dates back to the Paleolithic... healers, priestesses..."
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UnknownSeptember 12, 2012 at 1:43 PM
I think a good factual question for our Test would be about Rachel Carson and although her previous book The Sea Around Us was a best seller why did her book Silent Spring cause such and uproar to supporters of industry and agriculture? A good discussional question is to ask which is more effective in the call for a more environmentally friendly community a discussion filled with emotion or stats?
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SchwarzwaldSeptember 15, 2012 at 4:11 PM
[Page 155 - Chapter : Immunity]

Q: Who is the founder of the organization Slow Food, whose logo, the snail, is said to be an "amulet against exasperation."
A: Carlo Petrini
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First things first--a proper education

“The complexity of our present trouble suggests as never before that we need to change our present concept of education. Education is not properly an industry, and its proper use is not to serve industries, either by job-training or by industry-subsidized research. It's proper use is to enable citizens to live lives that are economically, politically, socially, and culturally responsible. This cannot be done by gathering or "accessing" what we now call "information" - which is to say facts without context and therefore without priority. A proper education enables young people to put their lives in order, which means knowing what things are more important than other things; it means putting first things first.” ― Wendell Berry

The college project

“The American college may be considered a continuation, at the human level, of the self-education process of the earth itself: universe education, earth education, and human education are stages of development in a single unbroken process...The entire college project can be seen as that of enabling the student to understand the immense story of the universe and the role of the student in creating the next phase of the story.” --Thomas Berry, “The American College in the Ecological Age,” in The Dream of the Earth

“Odd as I am sure it will appear to some, I can think of no better form of personal involvement in the cure of the environment than that of gardening. A person who is growing a garden, if he is growing it organically, is improving a piece of the world. He is producing something to eat, which makes him somewhat independent of the grocery business, but he is also enlarging, for himself, the meaning of food and the pleasure of eating.”
― Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays

“Nature shrinks as capital grows. The growth of the market cannot solve the very crisis it creates.”
― Vandana Shiva, Soil Not Oil: Environmental Justice in an Age of Climate Crisis

“Why should we tolerate a diet of weak poisons, a home in insipid surroundings, a circle of acquaintances who are not quite our enemies, the noise of motors with just enough relief to prevent insanity? Who would want to live in a world which is just not quite fatal?”
― Rachel Carson, Silent Spring

“How can we be so arrogant? The planet is, was, and always will be stronger than us. We can't destroy it; if we overstep the mark, the planet will simply erase us from its surface and carry on existing. Why don't they start talking about not letting the planet destroy us?”
― Paulo Coelho, The Winner Stands Alone

“When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: if you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren't pessimistic, you don't understand the data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren't optimistic, you haven't got a pulse.”
― Martin Keogh, Hope Beneath Our Feet: Restoring Our Place in the Natural World

“When the last tree is cut and the last fish killed, the last river poisoned, then you will see that you can't eat money.”
― John May, The Greenpeace Story

“We are being made aware that the organization of society on the principle of private profit, as well as public destruction, is leading both to the deformation of humanity by unregulated industrialism, and to the exhaustion of natural resources, and that a good deal of our material progress is a progress for which succeeding generations may have to pay dearly.”
― T.S. Eliot

“There is a tendency at every important but difficult crossroad to pretend that it's not really there.”
― Bill McKibben, The End of Nature

“We know, at least, that this decision (ending factory farming) will help prevent deforestation, curb global warming, reduce pollution, save oil reserves, lessen the burden on rural America, decrease human rights abuses, improve publish health, and help eliminate the most systematic animal abuse in history.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Eating Animals

“An attitude to life which seeks fulfilment in the
single-minded pursuit of wealth - in short, materialism - does not fit into this
world, because it contains within itself no limiting principle, while the
environment in which it is placed is strictly limited.”
― Ernst F. Schumacher, Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered

“One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds.”
― Aldo Leopold

“Saving the world requires saving democracy. That requires well-informed citizens. Conservation, environment, poverty, community, education, family, health, economy- these combine to make one quest: liberty and justice for all. Whether one's special emphasis is global warming or child welfare, the cause is the same cause. And justice comes from the same place being human comes from: compassion.”
― Carl Safina, The View from Lazy Point: A Natural Year in an Unnatural World

“The re-establishment of an ecological balance depends on the ability of society to counteract the progressive materialization of values. The ecological balance cannot be re-established unless we recognize again that only persons have ends and only persons can work towards them.”
― Ivan Illich

	Michael Pollan (@michaelpollan) http://michaelpollan.com/
5/14/15, 10:57 AM All the lectures and talks from Edible Education 101 are now online. All told, a great introduction to food politics bit.ly/1Fausvx

Saturday, September 8, 2012

"Blessed Unrest" Qs

4 comments:

Peripatetics