Class Overview
This is the overview from my syllabus for my Ecological Sustainability this quarter. Really, how cool is this?
This course introduces you to the unity of effort necessary to achieve ecological and social sustainability. Its theme is that the way we treat the earth is a reflection of the way we treat each other. Social organization and ecological action are shared aspects of human cultures. As such the relationship between social institutions and ecological actions is not causal as much as systemic. Both are manifestations of historically constructed cultural patterns that characterize different societies. This is what Wendell Berry seems to be referring to when he writes that,
"Our present economy does not account for affection at all, which is to say that it does not account for value. It is simply a description of the career of money as it preys upon both nature and human society." From "Preserving Wildness" in The Landscape of Harmony, 1987.
This course is about preserving affection in a culture of money. It is equally relevant whether your interest is sustaining natural or human relationships. It is about our humanity in natural relationships and the naturalness of human relationships. The cultural patterns we have developed in recent centuries are disrespectful of both nature and people. This makes the challenge of shaping sustainable human relationships in groups and organizations directly relevant to ecological sustainability. And ecological sustainability depends upon similar shifts in the way we act toward each other. Social and ecological sustainability depend upon the same changes in habits, attitudes and values - new American cultural patterns. We’ll discover many of those in the next ten weeks!
“It is by knowing where you stand, that you grow able to judge where you are.”
- Eudora Welty
We feel that the best way to address social and ecological sustainability is to do so in a particular place. So much of our lives are carried out without reference to the unique community and ecology where we live and work. Thus we often feel no attachment to the land, other creatures and even the people we associate with every day. This course offers you the story of two places on the earth that have been shaped by closely related cultures and institutions. In Soil and Soul, Alistair McIntosh tells us of his experience growing up on the isle of Lewis in the Scottish Hebrides and then how the people of these islands organized for sustainability in the face of centuries of social dominance and ecological exploitation. You will then read a social and ecological history of the City of Seattle while getting to know the land, people and communities of the Duwamish River watershed in South Seattle. Like the communities in the Hebrides, these too are organizing for greater sustainability after a century and a half of abuse and exploitation.
We hope that your study of a particular place and people will give you both hope and a wealth of ideas and strategies for constructing more sustainable cultural patterns and social structures.
This course introduces you to the unity of effort necessary to achieve ecological and social sustainability. Its theme is that the way we treat the earth is a reflection of the way we treat each other. Social organization and ecological action are shared aspects of human cultures. As such the relationship between social institutions and ecological actions is not causal as much as systemic. Both are manifestations of historically constructed cultural patterns that characterize different societies. This is what Wendell Berry seems to be referring to when he writes that,
"Our present economy does not account for affection at all, which is to say that it does not account for value. It is simply a description of the career of money as it preys upon both nature and human society." From "Preserving Wildness" in The Landscape of Harmony, 1987.
This course is about preserving affection in a culture of money. It is equally relevant whether your interest is sustaining natural or human relationships. It is about our humanity in natural relationships and the naturalness of human relationships. The cultural patterns we have developed in recent centuries are disrespectful of both nature and people. This makes the challenge of shaping sustainable human relationships in groups and organizations directly relevant to ecological sustainability. And ecological sustainability depends upon similar shifts in the way we act toward each other. Social and ecological sustainability depend upon the same changes in habits, attitudes and values - new American cultural patterns. We’ll discover many of those in the next ten weeks!
“It is by knowing where you stand, that you grow able to judge where you are.”
- Eudora Welty
We feel that the best way to address social and ecological sustainability is to do so in a particular place. So much of our lives are carried out without reference to the unique community and ecology where we live and work. Thus we often feel no attachment to the land, other creatures and even the people we associate with every day. This course offers you the story of two places on the earth that have been shaped by closely related cultures and institutions. In Soil and Soul, Alistair McIntosh tells us of his experience growing up on the isle of Lewis in the Scottish Hebrides and then how the people of these islands organized for sustainability in the face of centuries of social dominance and ecological exploitation. You will then read a social and ecological history of the City of Seattle while getting to know the land, people and communities of the Duwamish River watershed in South Seattle. Like the communities in the Hebrides, these too are organizing for greater sustainability after a century and a half of abuse and exploitation.
We hope that your study of a particular place and people will give you both hope and a wealth of ideas and strategies for constructing more sustainable cultural patterns and social structures.