Baby Steps Towards Ecological Intelligence

Baby Steps Towards Ecological Intelligence

 

Chet Bowers opens his essay “Steps for the Recovery of Ecological Intelligence” with this statement: “we cannot rely upon the same mindset that created the problem to fix it.” Ecological intelligence can be defined as “a collective, distributed” (Goleman) approach to how we view and teach our place within the ecological system.  To fix the present approach to ecological intelligence, which is simply that there is not really a voice for it, I think we need to change two things. The first is the way we teach in general: there needs to be a shift towards changing the words we use when teaching interdisciplinary learning and listening to the voices and experiences of all that come into the conversations. The second is a not so much a shift as a step; as humans we need to make a greater attempt towards interpersonal empathy to help us understand our impacts on the environment and the agency it has in impacting us.

There needs to be a paradigm shift in how we see and address our place in our ecological system. The recognition of an environment as a system in which humans interact and not a background for our actions is an important transition to be made. As Bowers, Bruno Latour in his essay “Agency at the time of the Anthropocene,” and Oreskes and Conway in their novella The Collapse of Western Civilization address, the words we use when teaching are significant in shaping the way we learn, especially regarding ecological intelligence. Our discussions in Changing Our Story often halt at the point of wondering how to talk about the way we might speak about concepts now that we’ve realized the current diction is archaic. Refusing that we have the agency to change is rooted in the refusal to see that we have changed actively and consciously changed our mindsets before. Not only are there changes in approaches to perspective between eras, but there are differences in approaches between countries. In each present we think that the Other, chronologically and geographically, are archaic, no matter what present it is. Considering this, it makes little sense that we should believe that our current present is fully realized and has no room for improvement. Refusing improvement withdraw into oneself and not take part in the system that we are inherently a part of. In this, we refuse to participate in ecological intelligence. The word shifts can be little, but are important. If each word is a codification for some larger bundle of ideas, the each sentence is immense in influencing the way a person thinks and acts.

An incredible aspect of Oreskes’ and Conway’s novella is their “Lexicon of Archaic Terms,” in which they critique many of the words and concepts our society currently uses in a style similar to how we critique those of other societies. There is an entry on physical scientists that describes them as being “overwhelmingly male, they emphasized study of the world’s physical constituents and processes… to the neglect of biological and social realms and focused on reductionist methodologies that impeded understanding of the crucial interaction between the physical, biological, and social realms.” Earlier in the book there’s a similar phrase, introducing physical scientists as “named as such due to the archaic Western convention of studying the physical world in isolation from social systems.” This brings up a serious problem with the lack of interdisciplinary learning encouraged in our current educational system. Ecological intelligence relies so heavily on integration of the man, manmade, and that which is neither. So why is the popular approach to interacting with the environment based in scientific inquiry? Both Bowers and Latour write in favor of interdisciplinary approaches to ecological intelligence. Just as ecological intelligence itself promotes a realization of the fluidity and connectedness of everything, there needs to be recognition that there is a place for many modes of intelligence in learning and teaching ecological intelligence. This idea of distancing the self from the natural world, creating actors and objects to be acting on, is reflected in the way we treat different modes of knowledge. Physical or hard science is separated from social science and the humanities. However, if we are truly connected with our environment, then the study of the outside (physical/hard science) becomes one with the study and expression of the “inside” of humans (social science, humanities and arts, even biology).

The “inside” of ourselves is also what we need to connect to find connection with the environment. I think that empathy is a necessary aspect of increasing our species’ level of ecological intelligence. With Friere’s notion of reading the world in mind, what would be the difference in the way we interact with the world if we were able to learn to being compassionate in our interaction with it instead of being taught to objectify and analyze it? Making a step towards conscious empathy is key to breaking down our current codification of the environment. We cannot continue to treat the world as something to act on, to control, observe, and buffer from.

I think the first step towards being empathetic with the environment is being empathetic towards other humans. Given its implications for positive and healthy relationships, it seems from my light research as though there is some benefit to even starting the conversation about heightening our active empathy. The scientific journal piece “The Case For Mindfulness-Based Approaches in the Cultivation of Empathy” found that, in a study about capacity for empathy in humans, “The more time and attention they could devote to thinking empathically, the more sensitive they became.” The more effort we put into trying to be empathetic, the more time we take to think about our actions, reactions, and interactions, the more able we will be to successfully tap into that empathy. There are numerous studies on the positive effect of conscious empathy on interpersonal relationships, and If empathy is necessary for bettering interpersonal relationships, is it not necessary for bettering our relationship with the environment, with bringing us closer together? Stopping to think about the effect we have on the world and the world’s effect on us is an important part to being in educational environments. Akane, in our class in Taft Garden, spoke of the Japanese culture of allowing and expecting time to think, ponder, and reflect before speaking or responding. The same must be adopted for our actions and reactions, I believe. We cannot afford to simply go with our first reaction; I think we need to stop and consider a world outside of ourselves before we act. We are not the only actors and we are not the only objects being effected by actions.

Scholars like Megan Boler and Teju Cole argue that empathy divides, not connects. Empathy is defined as “the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.” By definition, the oneness preached by Latour’s definition of ecological intelligence is impossible when practicing empathy. However, I think that before our reality presently is that we are separate and cannot think of ourselves as otherwise. The step we can make in this present towards a future of ecological intelligence is finding the few connections we can, finding or creating a feeling of common feelings and experiences through empathy. Once we’ve established that inter-specially and with the environment, we can begin to become closer and closer. And at some point, the present we’re in will be one of heightened ecological intelligence.

 

 

Works Cited:

Block-Lerner, Jennifer, Carrie Adair, Jennifer C. Plumb, Deborah L. Rhatigan, and Susan M. Orsillo.

"The Case for Mindfulness-based Approaches in the Cultivation of Empathy: Does

Nonjudgmental, Present-moment Awareness Increase Capacity for Perspective-taking

and Empathic Concern?" Journal of Martial and Family Therapy 33.4 (2007): 501-16.

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d=A660674CAE5D7A597CBA2D6FBBE7E8D9.f02t03>.

Boler, Megan. Chapter 7: “The Risks of Empathy: Interrogating Multiculturalism’s

Gaze.”Feeling Power: Emotions and Education. Routledge, 1999

Bowers, C.A. "Steps to the Recovery of Ecological Intelligence." OMETECA. 14-15. 43.

Cole, Teju. The White-Savior Industrial Complex. The Atlantic. March 21, 2012.

“Empathy.” Def. 1. Google.N.p., n.d. Web.

Freire, Paulo.  "The Importance of the Act of Reading." Trans. Loretta Slover. Brazilian

Congress of Reading, Campinas, Brazil. November 1981. Rpt. Journal of Education 165,

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Goleman, David. "Ecological Intelligence." Ecological Intelligence. New York: Broadway, 2009. N. pag.

Center for Ecoliteracy. 8 Nov. 2009. Web. <http://www.ecoliteracy.org/article/ecological

intelligence>.

 

Latour, Bruno.  "Agency at the Time of the Anthropocene." New Literary History 45, 1

(Winter 2014): 1-18.

Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway, The Collapse of Civilization: A View from the Future. New

York: Columbia University Press, 2014. ix-52.