Questions from my encounter with these texts

While reading "Steps to the Recovery of Ecological Intelligence", the lexicon of archaic terms from Oreskes and Conway's book and our class discussion on the word enironment constantly kept coming up in my mind. I would like to know how a word's usage becomes obsolete and how we can stop using particular words if we don't have any alternatives to express that concept? Moreover, Bowers characterizes western education and philosophy as a purporter of individual thinking. I would like to know about culutural variations in the education system and subsequently, in life style, of people from varying cultural backgrounds. Do people in our class from different cultures have anything to share on this topic? How does the philosophy of their education system differ?

Levi Bryant says that "the material that passes through a body also transforms that body". Is it the same for human encounters?Does a transformation always occur when we interact with other members of our community, and can we choose how we are transformed by these interactions?