Current State of Schooling, Society, & the Environment

Developed by Jeff Bloom

Introduction

For far too many of us, our lives may be quite difficult in a huge variety of ways and involve struggles and sacrifices to try to stay alive. But, I suspect, such struggles have been part of life on Earth since the beginning of humanity. However, at the same time, we also see beauty in the world... a flower growing out of a crack in the rubble of a destroyed building, a glorious tree growing in the midst of a burned out forest, the kindness of someone helping you, the love expressed in the eyes of a companion, or a dog cuddling up to you on a cool night. In part, the dangers we face involve getting stuck in either extreme. If we only see the ugliness, we can fall into all-consuming hopelessness, anger, resentment, and depression to the point where our whole world becomes toxic. At the other extreme, if we get stuck in only the "beauty" or how wonderful the world is, we cease to be aware of all of the suffering around us. We can end up not feeling empathy, compassion, and even disconnected from the beauty that does exist. And, we may even find ourselves struggling to maintain "our world of beauty" at the expense of other people and the natural contexts in which we live.

Although this mix of ugliness and beauty has been with us since the beginning of humanity and even before, we do seem to be at a unique point in our history. Not only are we having to deal with all sorts of issues that threaten our ways of living, but, for the first time, we are confronting the long-term effects of our actions on the very survival of the human specie, as well as on most of the ecosystems on Earth. At this point in time, humanity seems to be dead-set on its own extinction. This dip to the darker side of our craziness involves a nexus of situations that have been a long time in the making. A basic disconnect seems to have occurred with many societies, where we have drawn a harsh distinction between various groups of people, between "us" (most of humanity) and the rest of the natural world, as well as between various cultural groups within humanity. Our history of such disconnects probably extends back to the beginning of civilization, when we began pondering ways we could control our world and other people. Since then, we have been modifying and re-establishing how we manifest these disconnects. However, there were societies that did not draw this distinction. A few of these societies still exist where they have developed ways of living based on conducting themselves in harmony or in sync with the natural world.

The following video explores such approaches to living. It is well worth watching and considering as we begin thinking about our world and the way we think, learn, and act. This video comes from a TV series, Millennium: Tribal Wisdom and the Modern World, that aired in the 1990's. This particular episode, "An Ecology of Mind," is particularly intriguing in terms of how societies can live in sync with their natural environments. In fact, the video shows not only how people can live in sync with the natural world, but how they must live in sync, if they are to survive.

It is probably reasonable to assume that anyone viewing this website is living in a world dominated by the US vs. NATURAL WORLD disconnect. Some individuals may be striving to live in ways that are more compatible with the natural world. However, many of us are surrounded by technology and are embedded contexts of disconnection. As hard as we may try to simplify and live more sustainably, the contexts of disconnects of various kinds have a nagging and residual presence.

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Story

I cringe every time I get into my car. The car is expensive. Building the car utilized a lot of resources including the materials and the energy to make it. It continues to use resources. And, it pollutes our air and soil. I feel stuck. I have to take care of my chronically ill son, sometimes on a moments notice.... emergency room visits, going to doctors who may be hours away, or taking food to him, when he can't manage to cook for himself. Any kind of activity, even visits to doctors set him back weeks, in terms of his recovery from such activities. Even walking more than half a football field may take him days or weeks to recover. Taking a bus or Uber is out of the question, especially now during a pandemic. I have to be able to take care of his needs. This situation is just one of the double binds I confront on a regular basis. We will explore more on "double binds" in other sections, but, for now, "double binds" fundamentally involve being stuck in conflicting contexts where you seem to be damned if you do and damned if you don't.

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Now, let's briefly explore schooling, society, and the environment from the intertwined contexts of our knowledge and beliefs; of our notions of strength, power, and control; and of our relationships to money and wealth.

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Featured Image: "Homeless, Hopeless, and Alone" (1975) by Jeffrey W. Bloom

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