Monday, 9 March 2009

myth busting

Some notes with additional quotes etc form recent re-reading of Earth in Mind by David Orr

Ignorance is solvable: it is an inescapable part of the human condition

Science and technology can ‘manage planet earth’ (Scientific American 1989)

Knowledge is increasing: information is increasing

Education can restore what we have dismantled: modern curriculum is fragmented - most people graduate with little or no sense of unity of things

Purpose of education to give students upward mobility and success: (Merton, T. 1985) ‘Mass production of people literally unfit for anything except an elaborate and completely artificial charade’ - ‘be anything you like, be madmen, drunks and bastards of any shape or form, but at all costs avoid one thing - success.’

The planet does not need more successful people, it needs peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, connectors, lovers of every kind. Orr p12

Our culture represents a pinnacle of human existence: cultural arogance, misread of history and anthropology, we live in a disintegrating culture, one that is home to feckless wealth and Calcutta poverty

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