SOCIAL 22
From CFI
DATE
January 13, 2005
RESEARCHER
Jason Bradford jcbradford@ucdavis.edu 456-0760
QUESTION
What are the often unspoken assumptions or belief systems of the broader culture, aka "Western Civilization?"
ASSUMPTIONS
Even though I was raised within the broader culture and still depend on it for my livelihood, I am able to step back and act as an observer to accurately see something I am part of.
ANSWER
In the broadest sense, our culture espouses a philosophy of Exemptionalism, meaning that we, as humans, are separate from Nature and have a special place in the Universe that gives us dominion over the Earth (Hardin 1993). This idea forms the core of Jewish, Christian and Islamic thought, particularly the creation myths. Even the science of taxonomy, until recently, placed humans in a family separate from our ape relatives.
This philosophy serves as a justification for many of the actions and policies that have shaped our world, from Manifest Destiny to the hubristic belief in infinite Progress espoused by technologists and many political leaders. The mantra has become "don't worry, be happy," because we humans are so ingenious and our technologies so powerful that we are capable of solving any problem that may arise (Hornborg 2001).
The notion that we are a special creation of God and so we can't fail, was, ironically, bolstered by early European scientific thought. Scientific reductionism and mechanistic determinism told people that systems could be understood by dissection of their parts. Although the 20th century saw the development and wide acceptance of quantum theory (physics) and complexity theory (ecology), which undermine the notion of predicability (i.e., emergent properties, chaotic dynamics and uncertainty principle), the culture still behaves as if we are ultimately in control over our destiny.
Because we are a special being with god-given dominance rights, a related assumption is that "more of us is better." More people doing more of what they want to remake the Earth to serve themselves yields Progress. This philosophy has become part of the now dominant brand of economics called neoclassical that treats the environment as an "externality" unworthy of concern (Daly 1996). Through our economic activities, raw materials come from the environment and waste products go into it, but the assumption is that Earth can handle it all. In other words, there are no limits to population growth, the amount of stuff we can extract from the Earth's crust, or the amount of pollution we can discharge. We can see this idea displayed every day in the newspaper's Business section. When reporting on the movement of markets the general slant is that more consumption is better because this means more money passing through the economy, more jobs, higher tax revenues, and profit growth. It is clearly assumed that this growth has positive consequences, not negative ones (Douthwaite 1999).
If these cultural myths of ours, such as Exemptionalism and the notion of Progress through economic growth, are false and dangerous, why do they persist? I believe the answer can be found by studying neurobiology and psychology (Bradford 2005). Cultures create collective mental models that are reinforced through institutions. History shows that most societies, most of the time, are in some state of mass delusion, and that often this becomes destructive.
SOURCES
Bradford (2005). The Neurobiology of Mass Delusion. http://www.energybulletin.net/3948.html
Daly, H. (1996). Beyond Growth: The Economics of Sustainable Development. Beacon Press, Boston.
Douthwaite, R. (1999). The Growth Illusion: How Economic Growth Has Enriched the Few, Impoverished the Many and Endangered the Planet. New Society Publishers, Gabriola Island, B.C., Canada.
Hardin, G. (1993). Living within Limits: Ecology, Economics and Population Taboos. Oxford University Press, New York, Oxford.
Hornborg, A. (2001). The Power of the Machine: Global Inequalities of Economy, Technology and Environment. Altamira Press, Walnut Creek.
