Santa Clara
Smoke Shop
Eugene’s Premiere Supplier
of Local Discount Glass!
CHILI
DOG
COMBOS
541-654-5772
Mon-Sat. 10-7pm
On the Corner of Irving &
River Rd in Eugene
Behind the Shell Station
www.santaclarasmokeshop.com
2 GREAT LOCATIONS:
6th &
17th &
Charnelton
Pearl
OPEN MON - SAT 11am 7pm
SEE OUR FULL MENU @
www.DoginaBoxEugene.com
)5(( Kids in the
7$/. Kitchen !
with Annette,
representing Tovolo ™
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BY CHET BOWERS
The Way Forward
Exploring ecologically sustainable thinking
Vaporizers, Hookahs,
Cigars, RYO Tobacco,
Wraps, Grinders
and More!
Plus, Local Glass from over
30 Eugene Artists!
viewpoint
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Annette will be demonstrating the
Tovolo™ Pancake Pen, Tovolo™ Pie Molds
and Sandwich Shapes.
EWEB Run to Stay Warm
Sunday, Nov. 20
Half Marathon, 10K, 5K, and
Kids’ 400-Meter Dash
Named November’s “featured race
of the month” in Runner’s World.
A fundraiser for EWEB’s Customer
Care program. Sign-up at
www.eweb.org.
W
hen I wrote The Culture of Denial (1997) most
university faculty were in denial that the
ecological crisis has any implications that
might lead them to question whether the deep
cultural assumptions and silences reinforced
in their courses contribute to ecologically
sustainable lifestyles. The exceptions were
faculty in the sciences, and the occasional faculty
member who focused on environmental issues
from a disciplinary perspective.
Now most departments in universities have
several faculty members who are addressing the
connections between various cultural practices
and the ecological crisis. However, the same patterns
persist — with environmental issues being framed by the
conceptual traditions of the discipline. That is, the philosophy and
English professors introduce students to environmental writers and eco-
criticism, history professors assign readings by environmental historians,
professors in architecture and urban planning introduce systems thinking, the
word “sustainability” now appears more often in business courses, and science
professors, while encouraging students to understand the micro and macro
levels of the Earth’s ecosystems, continue to hold to the idea that they are not
responsible for how political and economic forces turn their discoveries into
surveillance systems that are putting us on the slippery slope of becoming a
police state, and technologies that bring the production of food more under
corporate control — to cite just two examples of denial.
The other signifi cant change is the accelerated effort to reduce the carbon
footprint of the campus infrastructure. Unfortunately, the late 20th century
patterns of thinking acquired in graduate school continue to go unquestioned
by most faculty. The result is that faculty who address environmental issues are
still a minority in most departments. If students take an environmental course
or two, the majority of their courses taken from faculty in the social sciences,
humanities, and such professional schools as education will still reinforce many
of the same deep cultural assumptions that gave conceptual direction and moral
legitimacy to the individualistic/ consumer-dependent/ industrial culture that is
ecologically unsustainable.
What will be missing in the education of most students is knowledge of how
the language they take for granted, even when thinking about environmental
issues, carries forward the misconceptions and silences of earlier eras lacking
an awareness of environmental limits. Nor will the students graduate with a
knowledge of how participating in the local cultural commons reduces their
dependence upon consumerism. The knowledge of the technological and
ideological forces enclosing what remains of the cultural and environmental will
also be a missing part of their education.
One of the double-binds in the education of academics can be traced to
the need to specialize within a niche area of their discipline in order to make
an original scholarly contribution. This specialized area of inquiry reduces the
ability to engage in substantive discussions of the ecologically problematic
cultural issues that transcend the conceptual boundaries between disciplines.
The penchant of academics to argue from entrenched conceptual positions, as
well as their reliance on the tradition of academic freedom to justify their right
to pursue what they assume is their cutting-edge conceptual agenda, have led
to the failure to bring about fundamental reforms that cut across the disciplines.
In order to promote a discussion of the conceptual reforms that have
implications for all academic disciplines as well as for public school teacher who
reproduce the silences of their professors, the following conversations will be
held from 9 to 10:30 am Saturdays over the next three months at the Many
Nations Longhouse on campus:
• Nov. 5 — How the metaphorical nature of the language used in university
and public school classes, as well as in the popular media, carries forward the
misconceptions and silences of earlier eras when there was no awareness of
environmental limits.
• Nov. 19 — The nature of educational reforms that contribute to revitalizing
the less monetized traditions of self-suffi ciency and mutual support within the
local cultural commons, and to an awareness of the cultural forces that are
integrating them into the market economy that continues to displace workers
through outsourcing and computer-driven automaton.
• Dec. 3 — How computer-mediating learning carries forward the print-based
traditions of cultural storage and communication that undermines the exercise
of ecological intelligence and the culturally diverse cultural commons.
• Jan. 14 — The way forward in an era of political and ecological uncertainties:
Learning to use our political language in a more historically accurate and
ecologically accountable manner.
• Jan. 28 — Strategies for initiating 21st century ways of thinking within public
schools and universities.
Chet Bowers (chetbowers@earthlink.net) is an adjunct professor of environmental studies at UO.
His most recent books are Perspectives on the Ideas of Gregory Bateson, Ecological Intelligence,
and Educational Reforms, and University Reforms in an Era of Global Warming.
6
OCTOBER 27, 2011
EUGENE WEEKLY
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