SELF IN THE GLOBAL REPUBLIC: INDIVIDUAL STATES OF MIND

Lesson Three: Ecology, Technology and the Individual

Objectives:

1. This lesson will explore ecosophy by expanding notions of ecology to include mental, social and environmental ecologies.

2. This lesson will ask you think about how to situate yourself within your environment.

3. This lesson will ask you to interrogate your own subjectivity.

Rationale

Where do you fit in with your ecologies?

 

Here is a way to think of how ecologies interact:

This diagram is from the point of view of a human. Maybe an orca would have a different way of understanding its ecologies?

In this diagram, nature, social relations, and human capacity to make meaning all overlap. And there you are, in the centre, in the very place that you occupy right now. Are you sitting in a chair?

Nature means more than just the environment. It also means gravity and electromagnetism. Social relations includes government laws as well as the rules your parents make. Meaning refers to how humans are able to use language and ideas in which to understand our world.

One example of an influence on our mental ecologies is advertising. Advertising is everywhere and is difficult to avoid. Advertising can be disorienting because it presents us with products and images out of context. Advertisements come from out of nowhere, yet they also provide images and evoke feelings of things that we want. Advertising evokes a response within us that is based on our own fantasy worlds because the actual product nor the context that created the product is present.

An example of the interaction between ecologies is sound. Are you aware of the sounds or absences of sounds around you? What sounds can you hear right now? Take a moment to listen and make a list of the different sounds you can identify. Depending where we are, our soundscapes change. Modern development changes soundscapes, sometimes permanently eliminating natural sounds.

Technology also affects how our ecologies interact. Technologies allow us to connect with one another. But at the same time, we are each coming from different contexts. What is our shared space? Sometimes, an absence of a shared space can be disorienting and dislocating. Virtual reality further pushes our sense of place away from the very real spot where our feet meet the ground. Virtual reality pushes us to think that what is simulated is what is real and it is easy to forget that we do come from a place.

Examples such as advertising and technologies make it easy to think that our actions are independent of place. But as we witness the degradation of our environment and the disappearance of the songs of birds, we are forced to remember that it is not the case.

In this lesson's activities, you will explore what what your ecologies are and you will visit web-based media that makes meaning about the interactions between human social relations and nature. While you are exploring these media, think about yourself and your place.

B.Johnston/2006