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Larry Rasmussen's "Earth Community Earth Ethics" is one of the best books I have read this year. Winner of the 1997 Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Religion, "Earth Community Earth Ethics," is beautifully written, inspirational in its prophetic call to see the relationship between ecology and social justice, and dark and rich with fertile insights. So many of the chapters contain so much to think long and hard about that I am forced to limit my comments to a few ideas from each section of the book. Structurally the book is divided into three parts: Earth Scan, Earth Faith, and Earth Action. Three ideas in the Earth Scan section struck me as vitally important. These were the notions of apartheid thinking, the nature and results of global revolutions, and the concept of the integrity of creation. The discussion of apartheid thinking begins with a reminder to us all that language is directly related to how we think and to how we learn. Language is one of the primary ways that cultures socialize or pass on culture to the young. Language determines the worlds we build inside our heads. With this in mind, Mr. Rasmussen shows us that we have a type of apartheid thinking and thus apartheid conceptualization when it comes to nature. This use of the word apartheid is so apt here. The otherness, the radical difference and separation that we create as existing between culture and nature, or even history and nature, we tend to take as givens. This us-them type of thinking leaves us believing we are separate from nature. Yet, the reality is that there is no way that either humans, culture, or history can be separated from the natural world. This linguistic, and thus conceptual, apartheid "violates the integrity of creation and thus puts it at risk (pg 32)." The reality is that we are totally dependent on nature. Mr. Rasmussen also takes up the notion of four global revolutions. Three of these we have already gone through, and the fourth one we are currently in. These revolutions he names as agricultural, industrial, informational, and ecological. He reminds us that each revolution; (1) reorganized society so as to produce more, and (2) self-consciously reconfigured nature for the sake of society. These revolutions also produce their own socialization or conceptualization about the nature of reality that we continue to take as self-evident. But are they? Most informative was a list of over twenty assumptions we continue to make that were and are part of the industrialized mode of thinking and perceiving. The following six come from that list: (1) Nature is malleable and can be reconfigured for human need, (2) The quality of life is furthered by an economic system directed to ever-expanding material abundance, (3) Human failures can be overcome through effective problem solving, (4) Modern science and technology have helped achieve a superior civilization in the West, (5) A work ethic is essential to human satisfaction and social progress, (6) The diligent, hardworking, risktaking, and educated will attain their goals (pg 61). Most every teacher I know will recognize his/her own conceptions in this short list and will recognize, too, the values implicit in this list that get continuously passed on to students. The last idea in this section I want to discuss is the concept of the integrity of creation. Again, moving to break up our apartheid thinking, Mr. Rasmussen suggests a typology of six dimensions to the integrity of creation. These dimensions are: (1) Integral functioning of endless natural transactions throughout the biosphere and even the geosphere, (2) Nature's restless self organizing dynamism, (3) Earth's treasures as a one time endowment, (4) The integral relation of social and environmental justice, (5) For billions the integrity of creation also names a divine source and a certain intrinsic dignity, and finally, (6) The integrity of creation carries the specific ethical freight of its religious content. By this he means that existence is by definition co-existence. Life requires mutuality (pg 106) The second section of the book, Earth Faith, deals with the simple questions: What do we do? and Where do we go from here? Reminding us that by nature we are story telling creatures, Mr. Rasmussen wants us look at old stories and new stories-- stories or cosmologies that do not work any more and new and retold stories that can offer us a new vision. As he so clearly states, "wrong pictures of reality can mean dreadful treatment of it." He spends time discussing the old image of the world tree, the most ecumenical of religious images in the world with the possible exception of the mountain. The new image he wants to revalorize is that of darkness. Darkness is portrayed as the worlds of dream, rest, restoration, silence, and of new potential for life in soil and womb. Looking at cosmologies, both old and new, Mr. Rasmussen sees a wide range of potential stances that have been, are, and could be taken. Pulling from the deep resources of the Judeo-Christian tradition he names these stances as dominion, steward, partner, sacrament/priest, and prophet/ covenant. Each of these he analyses in detail. He then suggests we reweave creation myth with modern science with a focus on four core principles: creation, justice, neighbor, and mercy. The final section of the book, Earth Actions, looks at what we can do. Mr. Rasmussen offers some general guidelines after first discussing the very flexible term "sustainability." Sustainable development as "green" globalism is firmly rejected here. What is posited is more in lines with the thinking of Wendell Berry and a focus on a local ethic and identity that understands a global framework, but one that is firmly grounded in the local, authentic community. These are communities of hope and action. Other valuable guidelines include the design principles of van der Ryn and Cowan from their book "Ecological Design." I only wish this section of the book were longer. You finish reading this book, and you want to do something, to act in some positive way to change the destructive path we are collectively on. An important book, an insightful and prophetic book. I encourage everyone to read it. ©2000 Tom Collins and RSiSS Return to Ethics Resources |
