Blog10

Blog 10

What is Social Ecology? What are your reactions to the readings? What forms of hierarchy are in our world today? Are these hierarchies natural? Are there any better alternatives?

Social ecology promotes destroying all hierarchy and creating a world with equality for everyone, nature and man.

My reactions to the readings are that social ecology is a nice idea but I think we should let it go since it is not feasible.

There are hierarchies between races, genders, those who have and those who have not.

I think certain hierarchies are natural. I think that if a new society where to start up tomorrow with no knowledge of previous societies that they would have their own hierarchies. In a perfect world it would be awesome to get rid of most of these hierarchies but even in a world were everyone is forced to be perfectly equal (which would be terrifying) there would be something that people valued and everyone couldn’t have.

Blog 9

After reading Arne Naess' "The Shallow and the Deep, Long-Range Ecology Movement," write a twenty-five-word (give or take) response to each of the seven Deep Ecology Movement principles. Do you agree or disagree with each of these principles.

 

Diversity- enhances the potentiality of survival and life’s richness. I agree diversity is important and increase survival rates. From strictly a human standpoint, diversity and equality within diversity should be encouraged to decrease dominance of one type of person against another.

Complexity- provides fail-safes for the environment such as redundant species that can substitute for a keystone species. Ecosystems are often so complex that humans cannot understand them fully and should therefore not mess with them (unless to clean up something). I agree with this.

 Autonomy- I agree with trying to keep the use of resources localized but ecology can often be injured by localization. Invasive species or new diseases can decimate a population not used to them.

Decentralization- This is similar to autonomy. It would reduce the amount of energy used to transport goods.

Symbiosis- There is no such things as true symbiosis in nature. Survival of the fittest is not polite and full of cooperation. It can be cruel and bloody. One organism always gets more from the other. We should strive not to be like this as people but keep in mind nature has no concept of justice.

Egalitarianism- The equal right to live and blossom. Soooo kudzu everywhere? As much as this is a nice, polite thought. It isn’t practical.

Classlessness- I think within current human society classes will always form. Look at high school and prisons. A system forms without classes being in place. Maybe future generations can escape it but we can’t.

After reading the article "Deep Ecology," do you feel that Devall and Sessions are accurate with their outline of the Dominant Worldview and the Deep Ecology view? Do you feel that the Dominant Worldview is representative of the average person? Please elaborate.
I think the average person is likes nature more than they think. If you ask people if nature and the wild is a ‘good’ thing to be protected most would say yes. They will not however place the needs of nature about those of their family. Deep ecology view seems far-reaching and very unlikely but I suppose these are long term goals.

 

Blog 8

What are the preconditions necessary for using consensus decision making in a group or organization?  What are the strengths and weaknesses of the process?

The preconditions for using consensus decision making are respect for individual thoughts, common purpose, and trust. Respect is necessary for each idea to be heard. A common purpose is necessary to bind the group together and move it along towards its goal. Trust allows the group members to follow the best course of action while not worrying about alterative goals or if they are against the verdict, to know that the group will not support decisions that will hurt them.

The strengths of the process are a close-knit community, reaching better decisions (based on two-heads are better than one), and creating a community that is more invested in the decisions made for their community. The weaknesses are that anytime trust in the group is threatened or someone does not want to meet the goal given then everything grinds to a halt. Also if the group is uncaring about the decision the facilitator seems to just make an executive decision in order to keep the group moving. This is necessary but not the best for the group. In my opinion this style of decision making can be used but only in very specific situations.

For example, if I tried to use it with my residents in Patterson Hall, depending on the questions, I would most likely get apathy or a decision that would get me fired (like let’s get alcohol for the next hall meeting).  While I respect my residents for the great, smart, compassionate young women they are I do not trust them to keep decisions within the confines of Patterson Hall’s rules (because they do not have the same amount of responsibility to them as I do) and I work toward different goals. I work towards having a unified hall and getting certain criteria done put down by my bosses. My residents are not aware of these goals (nor should they be, its not their job) and while they would like to meet the girls in the rest of the hall, it would not be a personal victory like it would be for me. For most decisions I would get apathy because it would not affect them much.

 

Blog 7

Blog 7

What is culture-jamming?  What are its forms?  What do you think of it as a tool for activism?  Be sure to use specific examples for the readings and the Adbusters website.  For an extra point, find an example on youtube.

Culture-jamming is an advertisement made to criticize aspects of modern culture, like consumerism and drug use. They also highlight the way advertisers sell you products. I think it is a great tool for activism. Ads are a form of getting information people are very used to and I love how they highlight the prevalence and power of advertisement.  Last semester I learned that the average child can correctly identify brand names before they can read. That is terrifying! On the adbusters website, I watched the “real bears’ ad. It was about the dangers of drinking soda like weight gain, diabetes, tooth decay, etc.

I know all of these things instinctively about soda because it is just liquid sugar but hearing it specially attributed to soda is new to me, probably because that would be terrible press.  Also in the ad there were multiple ads from the bear’s soda company connecting happiness and soda. Now that I look at soda ads, very few sell the taste more sell a lifestyle.  

On youtube here is a video on culture-jamming. It is about the sexualization of girls and women and how it affects their mental health. Here’s a hint, it’s not positive.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qp6gjxCRuxs

Blog 6- I can't even.

What are your reactions to your GTP reading?  What are your preliminary ideas for leading a class meeting focused on this topic?

Ecofemism: Our roots and Flowering

This article made me genuinely angry.

The main reasons this article bothers me is being it uses a wishy-washy version of spirituality and it accuses men of causing everything wrong with our society. Society has its problems but both genders are part of it. She picks and chooses which values she wants from societies long before us that are either little known (Gaia and goddess type religons) or socieities that used women as social and political tools (medieval Europe). For example, Spretnak espunges the values of European fertility rituals where women circled the fields and transferred their fertility to the field. She says that the men and women of that time participated in the cycles of nature with respect and gratitude. They may have respected nature, but women had very few rights back then and for a long time serfdom was the norm.

It seems to me that all she values about women is their vaginas and potential to have children. She doesn’t mention anything else about women at all.

Valuing ‘The Godess’ as a religion instead of 70s hipsters garbling the archeological facts about an ancient religion and morphing it to fit their needs while using its age to being authority to their drug fuelled

This article says that agricultural and reproductive developments (instead of allowing society to bring more food  to more people or allowing people who would otherwise be infertile to have children) are all about taking fertility away from the earth and man.

 In her article, Ynestra King hits the nail on the head with another problem with this article. The patriarchal society is the one that assigned women as closer to nature. This is not a natural concept.

Ughhhhhhhhh I can’t even. This article is everything that bothers me about life.

Off the top of my head for my project I want to stay as far away from this article and  its ideas as possible. I would rather talk about equality and how we can bring  better ecological technologies to women and men in the third world.