Page 41 - Cultural Studies of Science Education

3 EcoJustice Education for Science Educators 17

frame and normalize the ways we think and they show up in our everyday words
and texts, as well as in our relationships, and this includes those exchanged and
reproduced in schools.

A Different View of Knowledge, Wisdom, and the Sacred

In the above section, we were interested in uncovering the ways our modernist
language systems shape a dualized system of centric thinking, creating our beliefs
and behaviors toward each other and the natural world. This system assumes
that we are separate from or “outside” the natural world that we depend upon. But
are we?
The late Gregory Bateson (1904–1980), zoologist, anthropologist, psychologist,
and some say the “epistemologist of the twentieth century” (Berman 1981) dedicated
his life to demonstrating the ways that “intelligence” or Mind is much more than a
human characteristic. Disrupting the dualistic structure that positions “reasoning
man” as outside of and superior to all other species, Bateson’s work challenges
what Val Plumwood (2002) calls the “illusion of disembeddedness” characteristic
of western ways of knowing. His general argument is that humans participate in a
complex system of communication with all other living creatures. The meanings
that we make of the world, our understandings, are necessarily influenced by what
bits of information or differences that our senses pick up from the living and nonliving
world. These bits of information interact with other bits of information in the form
of “differences that make a difference.” Bateson argues that these differences circulate
within complex loops of communication throughout all life systems, making all
creative processes possible. “Wisdom” in this sense does not emanate from human
experience alone, but is only possible in the interactive and interdependent relationships
within the whole complex system of life. The world around us sends us all kinds of
messages that we use to negotiate our way.
For example, when the wind comes up we may see the leaves of the trees
nearby show their silvery undersides. That bit of information may soon be
followed by drops of rain, or a storm. If we are exposed to these messages among
others who have also experienced them, we may learn to interpret those leaves
as warning that we should seek shelter. We may observe birds and other animals
scurrying to take cover. We may feel the wind on our faces more sharply. Using
different interpretive systems, humans and other creatures receive this information,
and in turn send out other messages as we respond that also get “read.” Thus,
according to Bateson, we create patterns of information that connect to other
patterns – meta-patterns, or patterns of patterns (Bateson 1972). For Bateson, this
complex process constitutes an “ecology of mind” (2000) and is the source of all
wisdom. To become aware of its complexity is to become aware of what is sacred
in the interrelatedness of all life. It is also to become aware of our limitations as
humans to control it. Indeed, to deem oneself outside or superior to it, according
to Bateson, is a fatal mistake.