Reflections on Unlearning
Escape to Humanity — Escape to “belonging”
“Unlearning,” “deschooling,” “deculturing,” and even “learning” all have the same
goal, to help people think out-of-the-box. To help us transcend those beliefs that
we don’t even recognize we have because they are taken for granted in our cultures.
Particularly in the dominant EuroAmerican cultures those beliefs are centered
around materialism and the social/economy of measuring a person’s worth by
material ownership.
The personal stories in the pamphlet, “Paths of Unlearning,” are from seven young
people who have transcended this cultural pattern in both word and lifestyle. They
are about an American graduate of Harvard on the verge of a $100,000 law career
who chose to go to India, her ancestral home, to live among and be one of the poor;
a privileged upper-class native of Uganda who chose to forgo success in the
industrial world to create his own “vision of realty” fromthe history and culture of his
African tribe and serve the youth of his country; a proclaimed American “geek,”
hooked on the forefront of computer hacking, who sees the spread of free software
bringing civilization out of the dark hole of secretive competition for material greed;
a young oil company executive who witnessed the major Esson/Valdez oil spill and
changed sides to work toward a pollution free sustainable world; a London born
product of the industrial school system who broke from the “upward” climb to
express his inner thoughts in writing and in action with “Pioneers for Change”; and
other authors, from all parts of the world and many diverse backgrounds.
Individually and together they remind us of the stories of Buddha, Gandhi, the Dali
Lama, Jesus, Martin Luther King, Einstein, Lao Tzu, and others who have chosen a
life of service to humanity rather than the material self-interest dictated by the
“dominator paradigm.” These wise people, the elder leaders and the seven young
storytellers, are among the few humans who have escaped the dictates of the
dominator paradigm. Perhaps they have not unlearned as much as they have just
never learned the inhumanity of the EuroAmerican culture.
This culture, rooted in the dominator paradigm, has a long history. It grew from the
Jewish creation myth that held that the earth was created for the use of man. It was
strengthened by Greek philosophy with its postulate that “Man is the measure of all
things.” It held that a “chain of being” that put man at the top of a ladder with only
a few celestial being above. Below were women, children, other races, animals,
plants and the Earth. Each there to serve and be dominated by the rungs above. It
was stamped in the minds of Europe by the thousand year Inquisition that burned
some one million people, mostly women, at the stake for believing in Earth as our
creator. It was perpetuated and spread worldwide by the sword (technology), the
cross (Christianity), and the flag (nationalism) in the age of “discovery” and
colonization. It was fixed in our moral system by the acceptance of Adam Smith’s
economy that claims that human “self-interest” should, and does, dictate all human
actions. This abomination of the essence of humanity now rules the world.
The customs, tenets and mores of this culture are accepted as truisms for our
values and lifestyles. From our birth, and throughout our most formative years in
our schooling, competition, materialism, ownership, money, individualism, and
other tenets of the dominator paradigm are drilled into us by example as cultural
norms not to be questioned. Somehow people of wisdom, including our seven story
tellers, escape and are able to transcend the culture in which they were born.
This unnatural dominator civilization has not always been so. Most, if not all, other
cultures had social and economic systems based on “reciprocity” or “gifting.” They
held the belief that we were created by mother Earth. That each of us “belongs” to
the Earth and one another. That there are laws of nature that dictate that if we don’t
live together as one, we will die separately. In these cultural systems everyone
produces for the well being of all. Many cultures have no words for “ownership.”
“exchange,” or “self-interest.” The purpose of life is to produce, and to help others
produce, so that all people, including oneself, can continue to exist. In a reciprocity
economy goods and services are gladly given without thought of a ‘prid pro quo’
exchange. Whoever gives the most is honored with abundant gifts from others.
Mutual aid and cooperation are the natural laws that make human existence
possible. A few such cultural norms still exist. But in the main they have been
dominated by the dominator paradigm
Modern science has revealed this interdependence as natural law. Chaos,
Complexity and Gaian theories have shown that the cosmos is in fact one. It exists
and evolves as a unit. It is holonistic. That is, each entity of the cosmos is a holon,
a whole system composed of other whole systems embedded in other whole
systems, or holons within holons. All holons, including every human being, is
interlinked and interdependent with all other holons. The Gaian theory of the Earth
shows that life on earth is dependent on life on earth. That is, that the temperature
on Earth, the percent of oxygen in our air, the amount of salt in the ocean, the
radiation reaching the Earth, and all other conditions necessary for life are kept
constant by physical/biological processes.
Gaia, the Greek name for the Earth goddess, was taken as a name for this theory. It
has also been suggested as a name for a new social paradigm. The “Gaian
Paradigm” is replacing the long standing “Dominator Paradigm” as the foundation
for new emerging cultures based in “belonging.”
Humans “belong” to Gaia (the Earth and all life on Earth) in a very deep
way.
We belong to the webs-of-being — to Gaia.
Belonging is the protovalue from which all other values derive.
We belong to the physiosphere, to the biosphere, to the noosphere. We
belong to Gaia. As the aboriginals said it we are the ownees of the land not
the owners of the land. Chief Seattle said, “We can not own the land,
we are part of the land.” We belong to and are inseparable from our culture — from
one another — from Gaia. We are interdependent with all.
Belonging is scientific fact; and, belonging is more than scientific fact.
Belonging is not merely being a member of, but it is being subject to –
being in partnership with — being responsible for. We belong to — are
responsible for — the web of being — the universe — to Gaia.
Belonging-to-Gaia means recognizing that we are enmeshed in the
webs-of-being and that our well-being is dependent on the well-being of
Gaia. If we destroy Gaia, we destroy ourselves.
Belonging implies cooperation — working with what is — with Gaia–the
web of being.
Belonging implies community. In our face-to-face relationships with
people we form community — we belong to community.
Belonging implies responsibility. We are responsible for Gaia. We are
responsible for one another.
Belonging implies love. We cannot separate love (agape) from the fact
that we belong to Gaia. We love because we must love to preserve Gaia — to
preserve ourselves — to preserve the web of being.
Cultures built on values other than belonging are doomed to self-destruct.
A culture built on domination of the earth, and all the animals therein, is
doomed to disappear. A culture based on self-interest is doomed to
disintegrate. A culture based on competition will destroy itself.
To be stable and sustainable a culture must be based on cooperation,
community, responsibility, love, honesty, caregiving, and the other values
which are implied by and intertwined with one another and with belonging.
We can no more separate ourselves from belonging — from Gaia, and remain a
viable culture; than an oxygen atom can separate itself from hydrogen atoms
and retain the qualities of water.
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Bill Ellis, of Rangely, ME USA retired early from his working life
as a science policy consultant in agencies such as the U.S.National
Science Foundation, Unesco and The World Bank. For the last
30 years he has work voluntarily to promote the broad range of
social innovations that empower people at the grass roots and
promote community self-reliance. One of these is as General
Coordinator, of ‘A Coalition for Self-Learning. With which he
facilitated the drafting an online book, “Creating Learning
Communities,” and, the White Paper, “Life-Long Self-Learning,”
that promotes the recognition of the vast array of learning
modalities in addition to public schooling — e.g. learning
co-ops, public schools, private schools, unschooling, charter
schools. His mantra is “everyone should have the right, the
freedom, the resources and the opportunity to learn what
they want, when they want and how they want.
