1st Edition
Preserving Planet Earth Changing Human Culture with Lessons from the Past
This book encourages readers to acknowledge humanity’s contribution to the environmental crisis, proposing a way forward by exploring the power of ordinary people to bring about large-scale cultural change.
Is it possible for humankind to change its ways and shed the belief that the planet is ours to do with as we like? Internationally acclaimed philosopher of education Jane Roland Martin argues that "humancentrism" is a learned affair, and what is learned can be unlearned. Turning to the past to see how large-scale cultural change has occurred, she discovers a pattern in the achievements of such historical luminaries as Martin Luther, Mahatma Gandhi, Rosa Parks and Greta Thunberg that we too can follow. Drawing on history, philosophy, and literature as well as the natural and social sciences and hoping to mobilize readers to effective action, Martin employs an accessible and powerful rhetoric, with each chapter beginning with a scene from history written in dialogue form.
This book calls on young and old to avert a looming tragedy of Aristotelian proportions--the demise of the “Mother Nature” that made it possible for our species to flourish. Thoroughly interdisciplinary in its approach, it will appeal to students and teachers as well as general readers interested in environmental studies, philosophy, and education.
Introduction
Part 1: History Lessons
1. The Martin Luther Story
2. The Greta Thunberg Story
3. The Mahatma Gandhi Story
4. The Rosa Parks Story
Part 2: A Looming Tragedy
5. The Dreadful Deed: Matricide
6. The Fatal Flaw: Hubris
7. The Denial: Six Varieties
8. The Present-Day Chorus
9. The Unraveling
Part 3: Can We Change Human Culture and Ourselves?
10. Yes, We Can
11. Is Human Nature Humancentric?
12. Prepared and Counter-Prepared Learning
13. Becoming a New Person
14. Individual Learning and Cultural Change
Part 4: Wage Education Not War
15. Close the Knowing/Doing Gap
16. Whose Knowledge Is It Anyway?
17. Facts Are Not Enough
18. What Do We Do With Miseducation When We Find It?
19. Amplify and Converge
Part 5: Goodbye Hubris, Hello ENVIRONMENTALITY
20. Needed: A Paradigm Shift
21. Expanding the Definition of “We”
22. Doing Something Rather Than Nothing
23. Acting as One
Biography
Jane Roland Martin is Professor of Philosophy Emerita at the University of Massachusetts in Boston with fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, MacDowell, the Radcliffe Institute, the National Science Foundation, and the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science. She also received the John Dewey Society's 2013 Outstanding Career Achievement Award.
"A novel and fascinating look at the crisis of our lives and the possibility of doing something useful even at this late date. This collage of ideas, insights and historical analogies will make you think, which is what we need."
Bill McKibben, author The End of Nature
"Preserving Planet Earth is a testament to the importance of ongoing discourse across diverse communities and insights. Whenever we can engage new voices and constituencies, and empower informed stewardship, we create a new moment for achievement of bold conservation outcomes.”
Paula J. Ehrlich, President & CEO, E. O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation
