In the global forum of XR I answered to two questions:
[schenker_oeff] [XR Scientist]
What role have universities (and academia more generally) played in creating the Climate and Ecological Emergency (CEE)?
To what extent do we want to support and/or take part in actions on university campuses […]?
Thanks for showing me this place of reflection, so that I can add some words (- I am working in a ‘free academic institution’, which is independent of state and money , the “Holistic Culture-Laboratory lilitopia.de” -):
I am very happy, that ‘rebellion-movements’ like “Fridays for Future” and XR put their accent not so much on offering lists of outside ecological propositions, but emphasize, that we should at first create the democratic and participative structures for finding such outside solution-lists…
We need to focus on the “steering-wheels”!
The ‘World-Titanic’ is in danger of crashing from iceberg to iceberg, and we cannot be saved by regulating the radiators, getting ecological food into the restaurant, using stairs instead of lifts, or solar-lifts, and getting ecological dancing and theatre onto the stage of the big saloon… – We can only be saved by a radical change of direction, at the central steering wheel!..
For this I see a very big responsibility of the (university-)sciences (especially philosophy as ‘root-science’, and psychology and the ‘social-ecological sciences’) – and for free academies!
We must stop the actual role of the (university-)sciences, to give (or sell) knowledge and tools, without looking for responsibility…
Historically and ‘logically’, this is not ‘true science’:
Historically it is “sophistry”, and not ‘true science’ in the sense of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. For Socrates the heart of science is science about holistic sense and morals — just in opposite to instrumentalizing knowledge for (material) profit or (violent) power …
And ’logically’: How reasonable is it to collect knowledge about tools without real knowledge of how to use the tools (in responsibility for the consequences)?
And if scientists complain, that it would be their task to look for ‘facts’ without any irritation by ideological or moral values, we can answer with a very very sure fact: Science is an expression of human life and should be seen in connection with it and as a tool for it… What gives us a justification for doing or supporting crimes (especially the crime of global life-extinction)?
In the opposite, it is the main task for the sciences (just as Socrates taught us, and because it is an obvious fact…) to explorate the basic orientation for everything, life, (survival-)politics and the use of all tools, including the sciences themselves…
How should it be otherwise? If not the sciences (our highest understanding-capacity, or the institutions for such understanding!) give us a good, holistic responsible value-orientation, where should orientation come from? From religions, ideologies, arbitrary lobbies or the people in power, or that we choose like in the super-market? Do we have another chance, really?
And we really have better scientific potential than ever before in history:
I only take as example the psychological definition of personality- and responsibility-maturity: the „Postconventional Level“, which says, that a responsible human cannot blindly follow social rules, but needs an elementary (I like to say ‚rooted‘) critical reflection (for his whole life, not only for single exceptions, where he likes it…) , with basic responsibility-criteria like ‚responsibility for consequences‘ or ‚human rights‘…
I propose a short look at two conclusions, we (the sciences…, all reflecting people…) could draw from the „Postconventional Level“:
a) If I decide, in the sense of the „Postconventional Level“, that I have to use the steering-wheel of my life in such a responsible way — can I give this steering-wheel to other people, who do not follow such responsibility?.. Representative democracy, where the representants or the government (in my name and order!) take part in criminal wars, want to be ‚world-champion in arms exports‘ etc. – and, by the way, do not explain in the schools to the pupils, what is the meaning of real personality- and responsibility-maturity…???.. – Directly one is near to revolutionary (experimental) concepts like the „3. necessity“ of XR…
b) But let us also look, what happens, when we take such „Postconventional Level“-attitude with regard to scientists! Scientists, too, are other persons, who can cheat us! Not only, when ‚scientists‘ are ‚bought‘ for propaganda against the climate-danger-facts… Aren‘t they also cheating us, when they say, it is ok, that they sell their researches without a look at the consequences, responsibility-criteria etc. (atom-energy and bombs etc., NSA-technology etc. etc…)?… And aren‘t they cheating us, when we all (in schools, universities etc.) are not adequately informed about personality- and responsibility-maturity like the „Postconventional Level“?…
So what would be the scientific conclusion?… I would propose the following: That the deepest root of true science is something, which we could call „elementary individual science“, which includes a basic knowledge of oneself as a „thinking animal/thinking being“, and that one ‚naturally‘ has to follow one’s own thinking, and that it is a real question, if and where it is ok to follow other opinions instead of one‘s own opinion (political or scientific authorities, parents, teachers etc.), and what can be functioning criteria for such acceptance of authorities etc. etc… ((A list of tabooed steps for such a rooted system-change I propose here (sorry, in German…): https://dieschenker.wordpress.com/2018/02/01/text-set-system-wandel-9-kurz-thesen-fuer-system-wandel/ ))
Namaste.
Öff Öff
global-love.eu
PS: That’s the reason, why I would propose, that we should concentrate our nvda at the ’steering-wheels’ … In several senses: “ Besides blocking streets etc. let us focus on de-blocking the decision-structures (the town halls…, and the possibilities for the individuals, the true sovereigns(!), to create for themselves educational formation…)! ”
“And let us try to find forms, which are not felt by the others as destructive but constructive! ”
And one priority for nvda then will be the universities or academies … Because the universities claim for themselves a high liberty resp. self-organisation for developping knowledge-progress…, and free academies can do so even more… – So this are real possibilities for the individuals in society to create (responsibility-)culture for them… Why don’t they use it (sufficiently), and how can we change this, in the sense of a ‚system-change at the root of decisions‘?..
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