Strengthening Our Connections
April 2006
Banner photo: ©MIMOTITO/Digital Vision/Getty Images
Healing the Split Between Planet and Self
If you are like me, you know the planet is in trouble, but you also continue to act in ways that are damaging to it. The belief that our civilization is careening out of control toward environmental disaster is well accepted by most citizens, at least at a subliminal level. While technical experts may continue to debate the details of how much soil erosion, global warming, ozone depletion, air and water pollution and deforestation is occurring and at what rate, the general public is painfully aware of the impending crisis. Because we do not understand how to integrate this awareness into our daily lives, we live in a schizoid state of nagging, pernicious concern about our future. But we continue to conduct business largely as usual.
In 1992, over 1,670 prestigious scientists, including over 100 Nobel Laureates, signed a World Scientists' Warning to Humanity, urging public attention to the "human activities which inflict harsh and often irreversible damage on the environment and on critical resources." The public is alerted, but daily life continues unaltered. One reason we maintain this split is that we assume that environmental problems are technical problems which require technical solutions, hoping we can leave the intimidating agenda to a small group of engineers to figure out some answers before it is too late. But, in fact, our environmental problems are psychological in origin: they have accrued because of the behavior, thoughts, beliefs, values and feelings that human beings have and continue to enact. Thus, solutions will require psychological changes--changes in the way we see ourselves, in our relationship to nature, and even in the purpose we give our lives. We need to investigate mainstream psychology to see what insights it can deliver about how to change our current behavior and direction.
Learning by Doing
One of the ways in which we maintain the split between planet and self is through not acting on what we know. Education is traditionally conducted along these lines. Action and activism are not included as key features of education, for fear that we will create ideological robots of our students. I appreciate the importance of carefully considering our actions before doing them, but I also believe that we cannot completely know the results of our behavior before undertaking it. I also believe, along with John Dewey, that we do not really understand an idea until we apply it. We learn more about an idea from experiencing how it works, especially if we remain diligently open to feedback from our experience. Inaction ensures that business proceeds as usual; action changes us as well as the world. Sometimes we make mistakes, but we don't learn unless we are willing to make mistakes.
No matter what actions you decide to undertake, becoming aware of your behavior, your thoughts, your feelings and your consciousness will significantly facilitate healing the split between planet and self. But you cannot do anything for the planet or for yourself until you begin. Allowing ourselves to slip into despair or helplessness is the most destructive path--destructive because it undermines our own growth and maturity, and destructive because it ensures a planetary outcome that justifies our despair. Just as we can best confront our feelings of being overwhelmed by action, so too is despair best confronted through action. So it is essential to proceed gently, with conviction, patience, perseverance and, most of all, with trust, trust in yourself, as well as in the interconnected wholeness of nature that embraces you.
Deborah Du Nann Winter teaches ecopsychology at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington State, U.S.A. She is the author of Ecological Psychology: Healing the Split Between Planet and Self.
