The Evolving Relationship Between Humans and Earth - Stephanie J. Ferrera, MSW Bowen Center for the Study of the Family March 18, 2021 - The ...
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The Evolving Relationship
Between Humans and Earth
Stephanie J. Ferrera, MSW
Bowen Center for the Study of the Family
March 18, 2021
Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.
“Man has overcome many of the forces
that threatened his existence in former
centuries. His life span has been
increased by medical science; His
technology has advanced rapidly; He
has become increasingly more in
control of his environment.” (272)
-Murray Bowen
Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.
“There is no exception to the rule that
every organic being naturally increases
at so high a rate, that if not destroyed,
the earth would soon be covered by
the progeny of a single pair.
A struggle for existence inevitably
follows from the high rate at which all
organic beings tend to increase.”
-Charles Darwin
Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.
Nature’s Constraints
The rate of increase is
countered by the rate of
destruction:
• Of eggs, seeds and
seedlings
• Predation
• Crowding
• Climate:
-droughts
-floods
-extreme heat or cold
Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.
Despite setbacks and the
Humans have overcome destruction wrought by wars,
nature’s constraints, epidemics, famine, and natural
slowly and incrementally events, the overall trajectory has
over thousands of years. been toward growth:
• in population
• production and
consumption of resources
• Knowledge
• division of labor
• narrower and more
specialized areas of work
• commerce and trade
• complexity
Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.
Ian Morris
British Historian and Professor of History & Classics,
Stanford University
Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.
Morris’ Approach
Sweeps up into a single Each is a way of capturing
story: energy from the earth; a way
• hundreds of societies of organizing society.
• thousands of years
• millions of people Morris’ main thesis:
How humans make a living: The way a society supports
• foragers itself influences its values
• farmers regarding equality, hierarchy,
• fossil fuels and violence.
Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.
Foragers
Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.
Forager Facts
• Foraging was the mode of life for 90% of human history, and
still is for some groups.
• Foraging is defined as “hunting of wild animals, gathering of
wild plants, and fishing.” (Morris 25)
• Typical groups were small with simple division of labor
based on age and gender
• There are “boom and bust cycles of rapid population growth
and starvation.” (33)
Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.
Living on the Earth Without Changing the Earth
“This mode of energy capture does
not deliberately alter the gene pool
of exploited resources."
-Ian Morris
Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.Forager Values
• “Foraging as a system of
energy capture puts strict
limits on the accumulation
of wealth.” (Morris 35)
• Sharing is a high moral
value, enforced by social
pressure.
Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.“Foragers found and shared resources
without accumulating possessions
that would have been a hindrance in
their mobile way of life.
Free of material possessions, they
found security in their social and
intellectual capital, egalitarian
communities, and sustainable
relationship with nature.”
-John Gowdy
Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.Farmers
Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.Farming Facts
• “Farmers are people whose most important source of energy is
domesticated plants and animals.” (44)
• Farming emerged between 15,000 and 10,000 years ago and spread
across the planet with far greater speed, scale, and thoroughness
than foraging.
• As populations grew, people migrated in search of new farmland,
discovered the great rivers that could be used for irrigation, transport,
and communication.
• “As each agricultural core grew, it went through a slow-motion
explosion in energy capture.” Farmers became increasingly effective
at exploiting domesticated resources.
Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.• “The steady increase in energy
captured per acre of farmland
made it possible to feed millions
of mouths, but it came at the
price of constant, back-breaking
labor.”
• The life of the peasant has been
characterized by poverty,
squalor, and poor health.
Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.Agriculture Changes Everything
• The discovery and spread of agriculture set humans on a
path to economic and social change that transformed
human life and the ecosystem.
• The ability to produce food through domestication of
plants and animals gave farmers a new level of control
over the food supply.
• With little or no understanding of the long-term
consequences, they began to acquire control over nature
itself.
-Ian Morris,
Foragers, Farmers, and Fossil Fuels
Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.Farmers Move Toward Hierarchy
• Increasingly complex division of labor was required by the
sheer scale of farming societies
• Large-scale organizations needed labor beyond the kin
group
• Market-based wage labor
• Forced labor: “In extreme cases (example: Athens) as many as
one person in three was a chattel slave, and few if any farming
societies did without slavery or serfdom altogether.” (64)
• The brighter side of division of labor: it freed a percentage
of the population to pursue intellectual life and expansion of
knowledge
Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.Farmers Adapt to Hierarchy
• “Between about 4000 BC and 1 BC, political and economic inequality
became deeply entrenched.” (85)
• The “Old Deal,” a social contract that dominated the agrarian world
• Peasants and elites were deeply interdependent
• all parties had duties as well as rights
“A great chain of being linked the humblest peasants to the supreme beings,
via the intercession of priests, nobles, and godlike kings, guaranteeing the
fundamental justice of the political and economic hierarchy.” (79)
• “A pattern emerged of general acceptance of glaring wealth
inequalities, combined with grumbling resentment against them and
occasional outbursts of leveling rage.” (77)
Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.Human Relationship to Earth
• In contrast with foragers who do not deliberately alter the gene
pool of exploited resources, farmers do deliberately alter the gene
pool of exploited resources.
• “Humans interfere in other species’ reproduction sufficiently to
create selective pressures that lead these other species to evolve
into entirely new species which can only go on reproducing
themselves with continued human intervention.” (44)
• “Domesticated plants and animals were the original genetically
modified organisms.” (45)
Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.A Hierarchical View of Nature
• It is not hard to see how this would
have influenced the way people
looked at the natural world.
• People continued to deepen their
knowledge of nature, but now with
an eye to enrichment opportunities.
• Exploitation of nature could be
rationalized by a hierarchical view
that placed humans at the pinnacle
of creation, divinely ordained to hold
dominion over Earth and its bounty.
Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.The World Becomes Global
The pace of growth gained speed with the turn toward
globalization that began in the 15th century.
• 1400: the world was divided into distinct zones
• 1492: Columbus leads expedition that crosses the
ocean between two largest world zones
• Over the next 3 centuries, membranes separating
Australasia and Pacific zones are breached.
“For the first time in human history, people would start
exchanging information, ideas, goods, people,
technologies, religions, and even diseases across the
entire world.” (240)
-David Christian, Origin Story
Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.Awareness of Earth’s Limits
• By late 18th century, it became evident that most arable land
was being farmed.
• 1798: Thomas Malthus: populations can grow exponentially
while food supply is finite.
• Adam Smith and others saw societies pushing the limits of
energy flow,
• warned that growth would stall,
• wages would fall and so would populations
Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.Fossil fuels to
the rescue…
Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.Fossil Fuel Facts
• Exploiting vast deposits of coal, gas, and oil buried under the
earth’s surface has set off an energy bonanza, transforming
human societies and values. (Morris, 93)
• Fossil fuels began to be put together with steam power in
the 17th century.
• Finding new sources and new methods of extraction and
transmission gave rise to new business, legal, and financial
institutions.
Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.The Remarkable 20 th Century
• World population in 1800: Just under 1 billion
-In 1900: 1.6 billion
-In 2000: 6 billion
-In 2018: 7.6 billion
• The 20th century brought more than a tripling of population
-despite the millions of lives, many of them young lives,
lost to the wars, epidemics, and famines of that century.
• Consider also that the century gave rise to an expanding
middle class,
-with a higher standard of living,
-and a doubling of life expectancy.
Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.Rise in Total Energy Consumption
“Total energy consumption doubled in
the nineteenth century and then rose
by ten times in the twentieth century.
Human consumption of energy rose
much faster than human populations.”
(268)
-David Christian, Origin Story
Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.Fossil Fuel Economics
• Over the past two centuries, the extraction of vast deposits of coal, gas
and oil buried under the earth’s surface set off an energy bonanza…
• Giving rise to the industrial revolution, transforming human societies.
• Accelerated economic and population growth
• High wages drew people from the farm to the factory.
• An enormous middle-class was created, able to buy the goods and
services fossil-fuel economies produce.
ØSmaller family size.
ØReduced infant mortality.
ØHealthier women and babies.
ØMore women working outside the home.
ØSocial movements toward increasing human rights.
Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.What About the Family? Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.
Farming Impacts Family Life
• The scale of agricultural societies
led to “creation of economic
enterprises far bigger than the
family, but… the family did
remain the basic building block
in farming economies.“
• The internal structure of families,
however, changed beyond all
recognition.” (58)
-Ian Morris
Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.A New Sexual Division of Labor
• Farming enabled and required a huge leap in the complexity of the
division of labor.
• Heavy labor--plowing, manuring, irrigating-- made farming
increasingly “men’s work.”
• Women were pushed out of the fields, pulled into the home.
• Farmwives had many more babies than female foragers, in addition
to the work of managing households. Most material goods were
produced within the household. (weaving, pottery, food
processing)
• “Demography and the patterns of labor conspired to separate
male/outdoor and female/indoor spheres.” (59)
-Ian Morris
Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.Melvin Konner, Professor of Anthropology
and of Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology,
Emory University
Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.The Separation of Public and Private Spheres
• With increasing male coalitions and power politics came a decline in
the personal relationship.
• “Life as a whole was no longer face-to-face; private and public
spheres diverged and every major aspect of social life—politics,
economics, religion, defense-- became detached from hearth and
home.” (Konner 2014, 159)
• Women entered motherhood earlier and with shorter interbirth
intervals; their lifespans declined while men’s increased.
• “Women gave more of themselves and died younger even as they
were cut out of public life.”
Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.• Women continued to be major contributors
to family and community resources but now
did so on behalf of their husbands, the
chiefs. (Konner 2014)
• Women’s economic and social status was
tied to their men.
• The choice of a mate became less a personal
decision and more a means of forging
alliances and consolidating assets between
families.
• Konner writes: “Countless millions of fathers
for more than two monogamous millennia
disposed of their daughters on a handshake.”
(Konner 2014, 186)
Jane Austen
Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.Men and Women: Reciprocal Process
• The patriarchal society and family became the world in which both men and
women adapted.
• The response of many women was to promote patriarchy.
“In pursuing their material and reproductive interests, women often
engage in behaviors that promote male resource control and male
control over female sexuality.”
-Barbara Smuts, 1995, “The Evolutionary Origins of Patriarchy” in
Human Nature, 6 (1): 1-31
• Women’s preference for high-ranking mates and support of male ambition
generally would have created a strong impetus for men to strive for high rank and
its privileges.
Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.Significant Consequences
• In the bigger picture, as women lost autonomy and
equal status under patriarchy, the society lost the
benefit of woman’s perspective and voice in the
public sphere.
• We will never know what a difference her
counterbalancing influence on the more aggressive
male approach to governance might have made.
Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.The Family in a Stratified World
• The economic security of a family was now subject to the ability to
compete in a complex, stratified system of political and economic forces.
• Social class became a key determinant of one’s life course.
• Social class, and attendant attitudes and behaviors are part of what is
transmitted across generations in families.
• Through rules of inheritance, wealth passes to future generations.
• The structure of the family made it a fertile ground for forming the
alliances that would work toward acquiring land, building wealth and
forming dynasties.
• The family is part of the fabric of a hierarchical society.
Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.The Family as a Productive Economic Unit
“In the long experience of mankind, the vast majority of families
were also producer units,
working together on the land and in small shops to earn the family
income with their own productive assets.
Prior to the industrial revolution of the last two hundred years, most
economic units in business and farming were centered around the
family.”
-Friedrich Baerwald,
“The Family as an Economic Unit,”
Fordham Law Review, 1955
Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.Corporations Exert Increasing Control
• As industrialization and concentration within the economy
proceed, more and more families are being cut off from ownership
and direct control of productive economic units.
• A small number of corporations have a very large share in the total
business transactions.
• The business of making a living is not only being transferred
outside the home… but it has to be carried out in the employ of
others.
• The home, economically speaking, is reduced to a consumer unit.
• This has serious consequences for the structure of the
contemporary family.
-Baerwald 1955
Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.The Changing Structure of the Family
• Economically speaking, the family is reduced to a consumer unit, the
home a place for the joint consumption and use of material things.
• The family shrinks from a three-generation to a two-generation unit,
no longer equipped to take care of elderly parents at home.
• As children leave home and start families of their own, parents in their
middle age are reduced to living as a one generation family.
• The decline of the family as a productive unit has substantially
narrowed the framework of effective family relations.
-Baerwald, 1955
Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.Humans Become Ultrasocial Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.
The Economic Origins of Ultrasociality
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
Cambridge University Press 2015
Lisi Krall, Ph.D. John Gowdy, Ph.D.
Professor of Economics Professor of Economics
State University of New York, Cortland Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.The Economic Origins of Ultrasociality
• Human evolution took a decisive turn toward ultrasociality
with the agricultural revolution which brought:
• the ability to produce one’s own food
• extensive division of labor
• deeper level of interdependence
• a dynamic of expansion.
• “In only a few thousand years, humans made the transition
from being just another large mammal living within the
confines of local ecosystems to a species dominating the
planet’s biophysical systems.” (3)
-Gowdy and Krall, 2016
Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.Gowdy and Krall’s Thesis
• “We argue that the driving forces in the evolution of
ultrasocial societies were economic.
• With intensified group-level competition, larger
populations and intensive resource exploitation
became competitive advantages, and ‘the social
conquest of earth’ was underway.” (2016, 1)
Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.Extremely Rare and Extremely Successful
• “It is difficult to appreciate the break with the past that
ultrasociality represents.”
• Ultrasociality gives species the ability to produce and expand
their food supply rather than wait for nature to provide it.
…a new mode of production that gave them a decisive
evolutionary advantage.
• Only a small number of species have reached the ultrasocial
level of group integration. They include ants, termites… and
humans.
Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.Surplus as a Driving Force of Behavior
• Gowdy identifies the drive for surplus production as
the root of our environmental and social problems:
• “Neither environmental destruction nor extreme
inequality is due to human nature. Both are the result
of production for surplus.”
• The competitive pursuit of resources and profit,
seemingly intensified in the presence of abundance,
has occurred repeatedly through human history.
Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.Michael T. Klare
Professor of Peace and World Security Studies,
Hampshire College
Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.Michael Klare, in his book Resource Wars, describes a pattern
seen in parts of the world where rich resources are found:
• Discovery of gold, oil, diamonds, valuable minerals, timber, land
and even water, create opportunity for massive profit.
• When they are found in countries that have weak, divided, or
corrupt government, these countries become vulnerable to
exploitation.
• The result has often been domestic power struggles and wars:
“These contests have produced an enormous toll in
human life, accompanied in many cases by severe
environmental damage.” (210)
-Michael Klare
Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.Michael E. Kerr, MD Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.
The Finches of Galapagos Islands
• What is it about the appearance of abundant resources that sets
off such a powerful emotional response?
• Michael Kerr addresses this question by giving an example from
another species: the ground finches of the Galapagos islands
• In a season of extraordinary rainfall, there was abundant food.
• The birds began “a copulating frenzy” (160), followed by a
breakdown in normal mating and parenting behavior and ending
in an explosion of population. When the rain stopped, resources
dropped and huge numbers of birds died.
Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.A Human Example
Kerr sees an “eerie similarity” between the finches and human
behavior in face of abundance:
The financial crisis of 2007-2008
• A housing “bubble”…subprime mortgages given without
normal credit standards…a high default rate.
• Lack of focus on the ethics of these activities
• over-focus on enormous rewards
• Many financial and government institutions were complicit.
Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.Abundant Resources, Weak Constraints
• Humans have shown a proclivity to react with gold-rush fervor in the face of
abundant resources and weak constraints.
• Looking at both the example of the Galapagos finches and the human financial
crisis, Kerr writes:
• “My conclusion is that the financial crisis reflected societal regression and that,
like the finches, human beings do not seem to cope well with excess.
• The core biology at play… involves the pleasure and reward systems of the brain.
• Optimal stimulation of the pleasure and reward systems is an essential motivating
system.
• However, high levels of stimulation interfere with impulse control.” (160)
Michael Kerr,
Bowen Theory’s Secrets
Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.Anxiety in a World of Surplus
• The great advantage humans gained in acquiring control over the food
supply and generating a surplus seems, paradoxically, to have set us on
a growth trajectory that is difficult, perhaps even impossible, to contain.
• We have developed social, legal, and moral codes to regulate acquisitive
instincts, but these are often overridden when opportunity for profit
appears on the horizon.
• Far removed from our hunter-gatherer ancestors, we have created
societies in which wealth and power beget more wealth and power.
Chances for a secure life are largely tied to social and economic status.
• These are conditions designed to stir chronic anxiety.
Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.Decline in Individual Functioning
• Individual autonomy is suppressed as the group itself becomes the
economic unit
• Elaborate division of labor makes the behavior of individuals simpler
in ultrasocial societies even as the society grows more complex.
• “Collective intelligence can increase while individual intelligence
declines.”
• “The selective ‘pull’ of the group over the individual becomes greater
with increasing complexity.” (Gowdy and Krall 2016, 13-14)
Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.Ultrasociality and the Emotional System
• There are parallels between Gowdy and Krall’s thinking on
the economic forces that drive the expansionist global
market and Bowen’s thinking on the instinctual, emotional
system that drives the functioning of human families and
societies.
• Both recognize the powerful influence of larger systems in
governing the behavior of individuals and sub-groups.
• Both identify the loss of individuality in the face of
increased group pressure as a key factor in social regression.
Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.Quo vadis?
Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.A Saving Grace
• What makes humans different from ants is that humans, no matter
how constrained by togetherness pressure, do not lose the force for
individuality:
“the drive to be a productive, autonomous individual as defined
by self rather than the dictates of the group.” (277, Bowen 1978)
• Differentiation of self describes the variation among group members
in their ability to transcend the “pull” of the group.
• Everyone has some capacity to think independently, to be guided by
principles in the face of social, economic, or political pressure to
compromise principle.
Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.Differentiated Leadership
• Bowen described the differentiated family leader as one
“with the courage to define self, who is as invested in the
welfare of the family as in self.” (277,Kerr and Bowen 1988)
• These same qualities apply on a societal level.
• From this perspective, the ability of a society to discern and
identify its most mature and responsible members, and
select them for positions of leadership, is of utmost
importance.
Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.Our Imperfections May Save Us
• Humans are not ants or termites.
• Our very recent ultrasocial legacy is imperfect—far from being
efficient and stable.
• The imperfect human ultrasocial system creates openings for a
change not presented to ants and termites.
• How can we tap these opportunities to gain control of the
human ultrasocial system so that our species may once again
have a sustainable and equitable way of life? (15, Gowdy and
Krall 2016)
Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.“Humanity failed to seize the great
The Road Not Taken opportunity given it at the dawn of the
Neolithic era. It might then have halted
population growth below the
constraining minimum limit.
As a species, we did the opposite.
There was no way for us to foresee the
consequences of our initial success.
We simply took what was given us and
continued to multiply and consume in
blind obedience to instincts inherited
from our humbler, more brutally
constrained Paleolithic ancestors.” (76)
E. O. Wilson,
The Social Conquest of Earth
Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.The 21 st Century
• Unlike our ancestors, we of the 21st century have the benefit of
foresight.
• We have knowledge of complex geophysical systems and the part
that human activity plays in global warming and the crises related
to it.
• We even have the knowledge we need to put the brakes on out-of-
control economic growth.
• The realities of the 21st century call for a different kind of growth:
growth in maturity, in the ability to constrain the expansionist
system, the wisdom to forego energy-expensive activities and
personal comforts in favor of the longer-term vision of a more
equitable and humanistic way of life on a recovering and protected
planet.
Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.In addition, it is not insignificant that a great many people feel anguish about the
imperiled state of the world and what future generations will face if we do not change
course. Poet Dan Hanrahan writes:
“The problem is, the longer this
economy persists, the more degraded
the planet becomes. That,
unfortunately, is the design of this
particular system. Its persistence is
dependent upon our degrading our
home and the home of all our fellow
beings. This internal dissonance
threatens to become overwhelming.”
(Hanrahan, personal correspondence)
Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.• John Gowdy defines three levels of governance that are needed if we are
to gain control of our destiny as a species:
Øthe individual
Øthe community
Øthe institutions
• Change must come at the individual and community levels, but most
importantly, at the institutional level.
• “The ultrasocial human economy is the uppermost level in the
governance hierarchy and it is the most problematic.” (35)
• “To achieve sustainability, we must… design institutions to assert control
over the global economy.” (40)
John Gowdy,
“Governance, Sustainability and Evolution” in State of the World,
Washington D.C.: Island Press, 2014
Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.“Nobody is suggesting a return to the Stone
Age, but we do need to slow down and look
at reality in a different way, to appropriate
the positive and sustainable progress which
has been made, but also to recover the
values and the great goals swept away by
our unrestrained delusions of grandeur.
…our ‘dominion’ over the universe should
be understood more properly in the sense
of responsible stewardship.”
Laudato si (78-9)
Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.“The truth is that we never conquered the
world, we never understood it, and we
only think we have control. We don’t even
know why we respond a certain way to
other organisms. We need them in diverse
ways so deeply.
Humanity, I would suggest, is exalted not
because we’ve risen so far above other
living creatures but because understanding
them very well elevates our very concept
of life.”
-Edward O. Wilson,
Georgetown University Bicentennial 1989
Copyright © 2021. Courtesy of Stephanie Ferrera. Used with permission.You can also read
