Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Two notes

First note
The structure of knowledge determines the architecture of a learning environment. The myth of universal and objective truth, held by an educated teacher dispensing it necessitates an enclosed and separated environment. The only way to transmit unproblematially that knowledge (presuming that other sources or knowledge, or stimuli have less importance, less use) requires closing off the students from any ‘distractions.’ Lived reality in the context of nature, or just people interacting in human experience, because devalued, requires physical exclusion. The self compounding system this establishes implicitly creates the values it then cites as natural by physically excluding other experiences of knowledge.

Second note.
Darwinian description of natural selection produces anthropocentricism. Darwain sees ‘perfection’ of species from the perspective of their ability to survive in anarchic nature. Better concerns the ability to propagate a particular species with greater efficiency/effectiveness. Perfection defined through a relationship to merely one species does not capture the overall picture of sustainability and the need to maintain ecological balance.