1 post tagged “going green”
So, what shall I say about "Going Green"
The current Philosophy Now Journal describes Heidegger's ideas in this form:
"Heidegger believes that development of Science and Technology in the modern post-enlightenment world are expressions of this alienation"
and"Science and Technology have in Heidegger's term now 'enframed' the natural world by turning it into a mere object of empirical study for commercial exploitation."
Do I agree with Heidegger?
Yes! Going green is, of course, a movement, but it is also a fad of commercialism, to some degree. Can the lower class really afford organic food when it cost twice or thrice as much while trying to feed a family? Thus, to some degree, going green is a class and race issue of exploitation! (Claim: I need better evidence to prove this point that "green food" costs more. From my own examination, it seems to.)
But, we as a culture should conserve energy and as a state recycle, but Heidegger's point is more interesting than the Going Green movement.
We look at nature as empirical. When we do that, we lose its mystical and naturally mysterious quality. That is really the truth to me about GOING GREEN. Not conserving electricity. But, instead, walking from place to place and from cafe to cafe in the purest form of our bodies participating in the natural event of nature. In this case, we are no longer alienated in our cars, but we are walking with the wind, the pine cones fallen off the tree, and truly seeing the natural progression of nature's cycles without defining it in its purest empirical form or data or geometrical or physics experiment.
However, I do not agree with Heidegger completely. I do believe in the function of empiricism, but we must always remember that replacing this function with the true mystery of the human patterns that are sometimes inexplicable will take us into a moment when we see the raw reality of God right before our very eyes and move into that ZEN moment of non-rationality into perfect bliss and harmonization of the entire universe beyond reason and logic.
Going Green is Releasing your ZEN GARDEN within!