Ethnospere Too Ethnocide

A summary of:
Wade Davis (2004). Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 World Made of Stories. In Ausubel, K. & Harpignies, J.P., eds., Nature’s Operating Instructions: The True Biotechnologies. Sierra Club Books: San Francisco.

In this chapter, Davis (re-)introduces his term ‘ethnosphere’, “to depict a concept suggesting that exactly every bit at that spot is a biosphere, a biological spider web of life, so every bit good at that spot is a cultural stuff that envelops the earth, a cultural spider web of life, the total full of all thoughts as well as dreams, beliefs, myths, intuitions, as well as inspirations brought into existence past times the human imagination since the dawn of consciousness. The ethnosphere is humanity’s peachy legacy. It is the production of our dreams, the embodiment of our hopes, the symbol of all that nosotros are as well as all that nosotros own got created every bit a wildly inquisitive as well as astonishingly adaptive species” (215).

The primal declaration virtually the importance of preserving this ethnosphere comes from Margaret Mead: “Just earlier she died, anthropologist Margaret Mead spoke of her delineate that every bit nosotros drift toward a to a greater extent than homogenous world, nosotros are laying the foundations of a blandly amorphous as well as singularly generic modern civilization that ultimately volition own got no rivals. The entire imagination of humanity, she feared, mightiness larn confined inside the limits of a unmarried intellectual as well as spiritual modality. Her nightmare was the possibility that nosotros mightiness wake upwards 1 24-hour interval as well as non fifty-fifty hollo upwards what had been lost” (218). And what would live lost? “Every sentiment of the populace that fades away, every civilization that disappears, diminishes life’s possibilities as well as reduces the human repertoire of adaptive responses to the problems that seem us all. Knowledge is lost, non alone of the natural populace but also of the spirit realms, intuitions virtually the pregnant of the cosmos, insights into the rattling nature of existence. This is why it matters that nosotros enjoin these stories as well as brand these journeys” (226). And importantly, he argues: “Whether this notion [i.e. the mythology] is ‘true’ or non is hardly the point. What is interesting as well as consequential is how a people’s conviction or belief mediates the human relationship betwixt human guild as well as the natural world. In the high Andes, people believe that a mount is an Apu, a sacred existence that has the ability to (225) straight the destiny of all those living inside the shadow of its slopes. Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 immature nestling coming of historic catamenia inward such a house volition own got a profoundly dissimilar human relationship to that mount than a nestling from Montana raised to believe that a mount is a pile of inert stone prepare to live mined. Is a mount a god or a pile of ore? Ultimately, who is to say? The of import betoken is how the belief itself mediates as well as defines the human relationship betwixt the human as well as the natural landmark” (226).

But because of our organized religious belief inward the mythology of progress (in Greer’s The Long Descent), nosotros believe nosotros are continually improving upon how to alive on this planet. Davis reminds us: “Human beings every bit a recognizable social species own got been roughly for perchance 600,000 years. The Neolithic revolution, which gave us agriculture as well as amongst it surplus, hierarchy, specialization, as well as sedentary life, occurred alone 10,000 years ago. Modern industrial guild is but 300 years old. This shallow history does non advise to me that our electrical current way of life has all the answers for all the challenges that volition seem us every bit a species inward the coming millennia” (218). Even worse, however, at that spot is a Western elitism at the midpoint of this so-called “progress”, which Davis describes (only to shatter) thusly: “There lingers a conceit that piece nosotros own got been busy inventing the Internet or placing men on the moon, other societies own got somehow been intellectually idle. This is simply non true. Anthropology has long taught that whether a people’s mental potential goes into technical wizardry or unraveling the complex threads of retention inherent inward a myth is simply a thing of cultural pick as well as orientation. In the Sahara, for example, the raw potential of the human heed has been tapped inward astonishing ways, some metaphysical, some boldly concrete, similar the rattling capacity to orient oneself inward an endless surface area of sand where at that spot is no separation betwixt horizon as well as sky, nada on a human scale, no betoken of reference salve the hallucinogenic waves of delirium that sweep over the unfettered imagination when the pharynx is scorched amongst a thirst impossible to describe, impossible to bear” (221). And so Davis writes the most wonderful few sentences:

“Genocide, the physical extermination of a people, is universally condemned past times civilized societies. Yet ethnocide, the devastation of a people’s way of life, is oftentimes endorsed every bit appropriate evolution policy. Who is to say that American civilization matters to a greater extent than than that of the Tuareg? At a to a greater extent than fundamental level, nosotros own got to inquire ourselves, What sort of populace produce nosotros desire to alive in? Most Americans volition never come across a paradigm past times Monet or take away heed a symphony past times Mozart, but does that hateful that the populace would non live a lesser house without these artists as well as their unique interpretations of reality?” (224).

What does this hateful for the evolution of Web technology? Well Davis has a quite easily realizable plan: “to plough the Internet into a virtual campfire roughly which nosotros mightiness get together to part tales from all reaches of the ethnosphere” (224). I think this would live a noble effort, but it seems every bit good express past times what nosotros know of every bit the Internet now. I think what this chapter suggests, instead, is that nosotros ask to consider choice visions for the Internet that brand feel inside other worldviews, inward a way that doesn’t erode these cultures as well as homogenize them all into the sort of civilization that created the Internet every bit it is now. And I think it agency non encouraging uptake of our electrical current Internet past times other cultures every bit a desperate exertion for them to live heard. Maybe what it means, ultimately, is reconceptualizing cyberspace every bit something that ask non live a purely technological creation. How would other cultures think virtually cyberspace?

(Davis also points out the fundamental flaw inward the Western way of living, which is that it alone plant past times establishing ranks of haves as well as have-nots, winners as well as losers; thence it is foolish to think that it is our peachy philanthropic mission to select Western evolution to the residual of the world. “Indeed the Western model of evolution has failed inward so many places largely because it has been based on the faux hope that people who follow its prescriptive dictates volition inward fourth dimension accomplish the stuff prosperity enjoyed past times a handful of Western nations. Even were this possible, it is non at all clear that it would live desirable. To heighten consumption of expose energy as well as materials throughout the populace to Western levels, given electrical current population projections, would require the resources of 4 planet earths past times the twelvemonth 2100. To produce so amongst the 1 populace nosotros own got would so severely compromise the biosphere that the populace would live unrecognizable. In reality, evolution for the vast bulk of the world’s peoples has been a procedure inward which the private is torn from his past times as well as propelled into an uncertain future, alone to secure a house on the bottom rung of an economical ladder that leads nowhere” (217).)

(Davis also touches on the alienation every bit mentioned inward the previous post: “We long agone liberated the private from the constraints of community as well as amongst such finality that nosotros forget what an astonishing excogitation it represented inward human affairs…. We forget that inward most of the populace the community silent dominates, for without its forcefulness the private cannot survive. In embracing the cult of the individual, nosotros secure an irresistible feel of liberation as well as freedom, but it comes at a cost, every bit is evident inward the alienation as well as isolation that characterize every bit good many lives inward the West” (222).)