Economic, Ecological, Social, Cultural or Unique?

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May 27, 2015 - Lolita P. Nikolova, PhD. EdD candidate. Global Academy of Sustainable Culture at International Institute of Anthropology,. Salt Lake City, Utah, ...
Nikolova, L. (2005, May 27). Sustainable view on the world: Economic, Ecological, Social, Cultural or Unique? International Institute of Anthropology Publication, May 27, 2015. Web address: http://www.iianthropology/lolita_nikolova_science_and_society_8

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Sustainable View on the World: Economic, Ecological, Social, Cultural or Unique?

Lolita P. Nikolova, PhD EdD candidate Global Academy of Sustainable Culture at International Institute of Anthropology, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA “…. Our new leaders – engineers and architects, physicians and social workers, lawmakers and urban planners, business executes and economic policy makers – graduate untouched by the hard-won collective historical experience, social perspectives, moral considerations, and humane reflections of our fellow human beings through the ages” F. H. T. Rhodes (2006) The subject of this reaction response is sustainability. The author’s interest in sustainability was the main argument to focus on the work by F. H. T. Rhodes “Sustainability: the Ultimate Liberal Art” published in The Chronicle of Higher Education (Rhodes, 2006). Most striking was the year – 2006. Close to ten years after this article sustainability looks as actual as it was described in the Rhodes’ article, and with similar problems. The only difference is today we have much more literature on sustainability, although without serious impact on human culture. Is it a sustainable decision to cut with 45% the funding of the National Science Foundation for the social sciences? Is this decision back to just poorly economic view on the world (Hawkes, 2001) and recognizing that America is strong in technology, but also is wasting money on some issues like social sciences without sustainable effect? Since both questions are most actual, coming from hot e-mails and calls for protests1, let go into the ideas of Rhodes’ sustainability and see whether there are answers to these most recent questions. Why wasn’t impossible the society to embrace the sustainability and today to report 45% increase of funding of the National Science Foundation for the social science? Rhodes’ concern It should be started with the important fact that the author, Frank H. T. Rhodes, was a president emeritus of Cornell University. Then, he wrote the article with the pen of most experienced educator of a top world university. His introduction includes a reference to the ancient Greek society – the liberal arts (e.g. grammar, rhetoric and logic) was a pragmatic field and useful in the crucial preparation for citizenship. The Middle Age added new fields which paved the Renaissance - arithmetic, astronomy, geometry, and 1

E-mail from Society for American Archaeology: “… Last Wednesday, in spite of strong opposition from nearly every scientific organization (including the SAA) and research university in the country, the House passed a National Science Foundation reauthorization bill (H.R. 1806) that would make a drastic 45% cut to the NSF's research funding for the social sciences. The legislation was adopted by a vote of 217-205…. Now the bill goes to the Senate, which we've been told wants to take a better, more traditional approach to funding the NSF--one that lets scientists decide where best to allocate research dollars, not politicians. … We have included at the end of this message the text of a basic letter that can be used to email or phone your senator, if he or she serves on that panel.” (May 26, 2015).

2 music. The content of the liberal arts was also further expanded during the industrial and social revolutions in the 19th century. In the view of F. H. T. Rhodes, it is his generation (later 29th – early 21st century) which framed the liberal arts into limited colleges and left many key educational fields without strong impact of the liberal arts on the graduated students.2 Searching for new directions of education, the author turned toward sustainability, which was proposed to have become a new foundation for the liberal arts and sciences. “Sustainability” in his opinion “mean the effort to frame social and economic policy so as to preserve with minimum disturbance earth’s bounty – its resources, inhabitants, and environments – for the benefit of both present and future generations” (Rhodes, 2006). Such framework means expansion of the liberal arts in direction of geology, natural resources, ecology, and climatology. The author also adds social interaction sociology, economic, and history, as well as the practical arts of technical discovery and invention. Together with redefinition of liberal arts as sustainable arts and theory of historical determination of the scope of the liberal/sustainable arts, F. H. T. Rhodes also sees sustainability as a problem which never can be resolved with only one set of answers as it embeds assumptions, projections, extrapolations, etc. It is also opened to indoctrination and partisan scholarship. However, the author concludes that if sustainability is taught as “an exercise in exploration and discovery”, it may become a foundation for a new global world of common sustainable values. Pros Writing about sustainability from the position of president emeritus was a very difficult task. Many words in the article can be substituted with much stronger approach of critics of our civilization because of existed barbarous (damaging) approach to the world. However, in 2006 F. H. T. Rhodes preferred the cultural language of positive approach. This choice makes the article sustainable in the library of the 21st century. The second big contribution is the way of revealing of the liberal arts to the reader – as a historically determined dynamic field of knowledge, which changes under the impact of the human evolution, but which is also the primary factor for the positive empowering of the human civilization. The third article’s scholarly value is the way sustainability was explained as a new perspective which redefines the liberal art and the whole system of education. All three positive values relate to the most actual problems of the higher education discussed in graduate and postgraduate programs. Learning more about sustainability would help to elaborate an actual strategic plan for the university. Embedding components of sustainability in the organization theory and organization culture would empower the educational system as a sustainable global partner. Organizational learning can be also rebuilt as a sustainable learning, as well as the learning community – as a sustainable learning community. In fact “sustainable” does not exist in the index of two volume textbook by J. L. Bess and J. R. Dee even in the second edition from 2012 (Bess & Dee, 2012). There is a danger of a mechanical approach toward sustainability in way in which the “world” was replaced by “global” in many books. Sustainability is not a fashionable word to be used just the author to look actual. Sustainability is a painful problem for the human civilization which asks today a question with a very strong voice: Will we survive as human civilization? The fact that today the humans look of one and the same category just because have biological similarities does not mean that the humans are one and the same. Technology changes the brain of people in way to create new species. The human life has become a

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See the citation at the beginning of this work.

3 battle between human evolution and human devolution and nobody today knows the winner in the close or distant future. Cons The main problem of Rhodes’ article is the author’s own trap of limitations. Although he might have not included himself in the row of those leaders who had become leaders without the formation impact of the liberal arts, F. H. T. Rhodes also looks like them from perspectives of the dominated economic view on the world. All his thought is full with the notion that liberal arts serve the practical needs of the people. The word “culture” is not mentioned even one time in the whole text. However, sustainable view and sustainable arts/education is not just a new quality of an economic, ecological and social view on the world. Sustainability more than ever in the human philosophy includes culture (Hawkes, 2001). The sustainable view/method/approach/theory/ methodology/strategy/practice is a unique combination of ecological, economic, social, and cultural view which goal is creating human life in which the people to be able to produce and reproduce values as values of society, as well as the society to assist in a honest way people to succeed in its structures. Accordingly, the sustainability rejects dictatorship, terrorism, and corruption (DTC) in their visible and invisible forms since DTC is the 21 st century cancer of human society. The 21st century syndromes of DTC were born and developed in the context of the dominated economic view on the world (mainly in the period of the Cold War and the first decade of the post-Cold War). The sustainable view on the world can presumably re-enculturate and re-socialize the global society (generally rehumanization) as society without DTC - that means sustainable society. Sustainable society is an ideal in the global world, in which the role of culture will increase only if the majority of people recognizes that the life is about healthy values, that means about development of valuable sustainable culture. The sustainability will be a result of the general change from economic toward cultural and sustainable view of the world. Culture in this case has the role of the bridge between the past corrupted system of the dominant economic view and future sustainable view/theory/styles of life of human civilizations. Synthesis Frank H. T. Rhodes call for sustainability in education in 2006 sounds like a nice old song, which unfortunately didn’t become a hit to be heard by people who could make the real changes in society. The damages of the non-sustainable education can be seen today in many forms of xeriscaping, for instance, but also in the whole system of reproduction of the higher education, where instead assessments and achievements, the syndromes of DTC (subjective committees and interviews) decide who to teach and who to produce and reproduce the human values. Following Rhodes’ construct of sustainable art, one more step can be made – to embed quality and valuable culture (Hawkes, 2001) not only as the fourth pillar, but the main pillar of the sustainable society and sustainable education. Answers The proposed NSF 45% cut in the financing of the social sciences is a result of the disbalance of what society expects and what the social sciences give the society. For instance, social sciences write about health, teach about health, produce specialists in health, but the global society needs not tones of grey literature on health – it needs real health. A high percent of the articles and monographs, written by the social science with grant money, could be written and made without this money, which could be used for the sustainable values of society. Last but not least some of the DTC syndromes are very strong in the academic system and the whole science system, including the non-for-profit organizations which have been converted not to serve the sustainable society, but non-sustainable goals of powerful people. Logically, the people who get hot questions about “Where are going our tax-payer money?” just have finally decided:

4 STOP! 45% NSF cut of the social sciences support is a result of the fact that sustainable is a favorite word in many books with grant money, but not as a new type of behavior, strategic and organizational culture in the academic system and related to this system non-for-profit organizations. If the academic educational institutions develop real strategic plans and turn toward real sustainable education and culture (Bess & Dee, 2012), the life and society will go back to the social sciences since the human life is culture and by definition the social sciences are the air for a meaningful human life. References

Bess, J. L., & Dee, J. R. (2012). Understanding College and University Organization. Theories for Effective Policy and Practice. Vols. 1-2. The State of the System. Sterling, VI: Stylus. Hawkes, J. (2001). The Fourth Pillar of Sustainability: Culture's Essential Role in Public Planning. Retrieved from www.theHumanities.com. Rhodes, F. H. T. (2006). Sustainability: the Ultimate Liberal Art. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 53(9), B.24. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.libproxy.edmc.edu/pqcentral/docview/214677770/590595C1BAB744 6CPQ/1?accountid=34899