Professor Ludmila P. Bueva
Member, Russian Academy of Sciences
Board Member, International Women’s Center
Russia
After the world became aware of the threat of an ecological catastrophe, environmental protection gained top priority in socioeconomic and political programs. The creation of a new direction in bio-policy is due to ecological social movements which already have several positive actions to their credit. Protection of the environment and resources indirectly protects human beings, but this is not enough.
The time has come for the creation of a special type of Red Data Book for humans. Many irreparable losses will be listed there such as: the disappearance of culture; material and spiritual values; good relations between people and the world; environmental styles of thinking; and ethical and aesthetic tastes.
There have been losses in human populations and disappearances of whole nations. The number of people not reaching maturity is enormous. Many potential human talents have neither been detected nor given the possibility to grow. To this day, the treasure of human personality has been spent too wastefully. On the threshold of the twenty-first century, wars continue, and the price of human life is very low.
Protection of the human physical and socio-cultural condition is necessary for survival on Earth. A person’s principal right is to live. Even though we call ourselves a civilized society, we recognize that this right is not determined solely by the individual. It is governed by social structures usually without the consent of the person. Violence has become not only a way of suppression, but also a freedom for self-development. This estranged world view has been created by humans. It deforms the human being and hence the bio-environment. The result is the acceleration of destructive processes in both ecology and humanity.
Intelligence is determined through what human beings give and take from life; more simply put, creator and consumer. Modern society is the creation of a socio-cultural environment which interacts in a contradictory fashion with the natural environment. There is a lack of this union and integrity not only in life, but also in the knowledge of humanity. The connection of natural and socio-cultural parts of a person is progressively broken. Human ecology presupposes the integrity of this environment as a condition for a healthy, harmonious and intellectual way of life. It cannot be reduced to only `survival level’ investigations, but should be studied by a combination of disciplines. This complex method consists of the union of natural and social science.
People exist not only in natural, but also in technical, socio-cultural and spiritual environments. Directions and tempos in development and consistency of these environments are contradictory for society. Environmentally destructive industry and technology is the result.
The transformation of the natural and social environment, helped by modern technical facilities, has become a destructive process. It is becoming clearer that such forces appear to suppress those of creation. Such instances are related both to the external nature and internal characteristics of society. The result is the phenomenon of a disorganized or disharmonious personality.
Contrary to statements of great philosophers, the increase in the intelligent force of the noosphere (Teilhard de Chardin, Vernadsky) does not lead to decrease in the irrational environment. Deciphering nature illustrates society’s dependence on it and explains why miracles of twentieth century technology do not reduce such a deficit. For example, victory over a disease causes the origin of a new one. Such contradictions can be seen in each aspect of human life.
Are humans helpless against these contradictions? How can people influence the resulting contradictions with minimum losses to bios? The solution depends on the development of human knowledge, the potential of natural sciences and humanities to integrate the results, and to practically use them. It is important to integrate bio-policy with social and cultural policy, to recapture not only “the `ecology’ of the human body, but also of the spirit.”
There are two negative vectors in ecological interactions:
- destructive processes taking place in the natural environment influence the social being, culture, and the moral or spiritual outlook of people. A deficit in natural resources revives the `aggression for survival’ for both nations and individuals. It leads to making society `wilder’ through an escalation of violence. Primal instincts of hostility, hatred, cruelty, envy and aggression are overcoming the weak cultural barriers of ethical, aesthetic and judicial norms. There are many examples of society’s moral wildness in wars for raw materials, vital resources, and geopolitical space;
- the processes of cultural disorientation influence human interaction with the bio-environment. A deficit of morality and spirituality combined with a popular psychology of nihilism and cynicism, have led to the destruction of the human spirit and the bio-environment. The feeling of enjoyment from understanding the relationship between bios and society is hence degraded. Following this degradation of nature caused by humans with technocratic attitudes, can these ill-effects be reversed?
There are many different cultural organizations and funds in the world preserving the results of human creativity. They perform a great and useful task. Unfortunately they tend to defend the material part of cultural ecology – monuments, libraries, museums, etc. These results of human activity on Earth are quickly destroyed by natural processes: untended agricultural fields become overgrown; towns and temples crumble; libraries and picture galleries are reduced to rubble. In other words, without maintenance they become a cemetery of the spirit.
Only people can create cultural processes and cultural space around them. Therefore, the new bio-culture should be created by a person of developed soul. This gentler person could appreciate nature not only as a condition of organic life, but as an interdependent resource for humanity. Ecological knowledge is a necessary condition for such personal culture. Only then would it be possible not only to value profit, but to understand the beauty of the world.
In our country, there is a degree of such experience, both positive and negative. Unfortunately, change is mostly directed at the external environment rather than internal, individual personality. For example, less than 20 per cent of education focuses on knowledge about human nature and physical and psychological health. Most schools have no fine arts education. This results in a disharmony of rational and emotional cultures, and a discrepancy of conceptual and imaginative thinking. In effect, a generation of `broken consciousness’ and increase of neurological and psychological illnesses occurs. This lack in education has led to destructive processes which have now become threatening. Women and children are suffering most.
Women in our country are subject to space accelerations from an inequality with men. I will mention only a few problems:
- uncontrolled pollution of the bio-environment and its impact on foodstuffs, the non-predictable use of low-quality domestic chemicals, medicine and other drugs negatively influence the metabolism of the present generation. Science does not know how it will affect future generations;
- saturation of the organism with chemicals leads to an increase in allergical and adaptational illnesses, weakening of immunity. What would be the consequences of a mutation of the internal biochemical environment of a woman’s organism for the genetic health of a nation?
- the escalation of the rate of crime, female alcoholism, aggression and prostitution acquire frightening dimensions. The medical and biological data on the physical, psychological, and moral conditions of women are staggering in our country. The fate of today’s young women provides a special confirmation of this condition.
The above-mentioned processes are supplemented by destructive tendencies in the socio-cultural beliefs. Up to the present moment, the industrial network was designed without sufficient attention to the properties of the human organism, particularly the female one. The principle of forced adaptation to the present forms of technological systems has been the main focus. Modern technology is increasingly in contradiction with the workings of the human organism. The consequences of intensification in the rates and rhythms of industrial activities are destructive. In addition, standards for a more conscientious scientific technology and its control have not been developed.
All these factors adversely influence a woman’s organism. For example, in our country, every third pregnancy leads to either an arbitrary abortion or a complicated childbirth, as well as the degeneration of children’s physical abilities and an increase in childhood disease and death. Of course, the solution is not to return to the natural state and reject the amenities provided by civilization, but to further the progress and international control on development, and to implement a more humanitarian examination of science and technology.
Can this wheel of violence be overcome? Can there be the creation of non-violent civilizations with harmonious relations between nature and people? Is the only alternative the self-destruction of humanity? In practice, one should consider the price for social progress and comfort of being. Activation of social resolutions; integration of natural science and humanitarian intelligence for defending the human treasure; analysis of the cost of life; protection of creative forces and possibilities; should be the main focus of society.
The phenomenon of personal disorganization on the biological, social and cultural levels is spreading at an alarming rate. As a consequence, the ethical structure of society leads to an increase of violence related with the bio-environment. Hence, steps toward a non-violent community must start with the integration of bio- and socio-cultural policies.
Professor Ludmilla P. Bueva is teaching philosophical and socio-cultural anthropology at the Philosophy Department of the Moscow State University, the Cultural Institute and the Pedagogical University. She is a Member and secretary of subdivision of the Russian Academy of Sciences; Head of subdivision of the Institute of Philosophy.
