Ideology determines what we do to nature and how we justify what we do. What we do
to nature
affects our ideology. It is this two-way flow of ideas and between groups, technology, the media
and economics that lies behind the way we structure the environment socially.
The nature of 'human nature' is a crucial matter regarding the educational take up
of a social justice
agenda for economic development. There are two ways of looking at it;
- the deterministic viewpoint says
capitalist consumerism is a fundamental part of our biological
makeup that is expressed in our hierarchical greedy, selfish culture which drives us to
consume ever more resources;
- the cooperative viewpoint says that
mutual support, not mutual struggle has been the
behavioural driver of human ethical progress and can carry us onwards towards a culture of
inclusivity and sharing. There are no externally produced natural or social laws by which
individuals must be bound. Laws of nature are merely mental organising concepts by which we
have tried to ceate order out of seeming chaos. We therefore may choose how we will live and
treat nature and each other.
At the moment it is the deterministic viewpoint that lies behind the ideology of all
passive education
systems that stress individual development and their associated competitive examination
systems. To move from competition to cooperation as the main educational objective would require
a shift towards an active educational system where teaching and examination is centred on
cooperative involvement with real problems. Students would be expected to work together in
groups on joint projects that would be assessed jointly. The philosophy is that students are helped
to live and work in cooperative ways rather than making appeals for people to change via the
abstract study of ideas.
