BIOREGIONAL SURVEYING

Does myth truly define something false? Myths can be a means of conceptualising the origins of things with a symbolic understanding of it. For instance, in view of Darwin’s evolutionary theory being firmly allied to natural selection, Edelman shows that each individual is distinct but that the somatic body has a global mapping system that allows for the evolutionary development of conceptualisation. This is done via the brain categorising its own activities by stimulating parts of past global mappings independent of current sensory input. (Edelman, 109) Maps are constituted by groups of neuronal activity and synaptic changes between them, occurring around a central triad of perceptual categorisation, memory and learning. (Ibid. 110) Thus it is possible to see how events can be categorised as “past” without their necessitating being played out in present brain activity. Myths then, rather than show falsity, project an underlying reality based upon general categorisation. The myth of ecological wisdom is the hedonic cobblling together of past real activities towards a basis for motor-sensory learning and recording. This is born out by the example of the Wola people of New Guinea, who have a small ecological footprint but an environmental protection that seems largely incidental. As Edelman states, “having concepts identifies a thing or an action, and on the basis of that identification controls its behaviour in a more or less general way... It must be able to connect one perceptual categorisation to another apparently unrelated one”. (Ibid., 108) In other words, Edelman substantiates the belief that ideology is not the defining characterisitics of an environmental ethos. This more fits Milton’s reference to Bird-David’s immediate return system. (Milton, 117)

That ideology is not (or ‘never’) the determining factor why some communities stay small (Ibid, 112) c.f. disease, infertillify, abortion and infanticide, or that subsistence farming and limited technology are predominant here, all this assumes that given an alternative environment they will still hold an environmnetal ethos. One may refer to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. If one’s basic physiological, safety, belonging and esteem needs could be met, through a process of self-actualisation only then is one taken outside of a tribal mentality and into a formalised ideology based upon environmental deteminism. It is an interesting point that successful hunter-gatherers may have an implicit environmental ethos. Here in the west it is my opinion that we have tended to mythologise the concept of environmentalism, coming outside of our satiated basic needs and seeing things from a dialectical point of view – everything has to be argued for the truth to be made apparent. In the case of Edelman, this may bolster his assertion that concepts are pre-linguistical. (Edelman, 108) Indigenous societies show rather a more coming-to-knowing. Self-actualisation is made manifest in their low-impact land relations. It is my continued opinion that the Western mind is still evolving in order to try and rationalise with the apparently satiated basic/deficit already met whilst staring in the face of self-induced environmental degradation.

To clarify another point, Australian Aborigines who see the environment, like Westerners, as less powerful than humans may be an assumption of human convention. They are still likely to see the balance of power lying in the environment. (Milton, 136) Its just that the Iranda-speaking people saw the failure of the land through the white man’s introduction. The loss of ritualistic observance was the means to this destruction but my point to you is that ritualistic observance is hardly met in the environmental movement, albeit only at its fringes – not at its centre. Thus I would not make comparison with the envrionment movement on these grounds. When considering this in relation to the myth of ‘primitive ecological wisdom’, one could throw the argument from the other side and question the myth of ‘modern, scientific determinism’.

Bibliography

Edelman, G. M. Bright Air, Brilliant Fire (Penguin Books, London 1992)
Milton, K. Environmentalism and Cultural Theory: Exploring the role of anthropology in environmental discourse (Routledge, London 1996)

Courses

Guerilla gardening
Backgarden permaculture
Spanish permaculture Cob building
Green wood Children's allotment Bioregional surveying
Habitat surveying

Volunteers