See No Evil, Speak No Reason

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Our sources have become less trustworthy. Once our parents, elders, teachers, neighbors, and others we spent time with helped form our beliefs. In the past half-century we've shifted to surrogate sources: TV parents, often depicted as amiable fools or foils for the dominant youth culture; inspirational televangelists; morally outraged radio ideologues; and charismatic authors of best-selling "success" books.

Stressed out by unprecedented levels of environmental and social destabilization, we often react by fleeing--not just physically, but emotionally and cognitively. We entertain ourselves in artificial environments--stadiums, auditoriums, the interiors of cars--instead of canyons, vales, and dells. Perhaps because we're constantly cut off from the world, we no longer have strong expectations. Systemic misuses of technology make disconnection worse; automated toys and games provide the propulsion, conflict, and imagery once provided by children's arms, legs, and imaginations.

What to do? Most analysts approach this question in terms of policy. But policy has to reflect prevailing consciousness--beliefs, attitudes, values. So, just as pollution is more effectively attacked at the source, we must attack attitudes at their sources--in the education of kids by parents and schools, in university curricula, in media accountability. Today's average upper-middle-class college grads know much about entertainment and technology but have a medieval understanding of the world that won't get us through the next century.

Here are a few of steps we can take:

o We can bring up kids in contact with the physical world: not just take them to parks and zoos, but let them interact with the woods and its wild denizens.

o Instead of teaching "subjects" (history, math, English), we can teach principles of learning that bring meaning to subjects that too often seem meaningless.

o We need to understand the sources of our information and beliefs. We should do reality checks on mediated ideas and find ways to prevent private hands from controlling public beliefs. Ultimately, this requires a clear separation between science and education funding and the largesse of industry.

o We must reconnect with the geography of bioregions and climate zones. For many of us, this means taking a hard look at the ground under our feet for the first time. And it will mean asking new questions--about where to live, how to live, and what kind of work to do. It will also mean understanding--once we can see the big picture--that what is good for us as individuals does not conflict with what's good for other people, both locally and globally.

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