Philosophies of Environmental Education and Democracy DOI: 10.1057/9781137484215.0001 The Cultural and Social Foundations of Education Series Editor:A. G. Rud, Distinguished Professor in the College of Education of Washington State University, USA. The Palgrave Pivot series on the Cultural and Social Foundations of Education seeks to understand educational practices around the world through the interpretive lenses provided by the disciplines of philosophy, history, sociology, politics, and cultural studies. This series focuses on the following major themes: democracy and social justice, ethics, sustainability education, technology, and the imagination. It publishes the best current thinking on those topics, as well as reconsideration of historical figures and major thinkers in education. Titles include: Craig A. Cunningham SYSTEMSTHEORY FOR PRAGMAAATIC SCHOOLING TTToward Principles of Democratic Education Aaron Stoller KNOWING ANDLEARNING AS CREAAATIVE ACTION AReexamination of the Epistemological Foundations of Education Sue EllenHenry CHILDREN’S BODIESIN SCHOOLS Corporeal Performances of Social Class Clarence W. Joldersma ALEVINASIANETHICS FORR EDUCAAATION’S COMMONPLACES Between Calling and Inspiration Joseph Watras PHILOSOPHIESOF ENVIRONMENTTTAL EDUCAAATION AND DEMOCRACY Harris, Dewey, and Bateson on Human Freedoms inNature DOI: 10.1057/9781137484215.0001 Philosophies of Environmental Education and Democracy: Harris, Dewey, and Bateson on Human Freedoms in Nature Joseph Watras Professor, University of Dayton, USA DOI: 10.1057/9781137484215.0001 philosophies of environmental education and democracy Copyright © Joseph Watras, 2015. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2015 978-1-137-48420-8 All rights reserved. First published in2015 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fift h Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN: 978–1–137–48421–5 PDF ISBN:978-1-349-56871-0 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the Library of Congress. A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. First edition: 2015 www.palgrave.com/pivot DOI: 10.1057/9781137484215 Contents Introduction 1 1 Defining the Task 5 2 Developing Freedom within Social Institutions: William Torrey Harris and the St. Louis Hegelians 27 3 Pragmatism and Ecological Conservation: The Ideas of John Dewey 48 4 Science, Imagination, and the Environmental Movement: Gregory Bateson’s Views 69 Where Do We Go from Here? 90 Index 100 DOI: 10.1057/9781137484215.0001 v Introduction Abstract: An important step toward preserving the natural world is for people to adopt an ethical framework that facilitates such an effort. This is the view of this book. The problems seem to stem from difficulties Alexis de Tocqueville observed about American democracy. He warned that attitudes of materialism, individualism, and conformity could destroy the values people sought, and they encouraged people to abuse the environment. Three philosophers of education, William Torrey Harris, John Dewey, and Gregory Bateson, suggested ways to construct a set of ethics that would offset those flaws. Keywords:democracy; ecology; environmental education Watras, Joseph.Philosophies of Environmental Education and Democracy: Harris, Dewey, and Bateson on Human Freedoms in Nature. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. doi: 10.1057/9781137484215.0002. DOI: 10.1057/9781137484215.0002   Philosophies of Environmental Education and Democracy This book offers a unique approach to a serious problem. The problem is environmental destruction. The approach is unique because the book does not recommend any specific actions such as the reduction of the population, the initiation of a public campaign to end capitalism, or the return to sustainable practices of indigenous peoples. Instead, the book contends that the problems of environmental destruction derive from misunderstandings in the popular views of democracy. Accordingly, the way to environmental protection lies in correcting those misconceptions. Although the suggestions to improve the ideal of democracy are not new, the uniqueness of the book is in the idea that advancing democratic ideas may serve the cause of environmental protection as well. The book is based on the arguments that Gordon G. Whitney advanced in his book From Coastal Wilderness to Fruited Plain. According to Whitney, the environmental situation is not desperate even though it is serious.North America has not lost all its natural resources although human economic activity had destroyed several ecosystems. Fortunately, careful management revived some species of plants and animals. For Whitney, the important element is whether people can manage the ecosystem in ways that work within limits of what the land can allow. This is essential, he argued, because America does not have unlimited supplies of water, soil, plants, animals, or minerals.Fortunately, envi- ronmental protection is not difficult. Whitney claimed that the actions are simple. The important element that requires the most effort is a change in thinking. According to Whitney, if Americans are to protect their environment, they must adopt an ethical framework that advances environmentally sensitive ways of living and working.1 This book suggests that such a framework need not be new or foreign to Americans. It looks at three intellectuals who developed ideas that Americans could have about the nature of a good education and appropriate human relations. These philosophers established ways of thinking that fit within the patterns of American democracy. For this reason, they offered perspectives that served as alternatives appropriate to the American culture. Although they encouraged people to change their conceptions about their relation to the environment, they did so by introducing ways of thinking that would have many beneficial effects. During the period following the U.S. Civil War, the country grew and cities built school systems. William TTTorrey Harris offered a curriculum that showed students how social restraints could enhance everyone’s freedoms. He arranged JohnLocke’s theory of private property to require owners to use the things they control in socially beneficial ways. During DOI: 10.1057/9781137484215.0002 Introduction  the ProgressiveMovement, John Dewey followedHarris in rejecting dual- isms that separated individuals from society, and he went beyondHarris to claim that the pursuit of material rewards for labor cheapened the value of work and led to environmental destruction. With the advent of post- modernism, Gregory Bateson expanded Harris’s concern for society to suggest that all things on earth were related and schools should show how efforts to shape the environment to fit human desires would lead to the destruction of the environment and of the people who depended on it. As the second chapter will show, many scholars consider the concerns for environmental protection to be a new political consciousness. The conservation movement as a political effort gathered force during the presidential administration of Theodore Roosevelt; however, some scholars argue that the belief did not arise until the 1970s that any drastic change in the ecological system was wrong or harmful. While those scholars may be correct, this book will contend that the foundation for an ethical stance in favor of preserving the ecology began in the United States much earlier. This is because the problems of environmental destruction derived from the difficulties that Alexis deTTTocqueville found in the ways Americans interpreted the ideal of democracy. At least, this is the point of view the book takes. In the 1830s,TTTocqueville noticed that Americans had three tendencies that turned them away from the ethical orientations that democracy made possible. Since democracy implied rule by the people, it offered the chances for people to form communities in which they shared in the good things of life. Unfortunately, the drive for materialism, the appearance of a new form of individualism, and the tendency toward conformity threatened the possibility of democracy remaining true to its promise. This book will argue that those same tendencies led Americans to act badly towardNative Americans and to abuse the environment. At the same time, though, this book will discuss the ideas of Harris, Dewey, and Bateson specifically because they offered ways to offset the difficulties of materialism, individualism, and conformity. There were other writers or scholars who did the same. In fact, some of the figures in this book looked to these other scholars for inspiration. For example, Dewey acknowledged a debt to Emerson in an essay he wrote in 1903.2 Harris, Dewey, and Bateson serve as important figures for this book, in part, because they blended their understandings of the dangers of American versions of democracy with suggestions of how schools could improve people’s ways of thinking. Furthermore, their ideas fit together DOI: 10.1057/9781137484215.0002