Love It or Lose It: The Coming Biophilia Revolution

The University Colloquium Reader opens the excerpt from David Orr's Earth in Mind: On Education, Environment, and the Human Prospect titled "Love It or Lose It: The Coming Biophilia Revolution" by providing readers with definitions, questions, and brief examples as to what biophobia and biophilia are and the impact they have on our lives. 

"Biophobia, in short, is the culturally acquired urge to affiliate with technology, human artifacts, and solely with human interests regarding the natural world." (Orr, 187)

"Biophilia is innate and a sign of mental and physical health." (Orr, 187)

The Origins and Consequences of Biophobia

In this section, Orr outlines the dramatic changes of what we commonly call "modernization." (Orr, 189)

1. Discard the belief that the world was alive and deserved respect.
2. Necessary to distance ourselves from animals who were transformed into machines to use at our disposal.
3. Necessary to quite the sympathy we had for nature in order to favor data that could be measured, counted, and be made into profit.
4. Needed a reason to join power, cash, and knowledge to transform the world into useful means.
5. Required a philosophy of improvement and found the ideology of perpetual economic growth.
6. Required the sophisticated cultivation of dissatisfaction, which can be converted into mass consumption.

For the most part, I agree with Orr on these modernization changes. However, I feel that there are many more that could be added to this list and different reasons as to why they are a part of the drastic changes we have implemented on our environment

Biophilia

On page 197, Orr claims, "Beyond our physical survival, there is still more at risk. The same Faustian urges that drive the ecological crises also erode those qualities of heart and mind that constitute the essence of our humanity." Essentially, the ecological crisis that we are facing is about what it means to be human. I disagree with Orr's claim that the ecological crisis is solely about what it means to be human. I feel that the ecological crisis that we have aided in bringing about has more to it than just what it means to be human. It has much more of an impact than what we believe. Orr finishes this section by stating, "Whatever our feelings, however ingenious our philosophies, whatever innate gravity tugs at us, we must finally choose between life and death, between intimacy and isolation." (Orr, page 198) With this, I do agree and I think it is important that, as a society, we make the right decision as to how we steer our future because more than our lives depends on it. 

Biophilia: Eros to Agape

The Greeks identified three different kinds of love. Eros, meaning love of beauty; agape, sacrificial love which doesn't ask for anything in return; and philia, which is the love between friends. On page 199, Orr poses the question, "What, then, do we know about deeper sources of motivation, including ways in which eros is transformed into agape, and what does this reveal about biophilia?" 

1. The capacity for love begins early in life.
2. Biophilia requires easily accessible places where it might root and grow.
3. Biophilia needs the help and active participation of everyone. 
4. Love and biophilia flourish in good communities.
5. For biophilia to work, it must follow the same principles that love does (i.e., patient, kind, enduring, etc.)
6. Beyond some level of complexity, the possibility for love declines.
7. Love is an art with requires discipline and concentration, as well as patience through all phases.
8. For love to grow, transformation is necessary.

The answers Orr provided to the question posed on page 199 was very helpful, and I agree with each answer, in understanding the way eros transforms into agape both in love and in biophilia. 

The Biophilia Revolution

Orr claims that if we love our lives enough to save them then we must transform in two different ways. The first being an efficiency revolution in which we change how we utilize the materials the earth has given us and how quickly we utilize them. The second being a sufficiency revolution where we transform our ideas of what is actually necessary for us to survive. However, there are two barriers standing in our way. The first barrier is denial because we have not owned up to the magnitude of our detriment to this planet. The second barrier is imagination. In order to transform into a biophilic world, we must have a vision for doing so. On page 207, Orr claims that, "When we think of revolution, our first impulse is to think of some grand political, economic, or technological change; some way to fix quickly what ails us. What ails us, however, is closer to home, and I suggest that we begin there." I agree wholeheartedly with this statement. Many times we see people in power make grand claims about what they want to change, but rarely do we ever see results. Planning on a smaller level will, overtime, help to improve on a larger level.

• The Recovery of Childhood
• Recovering a Sense of Place
• Education and Biophilia
• A New Covenant with Animals
• The Economics of Biophilia
• Biophilia and Patriotism