Gregory Bateson, March 1970, in testimony on behalf of the University of Hawaii Committee of Ecology and Man. Excerpted from ‘The Roots of Ecological Crisis’ “(3) That all of the many current threats to man’s survival are traceable to three root causes: technological progress population increase certain errors in the thinking and attitudes of Occidental culture. Our “values” are wrong. We believe that all three of these fundamental factors are necessary conditions for the destruction of our world. In other words, we optimistically believe that the correction of any one of them would save us. (4) That these fundamental factors certainly interact. The increase of population spurs technological progress and creates that anxiety which sets us against our environment as an enemy; while technology both facilitates increase of population and reinforces our arrogance, or “hubris,” vis-à-vis the natural environment.” •• “(8) That the ideas which dominate our civilization at the present time date in their most virulent form from the Industrial Revolution. They may be summarized as: (a)It’s us against the environment. (b)It’s us against other men. (c)It’s the individual (or the individual company, or the individual nation) that matters. (d)We can have unilateral control over the environment and must strive for that control. (e)We live within an infinitely expanding “frontier.” (f)Economic determinism is common sense. (g)Technology will do it for us. We submit that these ideas are simply proved false by the great but ultimately destructive achievements of our technology in the last 150 years. Likewise they appear to be false under modern ecological theory. The creature that wins against its environment destroys itself.”

Gregory Bateson, March 1970, in testimony on behalf of the University of Hawaii Committee of Ecology and Man.

Excerpted from ‘The Roots of Ecological Crisis’

“(3) That all of the many current threats to man’s survival are traceable to three root causes:

technological progress
population increase
certain errors in the thinking and attitudes of Occidental culture.

Our “values” are wrong.

We believe that all three of these fundamental factors are necessary conditions for the destruction of our world. In other words, we optimistically believe that the correction of any one of them would save us.

(4) That these fundamental factors certainly interact. The increase of population spurs technological progress and creates that anxiety which sets us against our environment as an enemy; while technology both facilitates increase of population and reinforces our arrogance, or “hubris,” vis-à-vis the natural environment.”

••

“(8) That the ideas which dominate our civilization at the present time date in their most virulent form from the Industrial Revolution. They may be summarized as:

(a)It’s us against the environment.
(b)It’s us against other men.
(c)It’s the individual (or the individual company, or the individual nation) that matters.
(d)We can have unilateral control over the environment and must strive for that control.
(e)We live within an infinitely expanding “frontier.”
(f)Economic determinism is common sense.
(g)Technology will do it for us.

We submit that these ideas are simply proved false by the great but ultimately destructive achievements of our technology in the last 150 years. Likewise they appear to be false under modern ecological theory. The creature that wins against its environment destroys itself.”