ABSTRACT
The connection to nature was severed and humankind's outlook on life became increasingly "anthropocentric". Before the ascendancy of the worldview in the seventeenth century, there was much greater attention paid to the role of nature in political, economic, and educational deliberation. Smithian economic theory led to the most far-reaching social changes. Individuals were unencumbered by the welfare of the community. Community, increasingly, played no economic role; it had no political power outside of its own borders; and it ceased to play any role in the curriculum and instruction afforded its youth. For centuries, the avoidance of risk was an expression of allegiance to one's neighbors or one's community. It is important to show how intradependence, cyclic time, and the avoidance of risk have gradually been diminished in the face of modern liberal ideas about what life is, what it's about, what makes it worth living, and so on.
