ABSTRACT
Countering the usual human-centered notion of a powerful human rationality that is objective and separate from the body or from “nature,” Gregory Bateson refers to an “ecology of mind” to explain the human relationship to other living systems as a living, communicating, and generative whole, all set within a limited Earthly context. Cultural ways of knowing and the associated relationships in a culture are encoded by the particular symbolic systems, the language and communication patterns among the people. Many linguists, anthropologists, sociologists, and philosophers study language systems as they form the basis of cultural ways of knowing. In fact, when viewed from the perspective of the consequences of hierarchized and dualistic modes of thinking, it is important to see both capitalism and its antithesis, socialism, as products of the culture of modernity. Likewise, because the culture of modernity underlies the ecological crisis, an effective response to the crisis must go beyond conventional environmentalism.
