ABSTRACT
The scope of this chapter is to reflect on the meaning of issues that are seen to be related to engaging conservation in society. This reflection necessarily makes reference to modernity as it has developed from the eighteenth century. There are many advantages with life in our contemporary world, but there are also some malaises. The Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor (1991) has identified these under three headings. The first is individualism: while in the traditional world the community was given collective purpose by inherited rules or traditions, the modern man has wanted to liberate himself from such rules, taking individual responsibility for his creative capacity. This has resulted in what Taylor calls disenchantment – that is, secularisation (see also Gauchet 1985). Disenchantment is connected to another malaise, the primacy of instrumental reason. Taylor writes: ‘By “instrumental reason” I mean the kind of rationality we draw on when we calculate the most economical application of means to a given end. Maximum efficiency, the best cost-output ratio, is its measure of success’ (1991: 5). This implies the political dimension of the malaises of modernity. The institutions and structures of industrial-technological society tend to severely restrict the choices of individuals, which can result in highly destructive actions. In order to address such malaises, there is need for an institutional reorientation, which also means a need for renewed attention to community.
