Towards an Understanding of the Significance of “The Dreamtime” to Aboriginal People

1984 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 50-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
E.A. O’Keefe
Keyword(s):  
Social Organization ◽  
Life Style ◽  
Aboriginal People ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Entire Life ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Aboriginal Culture

To traditional Aborigines their whole concept of life, whether it is physical or spiritual survival, is centred on their belief in the Dreamtime. The Dreamtime was the period of creation when the Aborigines’ life-style was planned and the Aborigines’ entire life centred on the need to live in the style prescribed by the mythical Dreamtime ancestors.An understanding of the Dreamtime is essential to an understanding of traditional Aboriginal culture. Stanner (1979, 23–40) describes the Dreaming as pervading every aspect of life from social organization to food gathering. Not only is it the period of creation when the mythical ancestors roamed the earth, but it is also the life spirit which ties man, society and nature, both past and present, to the living now.R.M. Berndt (1980) describes the dreaming thus:The Dreaming therefore constituted a particular view of life, of the place of human beings within a preordained scheme or patterning symbolising a three-sided relationship between mythic beings, nature and people. Each was dependent on the others. People were part of nature, part of particular mythic beings, in social and personal terms.(Berndt, 1980, 14–15)Not only did traditional Aborigines believe in the Dreaming, they lived it. It is the Dreaming which provides the blueprint for life.Central to the belief in the Dreaming is the belief in the mythical beings. These beings were part human and part animal. They roamed the earth in the Dreamtime using super-human powers to create all natural features.

STUDY OF ENVIRONMENTAL AWARENESS AMONG SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN RELATION TO THEIR GENDER AND ACADEMIC STREAM

2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 262-265
Author(s):  
Dr.Navdeep Kaur
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Education ◽  
Natural Resources ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Environmental Awareness ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
School Students ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Stages Of Learning ◽  
The Masses

Since its evolution environment has remained both a matter of awe and concern to man. The frontier attitude of the industrialized society towards nature has not only endangered the survival of all other life forms but also threatened the very existence of human life. The realization of such potential danger has necessitated the dissemination of knowledge and skill vis-a-vis environment protection at all stages of learning. Therefore, learners of all stages of learning need to be sensitized with a missionary zeal. This may ensure transformation of students into committed citizens for averting global environment crisis. The advancement of science and technology made the life more and more relaxed and man also became more and more ambitious. With such development, human dependence on environment increased. He consumed more resources and the effect of his activities on the environment became more and more detectable. Environment covers all the things present around the living beings and above the land, on the surface of the earth and under the earth. Environment indicates, in total, all of peripheral forces, pressures and circumstances, which affect the life, nature, behaviour, growth, development and maturation of living beings. Irrational exploitation (not utilization) of natural resources for our greed (not need) has endangered our survival, and incurred incalculable harm. Environmental Education is a science, a well-thought, permanent, lasting and integrated process of equipping learning experiences for getting awareness, knowledge, understanding, skills, values, technical expertise and involvement of learners with desirable attitudinal changes about their relationship with their natural and biophysical environment. Environmental Education is an organized effort to educate the masses about environment, its functions, need, importance, and especially how human beings can manage their behaviour in order to live in a sustainable manner.  The term 'environmental awareness' refers to creating general awareness of environmental issues, their causes by bringing about changes in perception, attitude, values and necessary skills to solve environment related problems. Moreover, it is the first step leading to the formation of responsible environmental behaviour (Stern, 2000). With the ever increasing development by modern man, large scale degradation of natural resources have been occurred, the public has to be educated about the fact that if we are degrading our environment we are actually harming ourselves. To encourage meaningful public participation and environment, it is necessary to create awareness about environment pollution and related adverse effects. This is the crucial time that environmental awareness and environmental sensitivity should be cultivated among the masses particularly among youths. For the awareness of society it is essential to work at a gross root level. So the whole society can work to save the environment.

Religion in the Age of the Anthropocene

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arianne F. Conty
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Climate Change ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Risks And Benefits ◽  
Human Exceptionalism ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Contemporary Christian ◽  
Genesis 1 ◽  
Forms Of Life

Though responses to the Anthropocene have largely come from the natural and social sciences, religious responses to the Anthropocene have also been gaining momentum and many scholars have been calling for a religious response to complement scientific responses to climate change. Yet because Genesis 1:28 does indeed tell human beings to ‘subdue the earth’ monotheistic religions have often been understood as complicit in the human exceptionalism that is thought to have created the conditions for the Anthropocene. In distinction to such Biblical traditions, indigenous animistic cultures have typically respected all forms of life as ‘persons’ and such traditions have thus become a source of inspiration for ecological movements. After discussing contemporary Christian efforts to integrate the natural sciences and the environment into their responses to the Anthropocene, this article will turn to animism and seek to evaluate the risks and benefits that could ensue from a postmodern form of animism that could provide a necessary postsecular response to the Anthropocene.

Living within Limits

1993 ◽  
Author(s):  
Garrett Hardin
Keyword(s):  
Population Control ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Population Problem ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Commons ◽  
Garrett Hardin ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Free Flow Of Information ◽  
Flow Of Information ◽  
Original Thinker

We fail to mandate economic sanity, writes Garrett Hardin, "because our brains are addled by...compassion." With such startling assertions, Hardin has cut a swathe through the field of ecology for decades, winning a reputation as a fearless and original thinker. A prominent biologist, ecological philosopher, and keen student of human population control, Hardin now offers the finest summation of his work to date, with an eloquent argument for accepting the limits of the earth's resources--and the hard choices we must make to live within them. In Living Within Limits, Hardin focuses on the neglected problem of overpopulation, making a forceful case for dramatically changing the way we live in and manage our world. Our world itself, he writes, is in the dilemma of the lifeboat: it can only hold a certain number of people before it sinks--not everyone can be saved. The old idea of progress and limitless growth misses the point that the earth (and each part of it) has a limited carrying capacity; sentimentality should not cloud our ability to take necessary steps to limit population. But Hardin refutes the notion that goodwill and voluntary restraints will be enough. Instead, nations where population is growing must suffer the consequences alone. Too often, he writes, we operate on the faulty principle of shared costs matched with private profits. In Hardin's famous essay, "The Tragedy of the Commons," he showed how a village common pasture suffers from overgrazing because each villager puts as many cattle on it as possible--since the costs of grazing are shared by everyone, but the profits go to the individual. The metaphor applies to global ecology, he argues, making a powerful case for closed borders and an end to immigration from poor nations to rich ones. "The production of human beings is the result of very localized human actions; corrective action must be local....Globalizing the 'population problem' would only ensure that it would never be solved." Hardin does not shrink from the startling implications of his argument, as he criticizes the shipment of food to overpopulated regions and asserts that coercion in population control is inevitable. But he also proposes a free flow of information across boundaries, to allow each state to help itself. "The time-honored practice of pollute and move on is no longer acceptable," Hardin tells us. We now fill the globe, and we have no where else to go. In this powerful book, one of our leading ecological philosophers points out the hard choices we must make--and the solutions we have been afraid to consider.

Thinking technology for the Anthropocene: encountering 3D printing through the philosophy of Gilbert Simondon

2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 539-554 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Roberts
Keyword(s):  
3D Printing ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Anthropogenic Change ◽  
Technological Processes ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Social ◽  
Human Thinking ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Gilbert Simondon ◽  
Do So

The notion that the Earth has entered a new epoch characterized by the ubiquity of anthropogenic change presents the social sciences with something of a paradox, namely, that the point at which we recognize our species to be a geologic force is also the moment where our assumed metaphysical privilege becomes untenable. Cultural geography continues to navigate this paradox in conceptually innovative ways through its engagements with materialist philosophies, more-than-human thinking and experimental modes of ontological enquiry. Drawing upon the philosophy of Gilbert Simondon, this article contributes to these timely debates by articulating the paradox of the Anthropocene in relation to technological processes. Simondon’s philosophy precedes the identification of the Anthropocene epoch by a number of decades, yet his insistence upon situating technology within an immanent field of material processes resonates with contemporary geographical concerns in a number of important ways. More specifically, Simondon’s conceptual vocabulary provides a means of framing our entanglements with technological processes without assuming a metaphysical distinction between human beings and the forces of nature. In this article, I show how Simondon’s concepts of individuation and transduction intersect with this technological problematic through his far-reaching critique of the ‘hylomorphic’ distinction between matter and form. Inspired by Simondon’s original account of the genesis of a clay brick, the article unfolds these conceptual challenges through two contrasting empirical encounters with 3D printing technologies. In doing so, my intention is to lend an affective consistency to Simondon’s problematic, and to do so in a way that captures the kinds of material mutations expressive of a particular technological moment.

The lens of firstness: Shamanic/Aboriginal culture as cosmos-sign

Semiotica ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 (221) ◽  
pp. 143-173
Author(s):  
Steven Bonta
Keyword(s):  
Social Organization ◽  
New World ◽  
Indian Subcontinent ◽  
Australian Aboriginal ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Aboriginal Culture

AbstractHaving identified previously (Bonta 2015) the Peircean Category Firstness as the semiotic basis (or cultural Prime Symbol) for Australian Aboriginal culture, this paper examines the “lens” of Firstness as it is manifest in a variety of aboriginal (or “Shamanic”) cultures worldwide. By studying the semiotic contours of religion, language, social organization, and art, we find systemic prioritization of Firstness in its various manifestations, across a wide range of aboriginal cultures from Australia to the Indian Subcontinent to aboriginal Siberia and the New World. Shamanic culture, despite its ethnic and geographic variety, may therefore be represented as a semiotic type – and, in addition, one that, in its pristine form, is nearly extinct.

IN-FLIGHT EXPOSURE TO COSMIC RADIATION ALONG SOME COMMERCIAL AIRLINE ROUTES TO AND FROM NIGERIA

2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-69
Author(s):  
O O ALATISE ◽  
A A ADEPOJU
Keyword(s):  
Effective Dose ◽  
Radiation Protection ◽  
Cosmic Radiation ◽  
Ground Level ◽  
Radiation Doses ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Commercial Airline ◽  
Additional Level ◽  
Airline Crews

The study of “external” radiation called cosmic radiation that strikes the earth from anywhere beyond the atmosphere is of great importance in radiation protection. All human beings are exposed to an uncontrollable amount of cosmic radiation on the ground level. Those who travel in space, airline crews and frequent flyers are exposed to additional level of cosmic radiation during their trip but unfor-tunately many of them are not aware of this. This workcalculates the exposure of aircrews and fre-quent flyers to cosmic radiation during travel along some air routes to and from Nigeria. The effective dose was computed using a dedicated software CARI 6M, developed by US FAA.The study focuses on the significance of the in-flight exposure, assessment and estimation of in-flight exposure using the dedicated software and some ways of controlling the exposures so that airline crews and frequent flyers are not exposed to fatal levels of radiation.It was observed that the cosmic radiation doses re-ceived by passengers and crew members on board on flights from Lagos Nigeria to countries in Amer-ica were more than what they received en-route countries in Asia.

scholarly journals Promoting Education for Sustainable Development: Roles of Teacher

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 21-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pramila Bakhati
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Natural Resources ◽  
Training And Development ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Problematic Situation ◽  
The Real ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Practical Life ◽  
Roles Of Teacher ◽  
Growing Population

Human beings are considered as the most intellectual living beings in this Universe because they are able to cope with all the natural resources for their personal needs and preserving the things as well. Due to the growing population and immense using of resources, the things which we get from the nature are being destroyed by using in improper way. Our common home: the Earth is now in crisis as a result of limited awareness, egotism and understanding about the real values of nature and natural resources. In this problematic situation, Sustainable Development (SD) is emerged as a window of hope and later Education for Sustainable Developed (ESD) is appeared to promote the SD. However, if the knowledge is not transformed into behavior and practical life, the knowledge will be nothing or the meaningless.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/jtd.v1i0.13086 Journal of Training and Development Vol.1 2015: 21-26

scholarly journals The Royal Institution in Ancient Iran

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (10) ◽  
pp. 71
Author(s):  
Jafar Aghazadeh ◽  
Hasan Mohammadi
Keyword(s):  
Analytical Method ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Main Obstacle ◽  
Ordinary Life ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Royal Institution ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Right

<p>In the thoughts and beliefs of Iranians, kingdom has had a history of the creation of human beings on the earth. Accordingly, Iranians believe that the first creature and human being on the earth was the first king of Iran. Iranians connects the history of their mythical royal dynasties to the creation of humanity. For Iranians, the mythical kings of Iran are the creators of the royal institution and the functions and duties of the royal institution have been established, developed and transferred to next generations by the measures of these kings. The objective of the present study is to investigate the establishment of the royal institution and the development of royal institution in ancient Iran by a descriptive-analytical method. The findings indicate that Iranians had specific sacredness for their kings and called the first creature of Ahura Mazda as the King. In addition, they believed that kings should perform particular tasks whose formation was attributed to the mythical kings of Iran. Further, they believed that only those persons had the right of being a king who were from the race of kings and were approved by Ahura Mazda. to examine Lessing’s elucidation of authentic knowledge in <em>Shikasta</em>. The methodology appropriated in the paper entails depiction of visible world as an illusion of the Real pointed in Plato’s allegory of Cave and Nagarjuna’s Mundane Truth. We clarify emotion as the main motivator of such illusionary status stressed in both Plato and Nagarjuna’s thoughts. We argue that while the importance of reason and eradicating emotion cannot be ignored, what adjoins people to Truth is mindfulness and intuitive knowledge which is close to Nagarjuna’s non-dual patterns. By examining ordinary life as the illusion of Real, and emotion as the main obstacle to achieve the Truth emphasized in both Nagarjuna and Plato’s trends, we depart from other critics who undermine the eminence of essentialist trace in Lessing’s works and examine her approach towards Truth merely under postmodern lens. This departure is significant since we clarify while essentialism has been abandoned to a large extent and supporters of Plato have become scarce, amalgamation of his thoughts with spiritual trends opens a fresh way to earn authenticity in Lessing’s novel. </p><p> </p>

scholarly journals Estuaries, Human Beings, and the Future

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven D. Culberson
Keyword(s):  
Fresh Water ◽  
Human Activities ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Streams And Rivers ◽  
Salty Water ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Future

Estuaries are places on the earth where rivers meet oceans. When rain and snowmelt drain off the land, the fresh water collects in streams and rivers and eventually makes its way to the ocean. At the same time, the ocean has tides that push salty water upstream into the rivers. This place, where rivers and oceans mix, is called an estuary. Estuaries contain many kinds of habitats that are home to plants and animals. Many people work and live in estuaries. In this article, I describe what makes estuaries interesting and important to plants, animals, and people. I also explain how these important areas are under threat from certain human activities.

scholarly journals Plant Life and More-than-human Agency in Zainab Amadahy’s Resistance

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 79-91
Author(s):  
Paula Wieczorek
Keyword(s):  
Human Agency ◽  
Speculative Fiction ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Bruno Latour ◽  
Donna Haraway ◽  
Cultural Violence ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Plant Life ◽  
As If

For centuries humans have acted as if the environment was passive and as if the agency was related only to human beings. Both Indigenous and non-Indigenous writers, scholars, and artists express the need to narrate tales about the multitudes of the living earth, which can help perceive the Earth as vibrant and living. The following paper discusses Black/Cherokee Zainab Amadahy’s speculative fiction novel 2013 Resistance as an example of a story resisting the claim about human beings as the ultimate species. The paper initially scrutinizes the phenomena of “plant blindness” and then explores how Zainab Amadahy illustrates plant life in her book. Unlike in traditional literary depictions of botany, the writer presents tobacco as an active and responsive agent that influences the characters, which, consequently, opposes anthropocentrism. The article also addresses the cultural violence and disregard that has dominated the Western perception of animistic cultures and expresses the need to rethink the theory of animism. This paper draws from posthumanist writings by scholars including Donna Haraway, Bruno Latour, Jane Bennett, and Stacy Alaimo. It also refers to some of the most influential contributions to critical plant studies made by Indigenous thinkers such as Robin Wall Kimmerer’ s Braiding Sweetgrass (2013).

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