Connections: Week Two

Connection: a link; an association; reference or relation to another. Connection is created or strengthened in every interaction between two things. Connection does not require awareness, let alone acquiescence. Connections are rarely neutral, but the nature-good or bad-of the connection is an opinion based greatly upon what role the judger plays in the relationship. Culture, instincts, habits, and behaviors are all created from and reliant upon connection.

Indigenous people and Western scientists seem to differ fundamentally in their regard for connection. Indigenous people’s awareness, acceptance, and respect for connection, measured against Western scientists’ ignorance, disregard, and often outright dismissal of connection, has created a stereotype portrayed endlessly in books, movies, and life around the world. As is often the case in the “might makes right” history of the world, Western views tend to predominate and at times overwhelm indigenous people’s views and beliefs.

Western views, both scientific and common, seem to view connection and control as synonymous. In every interaction, Western science seeks ultimately to control the objects, entities, and systems with which it is connecting. Western science seeks understanding of “how” and “why” as a means to exert influence and control. Indigenous people also seek to understand the “how” and “why” of the processes and things in their world. But native people seek understanding for an entirely different purpose: not to control, but to coexist. Rather than bending the world to their needs and wants, indigenous people use their understanding of the world to adapt themselves to their surroundings. This fundamental difference in purpose can be seen in the teaching methods of Western vs. native cultures. In Western cultures, we have “scientists”-people with fancy titles who work in “labs”-sterile locations far removed from the common people and daily life. In native cultures, knowledge of the world is considered a basic knowledge that every member of the community needs to have in order to function to their highest potential.

It is only recently that Western science has begun to realize the value of the Native ways of relating to, studying, and understanding the world around us. By seeing the interconnectedness of everything-in and outside of this world-Western science has begun to undergo a paradigm shift. Rather than perceiving the world and our connections to it simply as a resource to be mined, with everything not directly beneficial to the miner cast aside without thought, Western science and culture has begun to embrace the connections that exist in some way between everything in existence. The Butterfly Effect is a monumental example of Western science beginning to see the value of regarding the world from a different perspective-an indigenous perspective.

Global climate change provides another example of how Western science for too long ignored connections between people and the earth that were not valuable or controllable. Because the changes wrought globally by Western technological advances were neither controllable or profitable, scientists were content for a long time to simply ignore the warning signs plainly obvious to anyone paying attention (as many native tribes were). Now, scientists are not only turning to indigenous people for data (recognition and understanding of the connections between humans and our surroundings), but are in turn teaching indigenous people to use Western technology to better recognize, understand, and adapt to natural objects and processes.

Indigenous views of connection allow people to live comfortably in the environment, to understand the impacts of altering that world, and to adapt ourselves to our surroundings in positive and meaningful ways. Western science can provide tools and information about the natural world that leads to a deeper understanding of our role and impact on Earth and in the universe. By working together, and by melding Western understanding with Native awareness, we can use the infinite connections that exist to enhance our lives without compromising anyone or anything else’s.

It is this melding of Western and native views that needs to be taught in the classroom. Too often in popular culture today, the Earth and her resources are seen as expendable, with little regard for the consequences of such instant gratification for the masses. If science classrooms focus more on the infinite, ever-changing connections that exist everywhere, rather than on labs that students do “just because they can,” there is a chance to integrate Western and indigenous approaches to science. By focusing on connections-and the inevitable consequences, good and bad, of those connections-students today can learn not only to enjoy the resources available to them, but to use our ever-improving technology and knowledge to strengthen and support vital connections human life depends upon.