Participant: Justin Vinston
Format: Presentation and Conversation
Themes: recursion, paradigm, praxis

There is a recursive, co-creating relationship between the now predominant conception of nature and our global social and economic institutions. A conception of nature based on a severance between organism and environment both supports and is supported by those ideological models which place preeminence on separation between part and whole.

To design a conception of nature which treats the distinction between organism and environment as a recursive relationship is desirable since it reduces alienation between humans and their work, the product of their work, and their community (this entails a rethinking of what work is to be done).

There are inconsistencies in a relationship between this alternative conception of nature and the current practices and aims of environmental stewardship. Drawing connections between the predominant conceptions of nature, the development of modern technology and the seemingly imperative positioning of human as environmental caretaker may inform a reorientation to the task of environmental stewardship.

Throughout this paper, links will be drawn connecting the writers and thinkers Paula Gunn Allen, Gregory Bateson, Wendell Berry, R.G. Collingwood, Douglas Flemons, Gordon Pask, and Francisco Varela.