Surfing the Gray Embodying an Environmental Ethic
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University of Montana ScholarWorks at University of Montana Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers Graduate School 2002 Surfing the Gray Embodying an Environmental Ethic Melanie J. Kloetzel The University of Montana Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd Let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Recommended Citation Kloetzel, Melanie J., "Surfing the Gray Embodying an Environmental Ethic" (2002). Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers. 9272. https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd/9272 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at ScholarWorks at University of Montana. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks at University of Montana. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 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Surfing the Gray Embodying An Environmental Ethic by Melanie Kloetzel B.A., Swarthmore College, 1993 presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts The University of Montana July 2002 '-A ^roved by Dean, Graduate School " 7 " '* ^ ^ Date Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UMI Number: EP40074 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. UMT OwMrUtion PVUMiang UMI EP40074 Published by ProQuest LLC (2013). Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code ProQuest* ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Kloetzel, Melanie J. MA July 2002 History Surfing the Gray; Embodying An Environmental Ethic Director: Dan Flores Dualism runs rampant in Western culture. We separate mind and body, self and the environment, wild and civilized, nature and culture, just to mention a few. As we create such oppositions, we cause damage to ourselves and to the environment as a whole. Yet, dualism as a theory scarcely holds water in our society any longer. Using developments in the fields of philosophy, quantum physics, and psychology in the last century, I explore the theoretical thrashing dealt to dualism to show that such a theory can no longer dominate our society. Many look to dualism’s end as a positive step, and in particular, environmental ethicists from J. Baird Callicott to Arne Naess to David Abram laud its demise as they attempt to construct a holistic environmental ethic. However, while we herald the defeat of theoretical dualism, holistic practice has made little headway in our culture. It is my contention that due to our lack of practice at reconnection, we still suffer under dualism’s yoke. I present three movement techniques that integrate body and mind, self and the environment, to act as tools to reconnect humans and the environment. Drawing from the work of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi on autotelic, or flow, activities, I demonstrate that movement methods that encourage flow state appear as the best mechanisms for achieving a holism of mind-body-environment. I first address Pueblo dance ritual as potentially one of the oldest flow activities that still exists. Through their dance rituals, the Pueblos encourage a healing of the divisions between humans and the natural/supernatural world, and thus, lay a strong base for their environmentally sound practices. A second method of reconnection, the Alexander Technique, also focuses on healing the body-mind rift to embody the sensation of holism. After demonstrating the scientific basis for the technique, I show that, due to its emphasis on responsibility and energy conservation, the Alexander Technique could effectively support a far-reaching environmental ethic. Finally, I explore contact improvisation, the youngest of these techniques. Contact improvisation not only embodies the revolutionary values of Leopold’s land ethic, but provides an experiential perspective of both classical and quantum physics. By employing any of these three techniques of recormection, we can achieve the holism sought after by environmental circles and, consequently, create sustainable methods of environmental protection. u Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Table o f Contents Abstract ii Introduction 1 1 Fishing the Margins: Verbalizing an Environmental Ethic 9 2 The Pueblo Ritual: Embodying Connection 39 3 The Alexander Technique: Embodying Unity 71 4 Contact Improvisation: An Embodied Revolution 114 Conclusion 148 Works Cited 151 111 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Introduction When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find that it is bound fast by a thousand invisible cords that cannot be broken to everthing in the universe. I fancy I can hear a heart beating in every crystal, in every grain o f sand and see a wise plan in the making and shaping and placing o f every one o f them. All seems to be dancing in time to divine music. -John Muir Action. What images does such a term call to mind? Baseball? The Olympics? Arnold Schwarzenegger? Or do you understand it in terms of activism? The attempt by certain non-profit groups to change the status quo? Do you imagine some crazy EarthFirst! radical chaining himself to a tree? Or an antiglobalization advocate violently protesting a G8 summit? For many in modem America, action would end there. Either athletes or activists have action well in hand. They have no need of us. Yet, something is inherently wrong widi such a belief. For action rests in the hands of all humanity. Why is action so often ejected from association with people as a whole? Why do we segregate it from the masses? In the following chapters, I contend that such a dissociation from action lies in Western society’s tendency to create oppositions. In particular, we support the opposition of mind and body, hierarchizing a disembodied mind over a flesh we perceive as riddled with weakness. And once we embrace the division between mind and body, we easily lump the rest of the physical world into the realm of the denigrated body as well. Passive, inert matter. Unenlivened and subject to the will of a superior mind. Thus, we consign the physical world, including nature itself, to a category wholly separate from and with little effect on us, that is, on our minds. Many have written about body-mind separation in Western culture. Schooled in Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the “I think therefore I am” logic of René Descartes, psychologists, physicists, and philosophers, among others, invariably stake a claim that soundly rejects, readily accepts, or uncomfortably waffles over the truth of body-mind opposition. I am no exception. To me, body-mind separation is not only illogical, it is damaging. For in such division lies our inability to act. As John Dewey, the famous American pragmatist, noted, the “notion of [mind-body] separation inevitably results in creating a dualism between ‘mind’ and ‘practice,’ since the latter must operate through the body.”' By disengaging our minds from our bodies, we feel no need to engage in action. We can go about our daily lives discussing the benefits of environmentalism or the horrors of globalization while continuing to drive three blocks to visit a neighbor, throwing away that recyclable can, or frequenting the nearest McDonald’s or Walmart. We trick ourselves into believing that we cannot change the status quo. That someone else is responsible for acting. That our everyday practice won’t make a difference. And who cares anyway if what we really are is a mind disconnected from our surroundings? I mean, everyone knows that our minds, souls, consciousness, or whatever, will live on past this physical world. Thus, we can disregard the fact that global warming is already causing unprecedented damage to the environment or that untold numbers of species disappear everyday due to our harmful practices. Why change? If the physical world of body and nature is merely matter that we will leave behind, why bother? If what we truly are has no cormection to our surroundings, we can divorce ourselves from practice without concern. Thus, cormection surfaces as fundamental to practice. By dissolving the dualism of mind and body, we can recormect to the true nature of ourselves. We can see ourselves as circumscribed into our surroundings, indissoluble from the nature that envelops us. And we can once again live as action-laden beings with all the responsibility and promise ‘ John Dewey, Art as Experience (New York: Minton, Balch & Co., 1934): 263. 2 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. inherent in such a description. For if we embrace the physical along with the mental, we can become practitioners or activists along with theoreticians.