Foe Dichotomizing for the Sake of Argument

Dear Colleagues Across the Curriculum,

Sustainability on the one hand;
Meta-Sustainability on the other?

And why can’t the 2 Just Get Along?

I need help from the Sustainability Club and
from all those dedicated to sustainability issues.

Is there:

Y) a distinction/relationship worth
drawing between

X) our species understanding of sustainable
sustainability (assuming we could get on
the same page) and

Z) as the world actually turns, say: the whole
system doing it’s whole-system thing?

“Gaia,” some call IT: characterizing whole-earth
& its catalogs in terms of our understanding of
living organisms.

“Universe,” others like to say: indicating a higher
power of the whole way beyond our small sum
of its parts.

“Physical” Global Warming (PGW) on the one hand.
“Spiritual” Economic Re-formatting (SER) on the other hand.

Us: malcontent-in-the-muddle: trying to regulate best
O yes-we-can.

(I call the current economic reformation “spiritual” to
distinguish it from the “physical” and while related
to ecologic: it’s not the same deal. There’s a difference
worth turning up, I think: call it the intellective/affective:
side of the whole equation—as opposed to glaciers
dropping into the sea, fire, drought, flood, famine,
polar bears and wind power. )

Information Issues on the one hand (economy?);
Energy Concerns on the other hand. (ecology?).

They are incommensurate, true? A gap.
Related, but not the same: am I right?
I’m asking..

I need help with terms and images but I believe
there’s a distinction worth turning up and putting
into play (at least in “school mode”) between the
physical (ecologic? ) and non-physical (economic?)
aspects of our current sustainability issues.

So they are not unknowingly confused

The ECONOMY on the one hand and
The ECOLOGY on the other hand.

Which is trump: the economy? the ecology?
Essence? Existence? Environ Mentalism?
Environment? Do not collapse, conflate
or confuse these distinctions.

Foe Dichotomy? Yes.
For the sake of argument or what’s a college
for if not “ to unsettle presumptions,
de-familiarize the familiar to reveal
what is going on beneath and behind
appearances, to disorient young people
and to help them to find ways to reorient
themselves.”

(Harvard statement on purpose of education quoted by
David Brooks in “What Life Asks of Us.” NY Times, Jan, 27 )

At least in the gen-ed program maybe if not in our vocational
& professional pursuit of major and minor discipline &
jobs in this troubled and turbulent time of change and
uncertainty.