Perspectives on Integral Ecology—3
by Ross Robertson
For an introduction to this series of dialogues between EnlightenNext magazine’s Ross Robertson and environmental philosopher Michael Zimmerman, see this post. For the previous blog in the series, click here.
Michael,
I like the way you tied together the two core issues I brought up—anthropocentrism and interiority—so simply and directly in your last letter. I think my editorial comrade (and fellow “bright green” junkie) Joel Pitney summed it up pretty well in his enthusiastic comment to your post:
Until you can have both a consciousness-centric appreciation for the interiority in everything AND a recognition that our particular depth of interiority as humans (including morality and environmental responsibility itself) is the most advanced expression of consciousness that the universe has produced to date (as far as we know), then your perspective on the relationship between humanity, nature, and spirit can never be complete.
Touché! I wrote another story a few years back on similar issues surrounding interiority and consciousness in animals called Do Animals Have Souls?, and ever since then I’ve always found questions about the boundary lines between “animal” and Continue reading…
Starting in the sixties, teachers and parents began to believe that building self-esteem in children was the best way to develop confident happy adults. But psychology researcher Jean Twenge says that the truth is not so simple. In her latest book, 
EROS n.
This past Friday morning, Ross Robertson and I appeared on a community radio program out of Burlington, VT called 
I recently finished a ten-day meditation retreat, a deeply enriching experience and one full of all kinds of insights and breakthroughs. But of all the many things that struck me during those powerful days of silence and stillness, one in particular really hit home … and left me privately chuckling behind my meditative mask. My mind is like my mother. Yes, it’s true. But don’t get me wrong; I’m not talking about Freud here. I don’t mean that my mind is like my “superego,” dictating shoulds and shouldn’ts like some disembodied parental authority in my head. No, I’m talking about something a little more mundane and yet more profound. What I mean is that the way my mind relates to the contents of my experience reminds me of the way that my mother relates to the contents of her life.
