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Makale Özeti:
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This paper argues that environmental destruction arises from a discourse rooted in Western
Economic and Scientific Theory. This discourse artificially separates individuals from our
natural world and argues that competition and utilitarian actions are beneficial to society. It
is however, a discourse that is taking us to a Shakespearean tragic end: it is resulting in
actions that actively harm our natural world, as all too familiar statistics of environmental
damage make clear. It is a discourse that does not match our underlying physical reality,
which is why calls for Environmental reform within this discourse will not be effective.
Hearing about global warming, deaths caused by hunger every two seconds, and the
extinction of plants and animals on a scale never seen before can be enough to envelop us
in a sense of hopelessness: we are headed, it seems, for an inevitable tragic ending.
However, Shakespeare makes clear that this is not necessary the case. We are not yet at our
end; we are yet still storying ourselves. We can thus rewrite a better ending by shifting
ourselves into a Shakespearean comedy. The potential lies in our discourse which is not
truth, but a contingent creation. After describing these ideas in more detail, this paper goes
on to present the parameters of a new Ecological discourse rooted, like Shakespeare‟s
Comedy, in care and humanity that dovestails with our natural world and provides for hope
through transformed consciousness. It concludes with recommendations on how this new
discourse can be spread and taught in schools.
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