Download Liberal Studies in the 21st Century

MCL 6224
Issues in the Development of Liberal Studies
Lecture 2
Development of the Curriculum Content of Liberal Studies in HKSAR
A. Recapitulation: Liberal Studies as endeavors to liberate the human mind
1. Plato’s conception: Liberal education as "an endeavor that liberates the mind from
chains of its showy cave of ignorance." (Kimball, 1986, p.14)
2. Liberating efforts of the humanists of the Renaissance and the scientists of the
Scientific Revolution: To reinstate the value and dignity of human existence and the
capacity of inquiring mind of human beings.
3. Kant’s concept of Enlightenment: Liberal education as “man's release from his
self-incurred tutelage.” Its outcome is that men have the courage to use their
reason and use it publicly.
B. Liberation of Human Mind From What? In Search of the Subject Matter of Liberal
Studies
By using human reason collectively and publicly, modern men attempt to release
themselves from containments and “tutelages” imposed upon their existences from the
environments. These attempts have invoked what is now known as the project of
modernity
1. Project of modernity: According to Habermas’ conception, the project of modernity
is the collective efforts of modern men to use their reason to inquire into
a. The natural environment: These human efforts have constituted the
scientific-inquiry discourse and the cognitive-instrumental rationality in modern
society. They have also formed the discourse of knowledge and truth of modern
society.
b. The social environment: These human efforts have constituted the theories
moral and jurisprudence and the moral-practical rationality in modern society.
They have also formed the discourse of justice and moral-rightness of modern
society.
c. The understanding, expression and actualization of human self: These human
efforts have constituted production and criticism of art forms and the
aesthetic-expressive rationality. They have formed the discourse of authenticity
and beauty of modern society.
2. The reflectivity of late modernity and the challenge from post-modernism:
a. Beck, Giddens and Lash have coined the concept “reflexive modernization” to
depict the “self-destructive” effects of modern-industrial society in the last
quarter of the twentieth century.
Beck writes that “‘reflexive modernization’ means the possibility of a creative
(self-)destruction for an entire epoch: that of industrial society. …Reflexive
modernization…is supposed to mean that a change of industrial society which
occurs surreptitiously and unplanned in the wake of normal, autonomized
modernization and with an unchanged, intact political and economic
order. …The new society is not always born in pain. Not just growing poverty,
but growing wealth as well, and the loss of an Eastern rival, produce an axial
change in the types of problems, the scope of relevance and the quality of the
political. Not only indicators of collapse, but also strong economic growth, rapid
11
W.K. Tsang & Teresa Siu
Issues in the Development of Liberal Studies
technification and high employment security can unleash the strom that will sail
or float industrial society into a new epoch.” (Beck, 1994, 2-3)
b. By post-modernism, it refers to a theoretical stance, which casts fundamental
doubts of the project of modernity. As Jean-Fransois Lyotard’ writes in his book
entitled The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, “I define
postmodern as incredulity toward metanarratives. This incredulity is
undoubtedly a product of progress of the sciences: but that progress in turn
presupposes it.” (1984/1979: xxiii-xxiv)
3. Issues on scientific-instrumentalism versus environmentalism: One of the
fundamental issues concerning liberal education in the 21st century is the
contradictory discourses between scientific-instrumentalism and environmentalism.
The form may be characterized as conviction about the omniscience and
omnipotence of the scientific-technological mechanism that modern men have built
since the Scientific Movement and the Enlightenment. The latter indicates the
concerns about the fragility of the ecological system of the earth and the belief in
the priority of the ecological ethics and ecocentrism over the anthropocentricism.
4. Issues on informational-global paradigm versus indigenous-local paradigm:
Another fundamental issue relating to liberal education in the 21 st century is the
contradictory discourses between the informational-global and indigenous-local
paradigms. The former refers to the institutional principles and imperatives
emphasizing global comparison and competition invoked by the compression of
time and space that have been caused by the informational-technological
development in the past three decade. The latter indicate the institutional principles
and imperatives prioritizing local communal concerns and indigenous and personal
connections of social organizations.
5. Issues on individualizing identity versus socio-culturally embedded identity: As
modern men and women began to enlighten or even emancipate themselves from
culturally and socially ascribed identities embedded in traditional societies, such as
believers of the Church, subjects of a monarch king, the wife of a husband, the
daughter of a father, etc.; they have “individualized” themselves into modern
identities such as atheistic evolutionist, citizens of a republic, liberated women
(both wives and daughters) from patriarchic family system, etc. As this process of
individualization met with the global-informational age of the 21st century, the
socio-cultural bases in which personal and social identities were once embedded
have rapidly evaporated into virtuality. As a result, the identity crisis confronting
modern men and women of the 21st century is the experience of ontological
insecurity and existential anxiety spawned from virtual identity in network society.
C. Liberation of Human Mind With What? In Search of the Subject Content of Liberal
Studies
1. Area of Study I: Self and Personal Development
Module 1: Personal Development and Interpersonal Relationship
2. Area of Study II: Society and Culture
Module 2: Hong Kong Today
Module 3: Modern China
Module 4: Globalization
3. Area of Study III: Science, Technology and the Environment
Module 5: Public Health
Module 6: Energy technology and the Environment
22
W.K. Tsang & Teresa Siu
Issues in the Development of Liberal Studies
Areas of Study I:
Self and Interpersonal Relationship
A. Personal Development in Sociological Perspective: To Become Human
1. Perspectives in Personal Development
a. In philosophical perspective, personal-development inquiry is basically defined
as intellectual effort in search of the essence of a person qua person. It
basically examines the general or even transcendental meaning of personal
existence.
b. In psychological perspective, personal-development study is to reveal the
structure of the personality and self and the stages of development of different
aspects of the self, such as psychosexual, cognitive and moral development. It
basically analyzes the unique self identity of particular human beings.
c. In sociological perspective, personal development is view as the process of
socialization, through which individuals will internalize the roles, norms and
values of a particular culture and community in which they reside. It basically
investigates the social identity of members of human communities.
2. Self-identity in sociological perspective
a. The “looking-glass” self: Charles Cooley coined the concept in 1902 to indicate
the developmental process of the self as an interpersonal process. It is a
reflexive and glass-looking process consisting of
i. “the image of out appearance to the other person;
ii. “the imagination of his judgment of that appearance; and
iii. “some sort of self-feeling, such as pride or mortification.” (Cooley, 1902, p.
184; quoted in Broom, 1981, p. 98)
Accordingly, to Cooley the self is not some inborn attributes but social products
generated from interactions with other fellow humans. Furthermore, the self is
not a passive receiver of others’ judgments on oneself. It will interpret and react
to these judgments.
Finally, Cooley specifies that the others or the looking glasses, from which one
takes reference are not assigned with equal importance by the self. As a result,
some others are characterized as “significant others” (i.e. parents) while others
are simply “referent others” (i.e. ordinary friends)
b. Symbolic interactionist’s conception of the self
i. Built on Charles Cooley’s concept of the “looking-glass” self, George H.
Mead and Herbet Blumer, two founding father of the symbolic interactionsim
(a prominent theoretical perspective in sociology) specify that the self is not
a static structure but a dynamic process through which attributes, meanings,
judgments that others passed onto oneself will be interpret and reinterpret.
That is they “saw the self as process not a structure.” (Blumer, 1969, p.62)
ii. “The process of a self provides the human being with a mechanism of
self-interaction. …Such self-interaction takes the form of making indications
to himself and meeting these indications by making further indications. The
human being can designate things to himself – his wants, his pains, his
goals, object around him, the presence of others, their actions, their
expected actions, or whatnot.” (Blumer, p. 62)
iii. “With the mechanism of self-interaction the human being ceases to be a
responding organism whose behavior is a product of what plays upon him
from the outside, the inside, or both. Instead, he acts toward his world,
33
W.K. Tsang & Teresa Siu
Issues in the Development of Liberal Studies
interpreting what confronts him and organizing his action on the basis of the
interpretation.” (Blumer, p.63)
iv. The negotiated self: In the perspective of symbolic interactionsim,
individuals are perceived as “an active agent in the construction of his or her
own self-concept. The self that emerges is a negotiated self. …An important
goal in this (negotiating) process is the enhancement of self-esteem.”
(Brinkerhoff et al. 1991, p. 144)
c. The situated self: Another group of interactionists has adopted a more
structural approach (structural school) to the conception of the self.
i. These sociologists, such as McCall and Simons (1978) and Stryker (1968,
1980), emphasize the importance of the institutional structure in which
individuals are situated. It is suggested that the self emerged from this
situation will be conditioned by social expectations or even obligations
prescribed to the positions, in which the individual is assigned into.
ii. The concepts of role and role-identity:
- The concept of role refers to the performances expected of the occupant
of a given position or social status, such as the roles of a daughter, a wife,
a teacher or a HKSAR citizens.
- The concept of role identity signifies that a role occupant has internalized
the role expectations and performances prescribed by external social
institution to become part of her own self. It is exactly through this process
of internalization of the externalities of the social institution that an
individual self is amalgamated with a social role and as a result
constituted a social identity.
iii. The concept of role set and role conflict:
- The concept of role set refers to the network of multiple roles that an
individual has to engage with at the same time or once at a time. For
example, a teacher may simultaneously be a daughter, a wife and a
mother.
- The expectations and performance of these multiple roles are most likely
to be in conflict. As a result, an individual may experience the inter-role
conflict. For example, in performing the role of a school teachers may in
conflict with the role of a mother and a wife. Furthermore, a role occupant
may also experience intra-role conflict as there may be discrepancies
among role expectations from different role partners of a role. For
example, a teacher may face conflicting expectations from her students,
fellow teachers and school head.
iv. Identity hierarchy: Confronted with inter-role conflict, an individual's
identities have to set priority with these competing role identities. Hence, the
concept of identity hierarchy refers to the resolution that an individual has to
sort out in situation of inter-role conflict.
d. A synthesis: The conceptions of the negotiate self and situated self may seems
to have different emphasis, but they "should not be viewed as opposites but as
complements." (Brinkerhoff et al. 1991, p. 146) The two concepts of negotiated
and situated self may be view in reciprocal relation. On the one hand, an
individual is viewed as active agent in defining and negotiating the performance
specification of a given role. On the other, a role with its performance
expectation may also assert significant effects on the development of the self
concept and self esteem.
44
W.K. Tsang & Teresa Siu
Issues in the Development of Liberal Studies
e. Social identity and theory of categorization
i. Apart from interactionalist perspective of analyzing how an individuals
internalizes role expectations and performances into their selves and
constitutes her role-based identity, Henri Tajfel and his followers most
notably John C. Turner look at formation of group identity formation as a
social process of categorization.
ii. This tradition of identity study begins with the concept of categorization. It
refers to “the cognitive process that allow human to streamline perception
by separately grouping like and unlike stimuli. Tajfel demonstrated that
people categorize social as well as nonsocial stimuli and that people use
social categories to identify themselves and others.” (Thoits and Virshup,
1997; p. 114) Tajfel illustrate the concept with research focusing on race,
ethnicity, class, and nationality and empirical examples of back and white,
Jews, Pakistanis, and French- and English speaking Canadian.
iii. Accordingly, Tajfel defines social identity as “that part of an individual’s self
which derives from his knowledge of his members of a group (or groups)
together with the value and emotional significance attached to that
membership.” (Tajfel, 1981, quoted in Thoits and Virshup, 1997; p. 116)
iv. Turner also defines “social identity as “self-categories that define the
individual in terms of his or her shared similarities with members of certain
social categories in contrast to other social categories.” (Turner et al, 1987,
quoted in Thoits and Virshup, 1997; p. 117)
For Turner, social identities are in-group versus out-group categorizations. It
spawns out of the distinction between the we-group and the they-group.
v. This perspective has elevated the identity study from the individual level of
role identity to the collective level of identity based on ethnicity, nationality,
social class, and other social groupings. As a result, identity theory can
apply to analyze macroscopic phenomena such as racial prejudice and
discrimination, conflict between ethnic and national groupings,
ethnocentrism, etc.
f. To summarize, the studies of identity in sociological perspectives can be
summarized into three levels.
i. The self-identity level: It sees identity as a product of socialization and
“glass-looking” process, through which an individual constructs her
self-image, self-concept and self-esteem passed on by others.
ii. The role identity level: It construes identity as the outcome of internalization
of specific role expectations and performances of particular social positions
in which an individual is “situated”.
iii. The social identity level: It views identity as the outcome of the process of
in-group versus out-group categorization. In particular socio-economic and
historical contexts, social identities are forged by various social groupings
by means of exchanging or eeven violently imposing we- and they-group
categorizations (or labeling and stereotyping) on each others.
55
W.K. Tsang & Teresa Siu
Issues in the Development of Liberal Studies
3. Levels and approaches to identity study:
From the precedent discussions of various sociological perspectives in identity
study, we may summarize distinct levels and approaches to identity study as
follows.
a. Two approaches to identity
i. Essentialism: Essentialism in identity studies refers to approaches which
takes social identity, such as gender, ethnicity, race, nationality, class, as
objectively exiting reality. Their formations are based on some essentially
fixed traits such as biological sex, skin color, place of birth, formal-legal
status, level of income, etc.
ii. Constructionism: Constructionism in identity studies refers to perspective
which conceives identity as socially constructed reality. They are on one
hand collectively constituted in social processes or even political
movements, and on the other hand individually articulated in deliberate
articulations.
b. Two levels of identity
i. Personal identity (individual identity): It refers to the self-description,
self-image, self-presentation, self-concept, and self-esteem that an
individual assigned upon oneself.
ii. Social Identity: It refers to role performance that individuals prescribe
themselves or expected by others and/or membership of social statuses
and/or categories that individuals applied to themselves or imposed upon by
others.
Though these two levels of identity can analytically be differentiated, in reality
they are closely interconnected. Furthermore, an individual must find a way to
integrate the two levels into a consistent and coherent unity. Different
sociologists have in fact formulated different theories to characterize this
integrating process of multiple identities of the modern man. For example,
Anthony Giddens in his book Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the
Late Modern Age (1990) has coined the concept self-identity to characterized the
relationship between self and society in the late modern age.
4. Anthony Giddens’ conception of self-identity in late modern age
a. Giddens defines “self as reflexively understood by the person in terms of her or
his biography.” (Giddens’ 1991, p. 53)
b. Identity, according to Giddens, indicates a person’s sense of “continuity across
time and space.” (ibid)
c. Self-identity, therefore, can be defined as a sense of “continuity as interpreted
reflexively by the agent.” (ibid) More specifically, a person with a reasonably
stable sense of self-identity is, therefore, the one with “the capacity to keep a
particular narrative going. The individual’s biography, if she is to maintain
regular interaction with others in the day-to-day world, cannot be wholly fictive.
It must continually integrate events which occur in the external world, and sort
them out into ongoing ‘story’ about the self.” (Giddens, 1991, p. 54) In short,
self-identity can be discerned as coherent and continuous narrative one
imputed to oneself.
66
W.K. Tsang & Teresa Siu
Issues in the Development of Liberal Studies
Giddens' concept of Self-identity
Social Space 1
(Role 1)
Social Space 2
(Role 2)
Social Space 3
(Role 3)
…Social Space n
(…Role n)
Social Time 1
Social Time 2
Social Time 3
…Social Time n
d. Constituents of self-identity: A stable self-identity, i.e. coherent and continuous
self narrative, would compose the following attributes
i. Ontological security: “A stable sense of self-identity presupposes the …
elements of ontological security - an acceptance of the things and of others.”
(ibid) The sense of ontological security implies that a person has to extend
beyond self-reflexion and connects to her or his environments, both physical
and social. In turn, it will generate both sense of trust and bondage with the
physical and social environments.
ii. Trust: Trust can be construed as the confidences and expectations that a
person invested on particular relationships with social and physical
environments. It is generally evolved from the positive feedbacks obtained
by the person in the particular relationships.
iii. Bondage: As the positive feedback generated from a relationship with a
human aggregate accumulated, the person involved will develop strong
sense of belonging to it and in turn constitute a social bondage. As a result,
a “social identity” develops.
B. Interpersonal Relationship in Modern Society:
1. Institutional context of interpersonal relationship: We are now living in well
developed societies; hence most our relationships with other humans take place in
conventionally established or even institutionalized social contexts, such as school,
family, peer groups, market, government, etc.
2. Definition of situation: Even in situations where we encounter strangers in a
shopping mall, inside the elevators, in a bus or a carriage of the subway, or even in
a back alley. There are conventional patterns of interaction to be observed. Hence,
definition of situation is the initiating concept in the sociological analysis of
interpersonal relationship. That is, once the situation of the human encounter has
been defined in conventional terms, such as a lesson, a family gathering, a party
with peers, a date, a international convention, or a back-ally encounter with
stranger; the relationship at point and its entailed interactions can then be sorted
out in common-sense terms.
3. Typification, status and role:
a. The concept typification refers to the deliberate act of assigning typical way of
behaving or acting to our counterpart in a human interaction. This assignment
of types and categories to partners in a social interaction has to be reciprocal
acts, that is, it is a two-way typification initiated simultaneously from both side of
a relationship. Furthermore, there must be acceptable commonality between
the two typifications, otherwise the social interaction will be in disarray or can
never get started.
77
W.K. Tsang & Teresa Siu
Issues in the Development of Liberal Studies
b. The concept of status and role:
- The concept of status refers to a socially defined position that a person hold.
such as teacher, students, father, son, Chinese citizens, shareholder, etc.
- The concept of role refers to performance expected of occupant of a
particular status.
- Accordingly, both status and role can be understood as the outcomes of
typification in a social interaction. Once we have assigned a typical status
and role expectation to our partner in a social encounter, the subsequent
interactions can the be carried out in in socially well-defined manners.
4. Types of interpersonal relationships
In sociology, social relationships are commonly differentiated into two types
a. Primary relationship: It refers to the interpersonal relationship generated in
what Charles Cooley called groups, such as family, peer group, collegial group,
etc. It bears features as follows
i. It has face to face interaction.
ii. It involves unspecialized relationship, i.e. responding the whole person
rather than some categories or stereotype.
iii. It is relatively permanent.
v. It involves intimate and affective ties and invokes strong sense of belonging.
b. Secondary relationship: It refers to social relationship established in formal
organization or what Max Weber call bureaucracy, such as university,
corporation, governmental department, etc. It has attributes as follows
i. It has formal interaction.
ii. It involve segmented and impersonal relationship.
iii. It is relatively transient and short-lived.
vi. It involve instrumental ties and invoke formal membership defined in terms
contractual rights and obligations.
C. Substantive Studies of social Identity and Social Relationship
Within the discipline of sociology, there is a field of study called social institution study
or a perspective known as institutionalism. It studies specific role-identities and
relationships generated and institutionalized in particular social institutions. For
example,
1. Family membership and role-identity of husband and wife, father and son, brother
and sister, etc.
2. Nationality and national identity
3. Political membership of the state and citizenship
4. Professional membership and identity of professionalism
5. Contractual relationship and identity of seller and buyer
6. Political membership and partisanship, etc.
D. Social Identity in the Process of Individualization
1. The conception of Individualization of modern society
a. “’Individualization’ consists of transforming human ‘identity’ from a ‘given’ into a
task and changing the actors with the responsibility for performing that task and
for the consequences (also the side-effects) of their performance. ….Human
being are no more ‘born into’ their identities. … Needing to become what one is
is the feature of modern living - and of this living alone. …Modernity replaces
the heteronomic determination of social standing with compulsive and
88
W.K. Tsang & Teresa Siu
Issues in the Development of Liberal Studies
obligatory self-determination.” (Bauman, 2000, p. 31-2)
b. “’individualization’ means, first, the disembedding and, second, the
‘re-embedding of industrial society ways of life by new ones, in which the
individuals must produce, stage and cobble together their biographies
themselves. Thus the name ‘individualization’, disembedding and
re-embedding …do not occur by chance, nor individually, nor voluntarily, nor
through diverse types of historical conditions, but rather all at once and under
the general conditions of the welfare in developed industrial labour society, as
they have developed since the 1960s in many Western industrial countries.”
(Beck, 1994, p.13)
c. Institutionalized ‘beds’ - identity bases - for the re-embedment of modern
individuals
i. ‘Beds’ in capital market, e.g. occupations, professions, social-class
positions, etc.
ii. ‘Beds’ in institution of marriage and family, husband, wife, father, mother,
etc.
iii. ‘Beds’ in modern political arenas, e.g. citizens, members of new social
movements, such as environmentalists, feminist, anti-gloabizationists, etc.
E. Social Identity Crisis under Pure Relation
1. Social identity crisis in the process of Individualization
a. “What distinguished the ‘individualization’ of yore from the form it has taken in
‘risk society’ …. No ‘beds’ are furnished for ‘re-embedding’, and such beds as
might be postulated and pursued prove fragile and often vanish before the work
of ‘em-rebeddment’ is complete. There are rather ‘musical chairs’ of various
size and style as well as of changing numbers and positions, which prompt men
and women to be constantly on the move and promise no ‘fulfilment’, no rest
and no satisfaction of ‘arriving’, of researching the final destination, where one
can disarm, relax and stop worrying.” (Bauman, 2000, p. 33-34)
b. Social identity crisis can therefore be conceived as a discontinuity between the
stages of dis-embedment and re-embedment in the individualization process
c. Fragmentation of institutional-beds and the flexiblization of modern identity
Under the network logic and the global-information paradigm
i. National-local identity replaced by global-mobile identity
ii Affect-familial identity replaced by flexible-familial identity
iii. Permanent vocationalism and unionism replaced by flexible,
self-programmed workers
2. The permeation of pure relation growth:
a. By pure relationship, according to Giddens, it is social relationship build “purely”
on the relationships itself. It differs from traditional relationships which are
based on institutional bondages, such as parent-child relationships, or based
on institutional restraints, such as marriage and business contracts. Instead,
pure relationship “is not anchored in external conditions of social or economic
life - it is …free-floating. ….The pure relationship is sought only for what the
relationship can bring to the partners involved. …(It) is reflexively organized, in
open fashion, and on a continuous basis” (Giddens, 1991, p. 89-91)
99
W.K. Tsang & Teresa Siu
Issues in the Development of Liberal Studies
b. Pure relationships are by definition “double edged”.
i. They provide reflexive or even emancipatory chances for reconstituting
traditional social relationship. They offer opportunity for the development of
trust based on voluntary commitments and an intensified intimacy.” (p.
186)
ii. Yet pure relationship …create enormous burdens for the integrity of the self.
In so far as a relationship lacks external referents, it is morally mobilized
only thorough ‘authenticity. …Shorn of external moral criteria, the pure
relationship is vulnerable as a source of security at fateful moments and at
other major life transitions.” (p. 186-7)
As a result, the story of the self can no longer be told in a continuous and coherent
manner. In other words, the self-identity experiences sense of discontinuity and
fragmentation, i.e. ontological insecurity and existential anxiety in Giddens’ terms.
Areas of Study II:
Society, Culture, and Globalization
A. Concepts of Society, Culture, and Social Institution
1. Understanding the concept of society
a. The concept of society refers to an aggregate of human beings living together
in persistent and orderly manner in a definite geographical location for a long
period of time.
b. Categorizing societies: The concept of society can be used to categorize
human aggregates in a variety of fashions. For example, Hong Kong society,
Chinese society, American society; agrarian society, industrial society,
knowledge society; Christian society, Muslim society; capitalist society, socialist
society; democratic society, authoritarian society, totalitarian society, patriarchic
society; etc.
c. Why is society possible?
i. Individuals are born into social categories in the first place and subsequently
subscribe to social positions as they grow up. As a result, they are
prescribed into pre-defined role expectations and assignments, i.e. they are
situated selves.
ii. Through the mechanism of social control and integration, Individuals are
obliged to enact the role performances expected of them.
iii. As a result, regular patterns of interpersonal relationships can be
maintained in regular bases. Sociologists have named these regular and
continuous interpersonal relationship social institutions.
2. Understanding the concept of culture
a. The concept of culture refers to a system of meanings shared by members of a
specific group of human beings. It provides the legitimation basis for the way of
life of that specific group over an enduring period of time.
b. By legitimation, it refers to the motives and reasons for members of the group to
voluntarily obey and spontaneously observe the prevailing way of life is that
they genuinely believe in the meaningfulness and values of their conformity.
c. This legitimation basis can further be differentiated into:
i. Cognitive validity: It refers to knowledge systems accumulated in a culture,
which provide valid explanations to why we have to comply with the
1010
W.K. Tsang & Teresa Siu
Issues in the Development of Liberal Studies
prevailing way of life. One of the most prominent cognitive validity in modern
culture is the scientific knowledge.
ii. Normative dignity: It refers to the norms and values accumulated in a culture,
which offer normative justification why we have to conform to a particular
way of life. One of the significant normative bases in human culture is
religious believes.
d. Carriers of culture: Meanings and meaningfulness in a culture must be
expressed and consolidated in durable forms so they can be accumulated,
transmitted, and defused. Therefore, empirical studies of culture must be
initiated from carriers of culture.
i. Language: Culture as a system of shared meanings must find its way to
circulate among its members. Spoken and written language is therefore vital
to the maintenance of a culture.
ii. Values and beliefs: As a system of meanings, culture will develop
elaborated classifications or hierarchies of meanings. For example some
meanings are valuable and desirable, while others are undesirable or even
repugnant. Some desirable meanings will organize and develop into belief
systems such as liberalism, individualism, Marxism or even establish as
religions.
iii. Norms: As a system of meanings, culture also serves as motivation and
reinforcement of human behaviors and actions. The concept of norm refers
to schema of actions, which are endorsed are deterred by a given culture.
Norms can also be differentiated into folkways and customs, mores and
morality, taboos, and laws.
iv. Symbolic objects: Totems, statues, monuments, national flags, national
days, national heroes, etc. are artifacts to symbolize aspects of shared
meanings in a culture.
e. How can culture be maintained, transmitted and defused?
i. The concept of socialization: Socialization can simply be “defined as the
comprehensive and consistent induction of an individual into the objective
world of a society or a sector of it.
- Primary socialization is the first socialization an individual undergoes in
childhood, through which he becomes a member of a society.
- Secondary socialization is any subsequent process that inducts an
already socialized individual into new sector.” (Berger and Luckmann,
1966, p. 150)
ii. Socialization is learning and teaching processes, through which new
members of a society internalize, on the one hand, all the structural and
operational components of a society, such as social statuses, role
expectations and performances, social relationship and social order, etc.; on
the other hand, all the cultural and “meaningful” components of a society,
such as language, social values and norms, history and heritage, etc. The
outcome of the process is that these socialized member will “take over”
these components and make them their own, and as a result, these
components will be part of their “common-sense knowledge” or
“taken-for-granted knowledge.”
1111
W.K. Tsang & Teresa Siu
Issues in the Development of Liberal Studies
3. Understanding the concept of social institution
a. “A social institution can be defined as a complex of positions, roles, norms, and
values lodged in particular types of social structures and organizing relatively
stable patterns of activity with respect to fundamental problems in producing
life-sustaining resources, in reproducing individuals, and in sustaining viable
societal structures within a given environment. (Turner, 1997, p.6)
b. “An institution is a relatively enduring collection of rules and organized practices,
embedded in structures of meaning and resources that are relatively invariant
in the face of turnover of individuals and relatively resilient to the idiosyncratic
preferences and expectations of individuals and changing external
circumstances.” According, in institutions
i. “There are constitutive rules and practices prescribing appropriate behavior
for specific actors in specific situations.
ii. There are structures of meaning, embedded in identities and belongings:
common purposes and accounts that give direction and meaning to
behavior, and explain, justify and legitimate behavioral codes.
iii. There are structures of resources that create capabilities for action.” (March
and Olsen, 2006, p.3; my numbering)
c. Basic social institutions: Throughout history, human societies have work out
amusingly similar social institutions. These institutions include kinship and
familial institution, economic institutions, political institutions, education
institution, and social stratification institution.
d. The concept of economic institution
i. Economic institution can be understood as “the rules of the game in a
society or, more formally, are the humanly devised constraints that shape
human interaction” (North, 1990, p. 3) in order to resolve the problem of
scarcity of resources, or more specifically to organize the production,
distribution and possession of economic resources.
ii. Economy or economic institution can be defined “as those structures (of
positions, norms, roles, networks, and organizations units) and those
cultural symbols (norms, values, beliefs, and ideology) that are implicated in
entrepreneurial activities organizing technology, physical and human capital,
and systems of property for the gathering of resources and for the
production and distribution of goods and services.” (Turner, 1997, p. 21)
According to Jonathan Turner’s conception, the basic elements of economic
institutions are (1) technology, (2) physical capital, (3) human capital, (4)
property, and (5) entrepreneurship.
iii. Typology of economic institution: Economic institutions may be typified in
terms of many different criteria and be differentiated into various types, such
as feudalism, capitalism, socialism, communism; industrial economy,
knowledge economy, semiotic/consumerist economy; market economy,
planned economy; etc.
e. Understanding the concept of political institution:
i. Political institution can be understood as “the rules of the game in a society
or, more formally, are the humanly devised constraints that shape human
interaction” (North, 1990, p. 3) in order to resolve the problem of
coordination and control of actions and projects of members of a society, or
more specifically to resolve problems of rule making, rule implementing, and
settling rule-broking and rule-dispute.
1212
W.K. Tsang & Teresa Siu
Issues in the Development of Liberal Studies
ii. Polity or political institution can be defined as “a societywide system for
consolidating and centralizing power in order to make and implement
binding decisions with respect to coordinating activities among individual
and collective actors in a population, allocating and distributing resources
among actors, and managing deviance by and conflicts among, actors.”
(Turner, 1997, p. 145)
iii. Typology of political institution: Political institutions may also be typified in
terms of many different criteria and be differentiated into various types, such
as democracy, aristocracy, autocracy; liberal-democracy, social-democracy,
people’s democratic dictatorship, proletarian dictatorship, monarchic
dictatorship; bureaucratic authoritarianism, patriarchic authoritarian, active
non-interventionism, laissez-faire; etc.
1313
W.K. Tsang & Teresa Siu
Issues in the Development of Liberal Studies
B. Understanding Globalization and its Human Consequences
1. Debate on the origins of globalization
a. A.G. Frank & Grill (1993) World History Perspective: Globalization originated
5000 year ago, i.e. in 3000, in Mesopotamia when supralocal exchange
systems began to take shape.
b. Braudel (1979) & Wallerstein (1974) World-system Approach: Originated from
the 16th century, mercantile capitalism first emerged in coastal cities in the
Mediterranean sea.
c. J. W. Meyer (1979) World Polity Perspective: Originated from the late 18th &
early 19th century and the constitution of inter-state competition world polity
d. M. Castell (1996) & M. Carnoy (2000) Global IT Economy Perspective:
Originated from 1970s as technological breakthrough in microelectronics,
telecommunication, and micro-computer.
2. Meaning of globalization in the Informational-Global paradigm
a. Compression of time and space: In connection to the penetrating, reconfiguring
and converging capacities of IT, the globalization at the end of the twentieth
century has outgrown its ancestors in bridging if not annulling the temporal and
spatial distances between human societies and cultures
i. Anthony Giddens (1994) in The Consequences of Modernity indicates that
“globalization is really about the transformation of space and time. I would
define it as action at distance, and relate its growth over recent years to the
development of means of instantaneous global communication and mass
transportation.” (1994, p. 22)
ii. Zygmunt Bauman (1998): Globalization as “annulment of temporal/spatial
distances” (1998, p.18).
iii. David Harvey (1989) in The Condition of Postmodernity has simply defines
globalization as “time-space compression”. It signifies “processes that so
revolutionize the objective qualities of space and time that we are force to
alter … how we represent the world to ourselves.” (p. 240)
b. Replacement of space of place by space of flow: Manuel Castells (1996) in The
Network Society defines globalization as the process of separating
simultaneous social practices from physical contiguity, that is time-sharing
social practices are no long embedded in space of physical place. As a result,
the traditional notion of space of places has been transformed into space of
flows. For examples. Social practices in the Internet are social practices without
physical contiguity and Internet as a space is exactly a space with no
geographical place but space of flow.
c. Replacement of local-real time by "timeless time": By making use of the global
-informational network, the tradition conception of time, which is relative to a
particular social-geographic context, has practically escaped its context of
existence. In network society, firms or even individual workers are expected to
work around the clock on planetary scale so as to be able to "appropriate
selectively any value each context could offer to the ever-present." (Castells,
1996, p. 433)
3. Economic consequences of globalization
a. The advent of informational-global economy
“A new economy has emerged in the last two decades on a worldwide scale. I
call it information and global to identify its fundamental distinctive features and
to emphasize their intertwining.
1414
W.K. Tsang & Teresa Siu
Issues in the Development of Liberal Studies
i.
It is informational because the productivity and competitiveness of units or
agents in this economy (its firms, regions, or nations) fundamentally depend
upon their capacity to generate, process, and apply efficiently
knowledge-based information.
ii. It is global because the core activities of production, consumption, and
circulation, as well as their components (capital, labor, raw materials
management, information, technology, market) are organized on a global
scale. Either directly or through a network of linkages between economic
agents.” (Castell, 1996, p. 66)
b. The growing influences of international organizations, such as WTO (World
Trade Organization), IMF (International Monetary Fund), World Bank, etc; and
multinational corporations in global economic affairs.
c. The retreat of the economic nationalism: Economic nationalism, a common
label for economic policies implemented by national governments since the
WWII, is shrinking rapidly. Economic policies such as tariff protectionism,
subsidizing national industrial and agricultural sectors, exchange-rate of
national currency, etc. have lost its leveraging power in face of global
competitions and the interventions from international control over international
organizations and multi-national corporations.
d. The constitution of flexibility and compatibility in economic processes:
Confronted by global competitions and intervention, economic units and agents
(nations, regions, firms and even individual workers) must transform
themselves in two fundamental ways.
i. Flexibility: By flexibility, it refers to the state of affairs in which “not only
processes are reversible, but organizations and institutions can be modified,
and even fundamentally altered, by rearranging their components. What is
distinctive to the configuration of the new technological paradigm is its ability
to reconfigure, a decisive feature in a society characterized by constant
change and organizational fluidity. Turning the rules upside down without
destroying the organization has become a possibility, because the material
basis of the organization can be reprogrammed and uprooted.” (Castells,
1996, p. 62) In production, traditional rigid gigantic assembly lines have
given way to “easy-to program production units that can be sensitive to
variations in the market (product flexibility) and in the changes of
technological output (process flexibility). (p. 155)
ii. Compatibility: It refers to another feature in informational-global economy
that agents can no longer operating in “self-contained and self-sufficient”
units. They must find ways to integrate into the global-informational systems.
To do that, the unit itself must re-engineer to become more compatible and
convertible, more specifically turn itself to be a global hub to fit all shape and
size.
4. Social consequences of globalization:
a. Concept of virtual community:
i. Dissolve of the temporal-spatial foundations of social community:
“The so-called 'closely knit communities' of yore were … brought into being
and kept alive by the gap between the nearly instantaneous communication
inside the small-scale community and the enormity of time and expense
needed to pass information between locality. On the other hand, the
present-day and short life-span of communities appears primarily to be the
1515
W.K. Tsang & Teresa Siu
Issues in the Development of Liberal Studies
result of the gap shrinking or altogether disappearing: inner-community
communication has no advantage over inter-communal exchange, if both
are instantaneous.” (Bauman, 1998, p.5)
ii. The advent of the virtual community: The new form of community emerges
in the cyberspace of the Internet. Howard Rheingold has called it the virtual
community.
“Virtual communities are social aggregations that emerge from the Net when
enough people carry on those public discussions long enough, with
sufficient human feeling, to form webs of personal relationship in
cyberspace.” (Rheingold, 1989, p.3)
b. Concept of flexible work and flexible family
i. The concept of flexible work: “With increased competition in the globalized
economy and the rapidly rising capacity to use ‘world time’ to enhance
productivity, the very best workers are now those who never sleep, never
consume, never have children, and never spend time socializing outside of
work.” (Carnoy, 2000, p.143) They are required to be
- Flexible in work schedule as well as work duration
- Flexible in work locations as well as positions
- Flexible in work conditions, flexibility has replaced fixed-term contract and
long-term commitment between employers and employees
ii. The concept of flexible family: The post-WWII stable family structure, which
based on stable employment of the male head, has fundamentally changed
in response to the advent of flexible work condition in informational-global
economy. The very structure of one of the fundamental primary group in
human society has to go flexible. That is working couple working in flexible
schedules, in flexible locations, and on flexible work conditions. As a result,
the very social functions of family institution, i.e. provision of emotional and
knowledge-formation supports, are under serious threats.
5. Cultural consequences of globalization
a. Legitimation crisis of cultural maintenance: One of the most profound impacts
of globalization on culture is that it brings cultures, which are supposed to be
self-legitimized, self-explained, and self-justified systems of meanings, in close
contact. Each culture can no longer constitute and maintain its legitimation in
isolation by cognitively explaining and normative justifying itself within its
particular local contexts. They are force to rebuild its legitimation basis in
global-informational context.
b. The concept of post-traditional society:
i. The concept of tradition can be defined as collective memories and rituals
passed on through passage of time within a culture. (Giddens, 1994a, p.
63-64)
ii. “A post-tradition social order…is not one in which tradition disappears - far
from it. It is one in which tradition changes its status. Traditions have to
explain themselves, to become open to interrogation or discourse. … In a
globalizing, culturally cosmopolitan society, traditions become forced into
open view: reasons or justifications have to be offered for them.” (Giddens,
1994b, p.23)
c. The rise of fundamentalism in global-informational age:
"The rise of fundamentalism has to be seen against the backdrop of the
emergence of the post-traditional society. … What is fundamentalism? It is, so I
1616
W.K. Tsang & Teresa Siu
Issues in the Development of Liberal Studies
shall argue, nothing other than tradition defended in the tradition way - but
where that mode of defence has become widely called into question. … In a
globally cosmopolitan order … such a defence become dangerous, because
essentially it is a refusal of dialogue." (Giddens, 1994, p.23)
d. The advent of global consumer culture:
i. The proliferation of mass consumption, mass communication and mass
media in global scale has spawned the global culture of consumerism. As a
result, the global convergence of cultures based globalized commodity
items, international brand names, world-wide life styles, etc.
ii. As a result, a global-common way of life for globally mobile psyche begins to
emerge
- Hoilday-Inn-ization
- Starbucks-ization
- MacDonold-ization
- Nike-ization
- Hollywood-ization
- Disneyland-ization
6. Effects of Globalization on cultural and social identity
a. Impact on cultural-temporal identity: Modern cultural identity, which refers to the
sense of belonging accumulated through life-time of individual members of a
culture and through historical-time of a national and societal culture, has given
way to a new form of identity in global culture of consumerism. Individual’s
self-image, self-representation, self-esteem as well as sense of belonging are
no longer derived from one’s nationality, ethnicity, cultural heritage, but are
based on commodity items one possess, the life style one lead, the “look” one
present.
b. Impact on social-spatial identity: Modern social identity, which refers to the
sense of belonging nurtured by frequent and intensive contacts with
socio-spatial groupings, has rapid lost its footing in informational-global context.
As space of place turn into space of flow, individuals are free to select their
social affiliations in global scale through the internet or even physically migrate
to any locality of their choice if their can afford it.
c. The concept of network individualism: Manuel Castells indicates in his work
The Internet Galaxy that identity is the information age can be characterized as
network individualism. “Networked individualism is a social pattern, not a
collection of isolated individuals. Rather, individuals build their networks, on-line
and off-line, on the basis of their interests, values, affinities, and projects.”
(Castells, 2001, p. 131) It is basically a virtual identity in the virtual community
of the Internet in self discretion.
C. Hong Kong Today
D. Modern China
1717
W.K. Tsang & Teresa Siu
Issues in the Development of Liberal Studies
Areas of Study III:
Science, Technology and Environment
A. Reflexive Understanding of the Scientific-Technological Rationality of Modernity
1. The conception of scientism
a. From scientific thinking to scientism
i. Scientific thinking can be construed as one of the ways of human
inquiry, which has been exemplified by natural scientists’ inquiry of the
nature. The inquiry is basically made up of the following methodological
features.
First, it is empirically based. That is the inquiry is built upon data, which
are carefully collected from observations of natural reality.
Second, it is positivistically organized. That is the inquiry is designed
and carried out in hypothetical-deductive or nomological-inductive
methods, the results of which are to verify or falsify the law-like
statements of the reality under study.
Third, both the inquiry methods and their results are objectively
replicable by other researchers to assess the validity and reliability of
the inquiry in question.
Fourth, the results of the inquiry are universally applicable. That is the
verified statements of reality can be applied to “all” situations across
time and space.
Fifth, it believes that collective and concerted efforts of scientists and
their verified results can bring truth to human’s understanding of the
nature.
ii. Scientism can be conceived as convictions of the validity, reliability and
universality of scientific inquiry. As a result has spawned numbers of
convictions or even myths in human’s inquiry of reality.
b. Empiricism: It refers to the convictions underlying that only empirically
observable data are valid evidences in human’s inquiry and the
foundations of true knowledge.
c. Positivism: It refers to the convictions emphasizing that all human’s
inquiries must follow the rules of the hypothetical-deductive or
nomological-deductive methods. Knowledge obtained by other methods of
inquiry are perceived as unscientific and untrue.
d. Objectivism: It refers to convictions holding that objectivity in scientific
inquiry can only be achieved by conforming to the rules that both the
inquiry procedures and results are replicable and duplicable.
e. Universalism: It refers to the convictions underlining that knowledge
obtained from scientific inquiry must be universally applicable, i.e. to be
true across time and places.
f. Progressivism: It refers to the convictions believing that scientific inquiries
can obtain universally valid knowledge of nature and as a whole can
progressively reveal the truth underlying natural realities.
1818
W.K. Tsang & Teresa Siu
Issues in the Development of Liberal Studies
2. Conception of Technologism
a. From technological development to technologism
i. According to Ron Westrum’s conception
- Technology can be defined as any human artifacts and things, which
are made to facilitate human activities.
- From epistemological perspective, technology can be conceived as
something more than human artifacts but also as the techniques and
crafts that make use of those artifacts.
- Furthermore, technology in its advanced stages can be conceived
the systems of knowledge underlying those artifacts and techniques
in use.
ii. Thomas P. Hughes’s conception
- Technology at its most concrete level is conceived by Hughes as
machine. The definition is basically in congruent with that of
Westrum.
- From practical point of view, technology can be conceived not just as
the operation of a single machine but as a configuration of machines
work concertedly as a system.
- Furthermore, as technological systems develop they will constitute
continuous and regular human practices at organizational level.
These enduring practices and routines can be called social
institutions.
- Finally, as technology has been accepted by members of society as
useful, meaningful and even ways of life, technology then become
part of the culture of a given society.
iii. Technologism emerges as members of a society have got so used to
the modern technological way of life that they hold strong conviction or
even cult to the creditability of technology. As a result they will conduct
other part of their human activities in engine-like manners.
b. Reliability: One of the primary beliefs in techologism is the common
conviction among modern men/women that technology is reliable in
organizing or even engineering conducting our lives that we are too ready
to entrust of lives and future to technology.
c. Predictability: Another belief in technologism is the human’s conviction that
technology and its outcome as well as effects are predictable. Hence, we
can plan, design or even engineer our lives and our future in technological
ways.
d. Calculability: The third component of technologism is the human’s
conviction that technology with its procedures and outcomes are all
calculable, i.e. recordable, quantifiable and computable. Hence, we can
organize our lives and future in quantifiable and calculable terms.
e. Manageability: Building on its predictability, calculability, human beings
come to believe that we can manipulate technology as well as our lives and
future according to our desires.
f. Controllablility: Finally, with the help of all these capacities of technology,
modern men/women have come to believe that technology as well as the
human lives and future under its command are all under control.
1919
W.K. Tsang & Teresa Siu
Issues in the Development of Liberal Studies
3. The postmodernist challenge:
a. Jean-Fransois Lyotard in The Postmodern Condition: A Report on
Knowledge (1979) indicates that “I define postmodern as incredulity toward
metanarratives. This incredulity is undoubtedly a product of progress of the
sciences: but that progress in turn presupposes it. To the obsolescence of
the metanarrative apparatus of legitimation corresponds, most notably, the
crisis of metaphysical philosophy and of the university institution which in
the past relied on it. The narrative function is losing its functions, its great
hero, its great dangers, its great voyages, its great goal. It is being
dispersed in clouds of narrative language elements -- narrative, but also
denotative, prescriptive, descriptive, and so on." (1984/1979: xxiii-xxiv)
b. Among the metanarratives under the criticism of postmodernist is the
credulity of scientific-technological rationality. Along with it is the incredulity
project towards the reliability, predictability, calculability, manageability and
controllability of the scientific-technological enterprise.
B. The Risk Society and Reflexive Modernization
1. From industrial society to risk society
a. The passing of the problem of scarcity in modern industrial society: As
human society move from feudal and agrarian society to modern industrial
society in the nineteenth century, one of the core social problems of human
society, namely problem of scarcity, has gradually been contained if not
resolved.
b. The emergence of the dominance of the scientific-technological rationality:
The containment or even resolution to the problem of scarcity is mainly
caused by the constitution of scientific rationality and the techno-economic
development of the modern industrial society.
c. “Risk may be defined as a systematic way of dealing with hazards and
insecurities induced and introduced by modernization itself.” (Beck, 1992, p.
21) According to the conventional wisdom of scientific-technological
rationality, these risks are supposed to be predictable, calculable and
manageable. However, as atomic accidents and environmental
catastrophes frequent in ever growing scales in recent decades, the
enterprise of calculation of risk, which bases on the scientific-technological
rationality and modern legal institutions, has practically collapsed. (Beck,
1992, p. 22)
2. From classical/industrial modernization to reflexive modernization:
a. "Just as modernization dissolved the structure of feudal society in the
nineteen century and produced the industrial society, modernization today
is dissolving industrial society and another modernity is coming into being"
(Beck, 1992, p.11), i.e. reflexive modernity.
b. "We are therefore concerned no longer exclusively with making nature
useful, or with releasing mankind from traditional constraints, but also and
essentially with problems resulting from techno-economic development
itself. Modernization is becoming reflexive; it is becoming its own theme."
(1992, p.19)
2020
W.K. Tsang & Teresa Siu
Issues in the Development of Liberal Studies
3. The five theses of risk society (Beck, 1992, p.22-24)
To understand the nature of risk society, Ulrich Beck has formulated it around
five theses, which signify the salient features of risk and risk society in contrast
to industrial or wealth society.
a. Risks differ essentially from wealth in the following aspects
i. Risks are irreversible harms to natural and/or social environments and
human bodies and/or minds. As for wealth, it is transferable and entails
socially desirable consequences.
ii. Risks “generally remain invisible, are based on causal interpretations
and thus initially only exist in terms of the (scientific or anti-scientific)
knowledge about them.” (p. 23)
iii. Risks “are particularly open to social definition and construction.” (p. 23)
b. Distribution of wealth constitutes class positions and class society. It
spawns the culture of perceptible or even visible inequality. Distribution of
risk constitute risk positions (some social positions or localities are more
exposable and thus vulnerable environmental harms). Hence, risk society
espouses culture of inperceptible and indefinitive inequality of risk
distribution.
Nevertheless, risks “contain a boomerang effect, which breaks up pattern
of class and national society.” It is because “ecological disasters and
atomic fallout ignore the borders of nations. Even the rich and powerful are
not safe from them.” Hence, “risk society in this sense is a world risk
society.” (p. 23)
c. Risk society has one feature in common with wealth society, that is both
are conform to “the logic of capitalism.” Both wealth accumulation and risk
proliferation are “insatiable demands”. It is because human greed, which is
the driving force of wealth accumulation, and convenience and comfort of
modernized lives, which is the motor of risk proliferation, are “a bottomless
barrel of demands, unsatisfiable, infinite, self producible.” (p. 23)
d. “One can possess wealth, but one can only be afflicted by risks.”
Furthermore risks are generally invisible and can only be causally
interpreted. Therefore, risks are ascribed by our knowledge and more
specifically level of environmental awareness and consciousness. As Beck
bluntly but aptly put it “in class and stratification positions being determines
consciousness, while in risk position consciousness determines being.”
(p.23)
e. In risk society, “socially recognized risks … contain a particular political
explosive: what was until now considered unpolitical becomes political
─the elimination of the causes in the industrialization process itself.” (p.24)
One of the local example is the once unpolitical or even socially
unrecognized factor, that is collective memories or common spaces have
suddenly risen to prominence in policy of land use, such as the reclamation
project of Wan Chai or more specifically the demolishment of the Queen’s
Pier. Furthermore, the once most dominant theme in public policy
discourse of HK, i.e. “economic development”, has been challenged by
some seeming “illegitimate” discursive theme. “What thus emerges in risk
society is the political potential of catastrophes. Averting and managing
these can include a reorganization of power and authority. Risk society is a
catastrophic society.” (p. 24)
2121
W.K. Tsang & Teresa Siu
Issues in the Development of Liberal Studies
C. Ecological Ethics and Ecocentrism
1. Anthropocentric ethics: It refers to the value system, which places human
values as the predominant consideration. Accordingly, “anthropocentricism
refers to the unjustified privileging human beings, as such, at the expense of
other forms of life.” (Curry, 2006, p. 43) Ecocentrists argue that “all value is
human, and that ethnics should therefore have human being as its principal or
even sole focus: ‘Man never left centre stage, nature never has been, and
never will be, recognized as autonomous.’ (Jordanova, 1987)” (Curry, 2006, 0.
42-43). It represents an orientation towards environment, which takes
environment and nature as resources and utilities under the disposal of
human progress.
2. Light green ethics and sustainable anthropocentrism: It refers to the
orientation towards utilization of environment which takes into consideration
of sustainability. As an ethic system, it consists of
a. “a very strong precautionary principle – that is, acting cautiously. On the
assumption that our knowledge of the effects of our action is always
exceed by our ignorance;
b. a definition of ‘sustainability’ that rules out all practices except those that
are indefinitely sustainable; and similarly,
c. a conviction that as much rather as little as possible of nature should be
preserved intact.” (Curry, 2006, p. 48)
3. Mid-green ethnic and biocentrism: It refers to the value system, which take “life
itself as value.” (Curry, 2006, p. 44) It represents “’an attitude of respect for
nature’, To have this attitude …’is to regard the wild plants and animals of the
Earth’s natural ecosystems as possessing inherent worth. That such
creatures have inherent worth may be considered the fundamental value
presupposition of the attitude of respect.” (Taylor, 1986, p. 71)” (Curry, 2006,
60-61) Biocentrism can be characterized with the following believes.
a. “Human are members of the community of life in the same sense, and on
the same terms as, other living things.
b. That community, of which humans are a part, consists of a system of
interdependence comprising not only physical conditions, but also
relations with other members.
c. Every such organism is a teleological centre of life, i.e., an individual
pursuing its own kind of good (Greek telos=goal or end).
d. Human are not inherently superior to other organism.” (Taylor, 1986,
quoted in Curry, 2006, p. 61)
4. Dark green ethics and ecocentrism: It refers to the value system which takes
the holistic entities of the ecological system, both animate and nonliving
element, as the principal concern. As an ecocentric ethics, it “must be able to
satisfy at least these criteria:
a. It must be able to recognize the value and therefore support the ethical
defense, of the integrity of species and of ecosystemic places, as well as
human and non-human organism. So it is holistic, although not in the
sense of necessarily excluding considerations of individual values.
b. Within nature-as-value, it must (a) allow for conflicts between the interests
of human and non-human nature; (b) allow human interest, on occasion,
to lose ( It is hardly a level playing-field otherwise). (Curry, 2006, p. 63)
2222
W.K. Tsang & Teresa Siu
Issues in the Development of Liberal Studies