From Friday's class discussion, I wonder how this Andean peasant culture view human intuition, morality, or moral status. The article speaks to their crops, with a mention of their breeding alpacas. I did not find any reference to meat in their diet - and unfortunately, since the article appeared in a 1997 Journal - I haven't been able to access more details online. I'm particularly interested in their understanding of themselves as unified with nature, and that everything is sentient. And whether or not they are vegetarian.
Curious if we might apply concepts of morality to them - and what that might look like.
Excerpts from "Counter-Development in the Andes" by Frederique Apffel-Marglin, The Ecologist, Vol. 27, No. 26, 1997,
pp. 221-224.
"Andean peasants do not experience themselves as being apart from the rest of the inhabitants of the world.... Openness, attentiveness, receptivity and respect are the attitudes that foster conversations. The senses are not apprehended as limiting or distorted. With the beginning of experimental science, the senses were seen as "infirmities," as obstacles to correct understanding. These "infirmities" were to be remedied and enhanced by the use of experimental devices and instruments. Such denial of the senses in pursuit of knowledge can only arise in a world-view that has already separated humans from the natural world. In the Andes, rivers, mountains, lakes and rocks have eyes and ears: everything is sentient. Some mountains, lakes...animals and plants are huacas (deities). (P.223)
"What happens between the Andean communities of humans, deities, and nature is reciprocal dialogue, a relationship that does not assume any distancing and objectification between those dialoguing...Such dialogue does not lead one to a knowledge about the other, but...to emphasize and attune oneself with its mode of being...It is a dialogue... that leads [not to knowledge but] to wisdom" (p. 224)
Would we consider them philosophers and this their philosophy?
According to the author, the Andean world-view assesses modern Western knowledge from a native Andean point of view. They find Western cosmology based on a rejection of basic assumtpions about nature, the nature of humans, of knowledge, etc. The Andean peasants have been in existence for over 10,000 years, could their cosmological p.o.v. be a significant or insignificant factor in the longevity of their culture?
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2 comments:
It is clearly a "philosophy," and one that we could benefit from engaging. Even so, the idea that all of nature is "sentient," threatens to undermine a most promising basis for moral judgment.
Perhaps, but some of these cultures request permission from a member of a species to use them. An example would be asking a community of dandelions for permission to harvest some of their roost to make dandelion tea, then waiting to see if individual plants agree to allow themselves to be harvested. It is done mindfully and respectfully, and always in a manner that does not put the specie in that particular community at risk - a form of sustainable harvesting. I have seen natives in the Amazon do this with fish too.
Of course it would all be dependent on the capacity of the humans to communicate adequately and accurately with other nonhuman species.
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