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A Study of Western Discourses on the Ecological Crisis - Focusing on the Comparative Discourse of Eastern and Western Thinking Structures -

Lee, Myoung Ho 1

1경희대학교 종교시민문화연구소

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ABSTRACT

Crisis and transformation are the key terms that define our time. Forced to address significant problems such as war, terrorism, nuclear, hunger, and disease, as well as climate, environmental, and ecological issues, humanity is truly in the midst of a "civilizational crisis." Those who agree with this analysis trace the causes of this global emergency to modern Western civilization and its thinking structures. Modern industrial civilization is organized around an economic structure based on industrialization and the pursuit of material growth, profit, and convenience, and a system of production and consumption based on paired needs (desires), and the paradigm of modern industrial civilization is supported by dualistic, mechanistic, and substantial views of thought. The Western thinking structure distinguishes between humans and nature, and nature is defined through human intervention and interference. Nature has been considered as meant to be used or exploited by humans, subject to unrestricted human violence, and was subject to the modern rhetoric of progress and development through growth. This Western system of thinking was distinguished from the Eastern system of thinking, which was based on interdependence, and emphasized relationships and circularity. Thus, critiques of Western industrial civilization often lead to an interest in Eastern civilizations and thinking structures as alternatives. Since there are elements of various civilization paradigms in Eastern thought structures that can overcome the industrial civilization paradigm, a comparative discourse has been actively developed, which holds that a new civilization paradigm based on Eastern thought traditions could and should be constructed. However, ecological ways of thinking could also be found in the Western thought tradition before modernization, and related discussions are still taking place. Furthermore, there is no evidence that Eastern cognitive structures have driven people's climate behavior in the real world, nor do they serve as the basis for current climate crisis governance. As the situation of Earth's ecosystem approaches the tipping point of planetary limits, a global transformation is required. The transformation to an ecological civilization calls for the participation of all humankind. This paper examines the discourse comparing Eastern and Western thinking structures in light of these issues. First, we examine the ecological crisis as a global historical crisis facing humanity. We also examine why governance to overcome the climate crisis is not working, and what is needed for it to do so. After that, we will reveal that the elements for building a civilization paradigm required for ecological civilization are not only present in Eastern thinking structures, and we will identify the limits of comparative discourse and the need for new strategies for building a new civilization.

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* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.

This paper was written with support from the National Research Foundation of Korea.
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