Cultivating the Ecological Conscience: Smith, Orr, and Bowers on Ecological Education Page: 38
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render students more competitive in the global economy "is like equipping students for jobs
onboard the Titanic."42 Intellectually, these problems can be traced back to the Enlightenment,
which, Orr laments, "bequeathed to the modern university" its characteristic Baconian mission of
subduing nature, the fulfillment of which has become "the operating creed of the modern
research university."43
Orr performs a courageous and commendable public service by asserting that in higher
education the corporatization of institutions, misplaced curricular priorities, and the timidity and
political apathy of most faculty are problems that must be addressed if we are to have any chance
of stemming the environmental crisis.44 Professionalization, Orr writes, "has Balkanized the
intellectual landscape." Directing their "allegiance" to one particular disciplinary "principality,"
few academics "know enough of the whole terrain to be dangerous to the established order.
Narrowness, 'methodolatry,' and careerism have rendered many unfit and unwilling to ask large
and searching questions."45 Refreshingly, he goes on: to the extent that it is "obscure, jargon-
laden, and trivial, professionalized knowledge has come as a great windfall to the comfortable,
serving to direct attention from behavior that is egregious, criminal, or merely embarrassing."46
Sadly, these criticisms are applicable even to the liberal arts, which, "from an ecological
perspective.., have not been liberal enough."47 As evidenced by, among other things, the fact
that dissident graduate students are largely weeded out, academia, Orr rightly observes, is too
much a sanctuary for shallow careerists and much less than it ought to be "a place for passionate
42 OFF, "Deciding for Life," p. 158.
43 Orr, "Reinventing Higher Education," p. 10.
44 OFF, Earth in Mind, pp. 89-111, 117-21.
45 Ibid., p. 100.
46 Ibid., pp. 100-01.
47 Ibid., p. 109.38
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Hoelscher, David W. Cultivating the Ecological Conscience: Smith, Orr, and Bowers on Ecological Education, thesis, December 2009; Denton, Texas. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc12133/m1/43/: accessed April 23, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; .