All men of this planet were not like us. The roots of today's ecological crisis began in the 16th and 17th centuries with certain philosophic shifts that led to scientific reductionism. Science became quantified and the qualitative aspects of things no longer mattered to Science because the qualitative couldn't be measured. A flower became only the material that it was made of and it's weight, it's beauty and color became irrelevant because it could not be measured. Another example would be something like Mozart's masterpiece being explained only by knowing the weight and material structure of his piano, ignoring the masterpiece of music that the piano created. And so the reckless raping and pillaging of the planet began because science reduced the planet to the few physical laws that it had "discovered". Beauty, Sacredness, etc - all became scientifically irrelevant and so the earth was reduced from being a unified, sacred living entity to a machine compartmentalized and then conquered. This is why we made such huge material gains in the centuries that followed. This new science was highly effective because it was based on a domination over the planet as opposed to the traditional union pre-modern man exercised. Whereas, a forest was sacred to the pre-moderns who would take what they needed from it but no more out of fear, modern man considered that superstition and saw only wood for his consumption when he viewed this same forest. We moderns loosened certain constraints and allowed ourselves certain liberties upon the planet that traditional peoples didn't. This is why modern man looks back at tradition as being stupid.."they must of been backwards because they didn't progress like us". It's only now that we see that it's our very idea of Progress that is now endangering life on our planet. We can not maintain this planet in the way men have been successfully able to for thousands of years, so who were the smarter ones in the truest sense?? We traded our Knowledge for Information, there is a huge difference between the two.
IN this lecture, Dr. Nasr breaks down the ideas that led to the mechanization of our worldview.
Dr. Nasr is university professor of Islamic studies at George Washington University. Before that he served as professor of Islamic studies at Temple University. He also has taught at Princeton University, American University of Beirut, Tehran University and Harvard University.
Nasr's early learning in Tehran, Iran, emphasized a classical education in religion and Persian literature. He received a doctorate in history of science and philosophy, with an emphasis on Islamic science, at Harvard University. He also receiveda master's in geology and geophysics at Harvard. He received a bachelor's in physics and mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Nasr has held a number of positions in educational and cultural organizations. Among them, he served as chief adviser of the Al-Furqan Foundation in the United Kingdom in 1991, was responsible for the exhibition of Islamic science at the London Science Museum in 1976, was a member of the organizing committee of the First Muslim WorldEducational Conference in Mecca in 1975-77, and was founder and first president of the Iranian Academy of Philosophy.
At Aryamehr University, he served as president, 1972-75. At Tehran University, he was vice chancellor, 1970-71, and dean of the faculty of letters, 1968-72.
Nasr was the first Muslim to present the Gifford Lectures at the University of Edinburgh. He has written more than 40 books and hundreds of articles, many translated into a number of languages.