From Onto-sympathy and Ecological Awareness to Ethico-sympathy and Zoëlogical Interaction, Embodied Beings, and Pedagogy in an Anthropocene Age

Abstract

It matters what world understanding we base educational theory and practice on. If we base it on an inherited Holocene scenic and human-centered world understanding, this leads to education understood as learning to optimize the use of resources only and solely for human needs. If we, on the other hand, base it on an emerging Anthropocene dialogical and life-centered world understanding, it leads to education understood as supporting students to become aware of the possibilities and value of being together with more-than-humans and to obtain experiences with how to co-create a joyful life. More specifically, it is argued that the onto-sympathy model proposed by Jane Bennett is based on a life-centered world understanding that might be helpful to foster needed ecological awareness within the field of education. However, this model needs to be complemented by an idealistic ethico-sympathy model, also based on a life-centered world understanding but paying more heed to cautious action, focusing on the possibility and value of zoëlogical interaction between humans and more-than-humans. If both models are used, it becomes more likely that we will begin to gain educational experiences with developing ethical relationships to more-than-humans and become able to co-create interspecies life-communities on a larger scale than today—both of which are needed more than ever in planetary history.