Elements of African Bioethics in a Western Frame

15. LIVING IN A WORLD OF DIVERSITY AND VARIETY

~ 199 ~ CHAPTER FIFTEEN LIVING IN A WORLD OF DIVERSITY AND VARIETY [This chapter is developed from a presentation delivered on 21 October 2008, at the German Presidency, Schloss Bellevue, on the invitation of the German President, Horst Kohler, to a special intercultural group discussion on the general theme: „Forms of Modernity – Views of Modernity” and the particular topic: „Wisdom and the Pursuit of Knowledge”] Wisdom is scattered in tiny little bits all over the world, amongst all peoples and cultures of the world Introduction The world in which we live (planet Earth) is marked by great variety and diversity. This diversity and variety can be perceived from every point of view in the various different peoples, cultures and languages of the world; in the various biological forms, both floral and faunal, that populate the earth; in the different ecological niches, climatic zones and geological forms of the world. Living creatures adapt themselves remarkably to the ecological niches in which they find themselves, merging themselves more or less harmoniously with the rest of nature. At the very centre of the variegated variety and diversity of the world are human beings (conscious and thinking creatures), in their different races and cultures, speaking their different languages and trying to make sense of the world, to survive and to prosper in it. This has given rise, not surprisingly, to various conceptions and suppositions about the nature of human beings themselves, their relationship with the rest of nature and how they ought or ought not to live in the world. Human intervention in nature probably began with agriculture (about 10 millennia ago, we are told) when human beings could no longer survive, let alone prosper, by remaining mere hunters and wild fruit gatherers. Western Culture and the Industrial Revolution A watershed in the evolution of human interaction with and intervention in nature is marked by the European Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries AD. The Western Industrial Revolution drew its impetus from the Baconian slogan that ~ 200 ~ ‘knowledge is power’ convertible into commercial value, from the idea that all knowledge is unqualifiedly good, from the belief that nature is, in principle, completely knowable and controllable, and from perception of the universe as something which should be explored, subdued, dominated and exploited. Since the Industrial Revolution, technology has been propelled to great heights by commerce and the profit motive, by war and the will to dominate, by pure scientific curiosity and by the urge to improve human wellbeing . Today it can be said that technology is engaged in a life or death struggle with nature; a struggle liable to culminate in the death of nature, following the death of God, which can be argued to have occurred already, in the sense that new technologies within Western culture have effectively supplanted the place previously occupied by the old God of the Bible. The Industrial Revolution and the technologies resulting from it greatly assisted Western imperial nations in their voyages of exploration, discovery, subjugation, colonization, domination and exploitation of other peoples. The cumulative effect of these very important achievements infused in Western culture an insatiable epistemological hunger, a spirit of omnivorous discovery, an automatic impulse to unifying, patenting, monopolizing and commercializing such discoveries and a penchant for spreading and promoting its ideas, vision, convictions and practices under the guise of universal imperatives of rationality and morality which ought to be binding on all and sundry. Today, Western culture is, indisputably, the dominant culture of the world – a descriptive fact, implying no value judgment. But Western culture is also a domineering, colonizing and proselytizing culture – a value judgment worthy of serious critical appraisal. In the domain of science and technology, Western culture is the acknowledged master at whose feet other cultures sit as pupils and apprentices, whether they like it or not. But this does not mean that other cultures also have to learn and accept all other things from Western culture. Science and technology in themselves have nothing to do with how, for example, people consider their coexistence with other creatures of the earth, conceive of or worship God, how they marry or bring up their children, how they organize their social system or even what they think of the uses to which technology should be put. ~ 201 ~ Human Limitations and Myth-Making Humans, no matter where and how they are situated in the world, are necessarily concerned about both the descriptive (is) and...