Free GCAS Course for the first 25 who sign-up
Faculty: Dr. John R. Ehrenfeld returned to his alma mater, MIT, in 1985 after a long career in the environmental field, and retired in 2000 as the Director of the MIT Program on Technology, Business, and Environment. Following that, he served until 2009 as Executive Director of the International Society for Industrial Ecology, guiding its development from its founding in 2000. He is the author of The Right Way to Flourish: Reconnecting with the Real World (2019), Sustainability by Design: A Subversive Strategy for Transforming our Consumer Culture (2008), and Flourish: A Frank Conversion about Sustainability (2013, with Andrew Hoffman). In October 1999, the World Resources Institute honored him with their first lifetime achievement award for his academic accomplishments in the field of business and environment. He holds a B. S. and Sc. D. in Chemical Engineering from MIT, and is author or co-author of over 250 papers, books, reports, and other publications. www.johnehrenfeld.com
Description: The world is not working well for many today and may become a hostile place in the future. This seminar probes the causes for the present situation, beginning with two of the constitutive beliefs of modernity: the Cartesian mechanical vision of the cosmos and the Smithian self-interested, needy human being. It moves to locate these troublesome beliefs in the way we have thought the human brain works. Then, it presents a recently developed model, built on new understanding of the differences between the way the two hemispheres attend to the world and produce the behaviors that shape our lives and the world we inhabit. With the divided-brain model in hand, we turn the focus to redesigning our selves and our principle institutions, starting with a new understanding of flourishing, seen as the satisfaction of the full potential of human existence, as the right end to guide the process.
Schedule: Saturdays, Nov 5, 12, 19, 26 at 11am New York time
Lecture 1 (Nov 5): The state of the world and one explanation about how we got to where we are. All chapters from Ehrenfeld, The Right Way to Flourish (Routledge, 2020) Chapter 1, 4, & Appendix.
Lecture 2 (Nov 12): Getting down to the root cause: The way our brains work. RWF, Chapters 3 & 5, McGilchrist Ways of Attending.
Lecture 3 (Nov 19): Flourishing as the right end to guide re-designing ourselves. Chapters 2, 6-7.
Lecture 4 (Nov 26): Re-designing the principle institutions of our cultures. Chapters 8-9, Epilogue (40 pp)
Assigned Reading:
