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	1	+2016-10-15 09:53:48.0

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	1	+Anthro K AFF
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	3	+Resolved: Countries ought to prohibit the production of nuclear power.
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	5	+Part 1 is the Framework
	6	+I affirm and value morality, derived from ought.
	7	+The resolution is a guide from which we derive any meaning and with that meaning we must understand and accept the assumptions that come with the discourse that we use. We must investigate this discourse in order to determine what is inherent in the acceptance of the terms we use. This is especially true in the context of non human animals and the discourse involving them. Our representations of the Other in the form of the animal is the self-fulfilling prophecy we tell ourselves to justify the relegation of animals as lesser beings and as a way to justify our immoral actions.
	8	+Bekoff 1, Marc. “A Global Explanation of Our Connections with Animals.” Encyclopedia of Human-Animal Relationships 3 .Eth-Liv (2007): 1044-1045. The University of New Mexico. Web. 1 Sept. 2014.
	9	+Every instance of communication serves to negotiate and construct meaning. If one refers to “the human relationship with other animals,” the inclusion of the word “other” before the word “animals” emphasizes the state of humans as animals themselves. This is contrary to the popular usage of the term “animals,” which has conventional mean¬ings that generally exclude humans. A reader might take the next step and ask, How does this particular popular usage of the word “animals” serve to construct knowledge of the human relationship with animals—through its repeated usage does it help reproduce the idea that humans are different from animals or are not animals? Or a reader might ask, Why is this perception of humans as different or separate from animals ingrained in the way we communicate—do overarching cultural, scientific, economic, religious, or other social forces help maintain this understanding? These are precisely the types of questions asked by scholars who study discourse. French philosopher and historian Michel Foucault (1926-84) developed the theory that discourses, or systems of language and representation, are productive, net-like organ¬izations of communication that permeate society at every level with power relations. For Foucault, not only do discourses produce meaning, but this meaning also regulates the way people behave and constructs the way people view themselves and the world. Con¬temporary scholars have been profoundly influenced by this idea. This move toward dis¬course, or the cultural or discursive turn, is one of the most significant paradigm shifts in the social sciences to occur in recent years. The level o words is a good place to start, looking at small-scale but important ele¬ments of discursive systems and their connection to the human relationship with ani¬mals. When a criminal is described on the evening news as “an animal,” or a survivor of genocide exclaims, “We were treated like animals,” certain culturally conventional mean¬ings are associated with the word “animal”. In the criminal's case, “animal” carries the connotation that one is violent and out of control; in the survivor's case, “animal” con¬notes that one is unworthy of respect or even life. Likewise, when someone calls another a “chicken” or a “pig,” certain meanings are conventionally associated: “chicken” con¬notes cowardly, and “pig” connotes gluttonous or filthy Although it may be obvious that the popular connotations in these instances are negative and often inaccurate (chickens bravely protect their chicks, and pigs avoid messing their living areas, tend not to overeat, and lack functional sweat glands to even “sweat like a pig”), scholars argue that these meanings serve to reinforce and are reinforced by larger-scale socially constructed understandings about animals. So, how do these animal metaphors work to actually inform or shape knowledge? Without associated meanings, words are neutral symbols. It is through the sociocultural constructive process of communication that humans negotiate what these symbols signify. The words are generated within larger discourses and get their meaning by virtue of their relatedness to other words, grammars, and practices within their respective systems. In turn, the particular uses of words help to uphold an respective knowledge system, or ide¬ology, giving hidden assumptions the appearance of being merely common sense, of being normal (as it should be), natural (as it is supposed to be), and neutral (neither bad nor good and having nothing to do with power). The examples of “animal,” “chicken,” and “pig” are that of metaphor, and more extensive animal metaphors permeate discourse about the human relationship with ani¬mals. For example, one Western metaphor for animals is that of commodities or machines that generate resources For human consumption (e.g., “animal units' in agri¬cultural talk), Metaphors, like other symbolic elements of communication, help to shape knowledge by privileging some options of conceptualizing and concealing others. George Lakoff and Mark Johnson argue that metaphors often serve as guides for future action that will fit the metaphor. Such action will, in turn, and reinforce the power of the metaphor to make experience coherent. Metaphors, in this sense, can be self-fulfilling prophecies. If, in different discourses, an animal is seen as a dumb brute, a spirit guide, a majestic icon, a loved companion, a pest, a respected member of a shared ecosystem, a pet, or a powerful and sacred entity, that animal will accordingly be treated as such. Scholars who study discourse assert that all communication is interested. By this, scholars mean that all communication contains an action plan of how to think about something or how to act with or toward something. Dominant ways of representing animals, therefore, favor certain ways of seeing and thinking about and relating with animals. At the same time, alternative ways of representing animals that might encourage different rela¬tions are often rendered difficult to 'select in part because taken-for-granted dominant representations preclude other such choices.
	10	+Therefore, the role of the ballot is to vote for the debater that best performatively and methodologically deconstructs the non-human animal, human animal binary, allowing for an authentic relationship that terminates this otherizing violence. This requires that we embrace an ecopedagological stance that recognizes the solidarity between the two groups and works towards a strategy that forces us to reconsider and reform our relationship to our shared environment.
	11	+Kahn, Richard V. The afterword from “Critical pedagogy, ecoliteracy, and planetary crisis: the ecopedagogy movement.” New York: Peter Lang, 2010. Print.
	12	+Richard Kahn’s groundbreaking work Critical Pedagogy, Ecoliteracy, and Planetary Crisis: The Ecopedagogy Movement is distinguished by its merging of perspectives from a Frankfurt School–inspired critical theory of society with a broad range of figures within critical pedagogy to provide conceptual foundations on behalf of a critical ecopedagogy movement that is mounting both within the academy and the larger activist community. Kahn opens by evoking the magnitude of the current ecological crisis and a corresponding crisis in environmental education. He cites figures indicating that although most serious educators are in favor in principle of offering environmental education, the actually existing programs are few and are usually marginalized. Moreover, as Kahn argues, the dominant models of environmental education abstract the ecosphere from developments in the economy, science, and technology, and are generally uncritical of the existing society and. Hence, they are unable to provide real insight into the causes of our ecological crisis and to mobilize on behalf of adequate responses. In addition, existing eco-education all too often lacks solid philosophical and ethical vision, needed to discern the dialectical relationships between nature and culture as well as to produce forms of consciousness that recognize the importance of a sustainable society that is inclusive of all forms of life. Kahn argues that part of the ecological crisis is the historical development of an anthropocentric worldview grounded in a sense that nature is a stuff of domination to be used by humans to meet their needs and purposes. Hence, a critical ecopedagogy needs to be rooted in a critique of the domination of nature, of the global technocapitalist infrastructure that puts profit and market forces before humans, nature, and social goods, and of an unfettered Big Science and Technology that has instrumental and mechanistic perspectives on nature and that fails to see the need for a robust ecological science and appropriate technologies. Kahn interprets ecopedagogy as a development of critical pedagogy that first took place in Latin America after the UN Earth Summit of 1992 held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil which inspired educators like Paulo Freire to see that a critical pedagogy must cultivate an ecological dimension. Kahn points out that the later Freire (and his Latin American associates) perceived ecopedagogy as part of a planetary movement for social and educational change through work at the grassroots level in social movements and through global educational institutions such as the Earth Charter Initiative. Kahn recognizes previous efforts that began to articulate a critical ecopedagogy in North America and lays out the contributions of previous advocates of critical pedagogy and ecoliteracy, but argues for a broader philosophical and critical vision rooted in the works of Ivan Illich and Herbert Marcuse, as well as Freire. To correct existing forms of environmental education, Kahn calls for a critical ecopedagogy that is concerned with understanding how political economy and ideology produce the domination of nature. A critical ecopedagogy promotes a dynamic and complex definition of ecoliteracy that seeks to promote the idea that while we are hemmed in by the limits of and interpolated by destructive institutional forms, we can recognize and transcend these thresholds through measures of individual transformation and collective action, which aim for sustainable place-based relationships. Fleshing out his project, Kahn engages an emergent tripartite model of ecoliteracy that involves interlocking forms of functional/technical literacy(e.g., environmental science), cultural literacy (e.g., which cultural practices/traditions further sustainability or hinder it?), and critical intersectional literacy focusing on the oppressive and liberatory potentials within political and economic structures. The project is related to normative goals of peace, social and environmental justice, and ecological well-being across species. Hence, Kahn seeks to transcend the limited framework of environmental education and to radicalize contemporary demands for sustainable development. He envisions a critical ecopedagogy that calls for analysis of ecological crisis and sustainable development to be mandated across the curriculum, that entire schools and communities come to focus on the problem of sustainability in all its myriad aspects, unlike present educational standards or policies. Yet he is wary of a too uncritical perception of the concept of “sustainable development” as a panacea to crisis since the concept itself is both nebulous and presently being utilized by all manner of corporations and states to legitimate ecologically unsustainable forms of globalization and imperialism. Kahn is thus sketching out a project that requires further development, debate, and new concepts and teaching strategies as we learn more about the environment, ecological crisis, and ways we can develop a more sustainable lifestyle and ways of living on the planet. It could be that the current global economic crisis, in conjunction with growing ecological crisis, will force us to rethink the consumer society and our drive to always create more and bigger technologies and cities and to celebrate high-consumption and high-tech lifestyles. Likewise, the global energy crisis could force us to produce new energy technologies and modes of transportation and habitation that are more ecologically sound. Or, more provocatively, it may require us to reconstruct educational emphases on the “new” and “improved” so that society can more effectively evaluate and adopt past options that became unfortunately outmoded through the unceasing drive for hegemonic forms of progress. Currently, educational, environmental, and economic policies are up for grabs in the United States and globally, as the political class and citizens grope with tremendous socioeconomic, environmental, and existential crises. The era of neoliberalism, based on a market fundamentalism that saw corporate laissez-faire solutions as the key to all social problems and economic development, is certainly ending but it is not yet clear what policies and philosophies will replace it. What follows could be worse still. In this uncertain situation, it is up to critical educators and concerned citizens to re-envision the importance of education as a means through which we can engage our current set of crises, as we develop pedagogies adequate to the challenges of the contemporary moment that can promote social transformation guided by concerns of sustainability and justice. Richard Kahn has produced an important pedagogical intervention into the ever-mounting global ecological crisis and offered critical perspectives on ways that ecopedagogy and ecoliteracy can be developed as palpable an alternatives to the status quo. It is important now for others to take up this task and to make critical ecopedagogy an important component of the reconstruction of education and society.
	13	+Part 2 is the Advocacy
	14	+My advocacy is that countries ought to prohibit the production of nuclear power to resist the anthropocentric mindset of the status quo. Put away your T and theory shells. My evidence indicates that the only reason why non human animals are not as heavily present in the topic lit is because the system has excluded them from its very conception. My unique advocacy is a radical deconstruction of what it means to live, and what it means to be a being worth of consideration, and most importantly, what it means to prohibit the production of nuclear power in the context of the non-human animal.
	15	+My replacement of the conventional subject of the resolution turns anthropocentrism on its head. What was normally used only to refer to the human animal is now being used to describe the non-human animal – this is the only way to tear the machine down. We’ve never given the non human animals a real chance to live, which means that any solvency deficits are just uniqueness arguments for me.
	16	+Bekoff 2, Marc. “A Global Explanation of Our Connections with Animals.” Encyclopedia of Human-Animal Relationships 3 .Eth-Liv (2007): 1044-1045. The University of New Mexico. Web. 1 Sept. 2014.
	17	+Because discourse is systemic, the problem of dominant discourses such as mas¬tery discourse creating a wide gulf between humans and animals cannot simply be fixed by erasing certain words From the vocabulary. These erasures do little if the meanings and associations of the new words that replace them reproduce similar con¬figurations of meanings. Struggles over discourse, however, are a necessary and inter¬related part of wider struggles for change. For example, the feminist movement, in addition to battles on economic, domestic, and public fronts, has waged a protracted and successful struggle over nonsexist discourse. Deborah Cameron writes that eliminating the use of “he” as a generic pronoun in the English language does serves to help change the repertoire of social meanings and choices available. Thus, change in linguistic practice itself can be social change if it coincides with and contributes to larger-scale societal transformations. In ways similar to feminist language activism, scholars have begun to offer sugges¬tions of word and grammar change for the human relationship with animals, including the use of narration to convey a sense of individual animals' lives, grammatical choices that make animals subjects if they are the primary actors or victims (e.g., the horse approached the girl), and verbs that imply animal emotional intention (e.g., the deer “fled” instead of “ran”). Dunayer also suggests avoiding expressions that elevate humans above other animals (e.g., “the sanctity of human life”); human-animal com¬parisons that patronize animals (e.g., “my dog is almost human”); terms that portray animals relatively Free of human control and genetic manipulation as dangerous or infe¬rior awareness about the metaphors one lives by and by having one's personal experiences with animals form the basis of alternative metaphors. In this way, one can develop what Lakoff and Johnson call an “experiential flexibility” to engage to an unending process of viewing one's life through new metaphors that open alternative ways of thinking. Ethnographic research on whale watching in the Pacific Northwest provides an example. Many whale watch boat naturalists and captains frequently use the word “show” to describe the physically close and emotionally exciting experiences people have with the killer whales, or orcas. For example, a captain might tell another captain over the marine radio, or a naturalist might say to tourists on the boat, “That was quite a show today,” after orcas swim close by the boat or engage in nearby boisterous activity, such as fin slapping or breaching out of the water. Because each word gets its meaning by virtue of its relatedness to other words and discursive formations within its respective structure, one can interpret how the partic¬ular word choice of “show” relates to popular Western communication, informed by anthropocentric mastery representations of exciting or amusing animal behavior as per¬formance or, more directly and ironically, representations by the marine entertainment industry of captive orcas trained to perform tricks for humans. Such mastery represen¬tations, however, are contradictory to the good-faith intentions of naturalists and cap¬tains to educate tourists about the behavior of whales in their natural habitats and to inform respectful understandings.
	18	+My advocacy brings to light the plight of millions of non human animals all over the world. When they can be killed without regard in the most brutal ways, it is time for a change. Gross violations should no longer be tolerated. It is because the 1AC opens the gates for revolution and change, that I stand in affirmation.
	19	+Part 3 is the Contention Level Offense
	20	+First, the universe does not belong to humans: the value placed on nuclear power as a resource detaches us from nature and entrenches anthropocentrism.
	21	+Berry 95 (Thomas, Ph.D. from the Catholic University of America in European intellectual history “The viable human” in Deep Ecology for the 21st Century, ed. George Sessions)
	22	+Ecologists recognize that reducing the planet to a resource base for consumer use in an industrial society is already a spiritual and psychic degradation. Our main experience of the divine, the world of the sacred, has been diminished as money and utility values have taken precedence over spiritual, aesthetic, emotional, and religious values in our attitude toward the natural world. Any recovery of the natural world will require not only extensive financial funding but a conversion experience deep in the psychic structure of the human. Our present dilemma is the consequence of a disturbed psychic situation, a mental imbalance, an emotional insensitivity, none of which can be remedied by any quickly contrived adjustment. Nature has been severely, and in many cases irreversibly, damaged. Healing can occur and new life can sometimes be evoked, but only with the same intensity of concern and sustained vigor of action as that which brought about the damage in the first place. Yet, without this healing, the viability of the human is severely limited. The basic orientation of the common law tradition is toward personal rights and toward the natural world as existing for human use. There is no provision for recognition of nonhuman beings as subjects having legal rights. To the ecologists, the entire question of possession and use of the earth, either by individuals or by establishments, needs to be profoundly reconsidered. The naive assumption that the natural world exists solely to be possessed and used by humans for their unlimited advantage cannot be accepted. The earth belongs to itself and to all the component members of the community. The entire earth is a gorgeous celebration of existence in all its forms. Each living thing participates in the celebration as the proper fulfillment of its powers of expression. The reduction of the earth to an object simply for human possession and use is unthinkable in most traditional cultures. To Peter Drucker, the entrepreneur creates resources and values. Before it is possessed and used, “every plant is a weed and every mineral is just another rock” (innovation and Entrepreneurship, 1985 pg. 30). To the industrial entrepreneur, human possession and use is what activates the true value of any natural object.
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	24	+Second, Nuclear power constantly puts the environment danger at every step of the process, which perpetuates the anthropocentric mindset society is obsessed with. (process)
	25	+Jaffer 11 (Misam, Standford university student, “Impact of Nuclear Power Plants”) Perhaps the impact which is easiest to notice is the effect on the environment, particularly in terms of flora and fauna. To start with, the setting up of a nuclear plant requires a large area, preferably situated near a natural water body. This is usually accompanied with clearing of forests which disturbs the natural habitat of several creatures and gradually upsets the ecological balance of the region. Apart from this, studies have shown that due to the heat rejected into the water bodies, there have been significant drops in the populations of several species of fish in certain regions of US. Another significant effect is the increased amount of sulfur dioxide in the air which causes acid rain to form which then leads to contamination of surface water bodies and of the region, reduction of productivity of the soil, and has several other negative effects on the region's vegetation and human health. 3
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	28	+Further, the after effects of nuclear power are always left unaccounted for. We continue to produce nuclear power without any regard for what the consequences might be.
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	30	+PFSR writes (US affiliate of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, recipient of 1985 Nobel Prize for Peace. “Dirty, Dangerous and Expensive: The Truth About Nuclear Power” No date, cites as recent as 2005, website copyrighted at 2016) Each year, enormous quantities of radioactive waste are created during the nuclear fuel process, including 2,000 metric tons of high-level radioactive waste(1) and 12 million cubic feet of low-level radioactive waste(2) in the U.S. alone. More than 58,000 metric tons of highly radioactive spent fuel already has accumulated at reactor sites around the U.S. for which there currently is no permanent repository. Even without new nuclear production, the inventory of commercial spent fuel in the U.S. already exceeds the 63,000 metric ton statutory capacity of the controversial Yucca Mountain repository, which has yet to receive a license to operate. Even if Yucca Mountain is licensed, the Department of Energy has stated that it would not open before 2017. Uranium, which must be removed from the ground, is used to fuel nuclear reactors. Uranium mining, which creates serious health and environmental problems, has disproportionately impacted indigenous people because much of the world’s uranium is located under indigenous land. Uranium miners experience higher rates of lung cancer, tuberculosis and other respiratory diseases. The production of 1,000 tons of uranium fuel generates approximately 100,000 tons of radioactive tailings and nearly one million gallons of liquid waste containing heavy metals, and arsenic in addition to and radioactivity.(3) These uranium tailings have contaminated rivers and lakes. A new method of uranium mining, known as in-situ leaching, does not produce tailings but it does threaten contamination of groundwater water supplies.
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	33	+And, Anthropocentric human domination over the natural world is an ongoing systematic genocide that gets ignored in ethical discussions. This is why having the discussion in academic space is key. It stems from the same mindset that causes racism, sexism, all discrimination; this cycle of violence must be broken.
	34	+Deckha 10 writes
	35	+While the intersection of race and gender is often acknowledged in understanding the etiology of justificatory narratives for war, the presence of species distinctions and the importance of the subhuman are less appreciated. Yet, the race (and gender) thinking that animates Razack’s argument in normalizing violence for detainees (and others) is also centrally sustained by the subhuman figure. As Charles Patterson notes with respect to multiple forms of exploitation: Throughout the history of our ascent to dominance as the master species, our victimization of animals has served as the model and foundation for our victimization of each other. The study of human history reveals the pattern: first, humans exploit and slaughter animals; then, they treat other people like animas and do the same to them. Patterson emphasizes how the human/animal hierarchy and our ideas about animals and animality are foundational for intra-human hierarchies and the violence they promote. The routine violence against beings designated subhuman serves as both a justification and blueprint for violence against humans. For example, in discussing the specific dynamics of the Nazi camps, Patterson further notes how techniques to make the killing of detainees resemble the slaughter of animals were deliberately implemented in order to make the killing seem more palatable and benign. That the detainees were made naked and kept crowded in the gas chambers facilitated their animalization and, in turn, their death at the hands of other humans who were already culturally familiar and comfortable with killing animals in this way. Returning to Razack’s exposition of race thinking in contemporary camps, one can see how subhuman thinking is foundational to race thinking. One of her primary arguments is that race thinking, which she defines as “the denial of a common bond of humanity between people of European descent and those who are not”, is “a defining feature of the world order” today as in the past. In other words, it is the “species thinking” that helps to create the racial demarcation. As Razack notes with respect to the specific logic infusing the camps, they “are not simply contemporary excesses born of the west’s current quest for security, but instead represent a more ominous, permanent arrangement of who is and is not a part of the human community”. Once placed outside the “human” zone by race thinking, the detainees may be handled lawlessly and thus with violence that is legitimated at all times. Racialization is not enough and does not complete their Othering experience. Rather, they must be dehumanized for the larger public to accept the violence against them and the increasing “culture of exception” which sustains these human bodily exclusions. Although nonhumans are not the focus of Razack’s work, the centrality of the subhuman to the logic of the camps and racial and sexual violence contained therein is also clearly illustrated in her specific examples. In the course of her analysis, to determine the import of race thinking in enabling violence, Razack quotes a newspaper story that describes the background mentality of Private Lynndie England, the white female soldier made notorious by images of her holding onto imprisoned and naked Iraqi men with a leash around their necks. The story itself quotes a resident from England’s hometown who says the following about the sensibilities of individuals from their town: To the country boys here, if you’re a different nationality, a different race, you’re sub-human. That’s the way that girls like Lynndie England are raised. Tormenting Iraqis, in her mind, would be no different from shooting a turkey. Every season here you’re hunting something. Over there they’re hunting Iraqis. Razack extracts this quote to illustrate how “race overdetermined what went on”, but it may also be observed that species “overdetermined what went on”. Race has a formative function, to be sure, but it works in conjunction with species difference to enable the violence at Abu Ghraib and other camps. Dehumanization promotes racialization, which further entrenches both identities. It is an intertwined logic of race, sex, culture and species that lays the foundation for the violence.
	36	+Part 4 is Impact and Ballot Framing
	37	+The role of the intellectual in academic spaces is to reject the proliferation of harmful mindsets. This is the only impact that we can access outside of the debate round. When you sign your ballot the resolution doesn’t automatically become true or false, but you CAN endorse a mindset change that can actually spark real world change. Moreover, our mindset in framing social issues shapes our ability to effectively solve the problems we discuss in the real world.
	38	+Blum (Andrew Managing Partner, the Triumph Group “Managing Mindset to Break the Cycle of Reactive Decision-Making”, March 31, 2012, Training, JS)
	39	+Mindset is the underlying beliefs and assumptions we bring to a situation, conscious or unconscious. It is our inner dialogue reflecting our view of reality, and it shapes how we interpret situations, how we act, and how we are acted upon. For instance, when you enter a dialogue with a creative mindset, you look to advance and build on the discussion at hand. On the other hand, if you approach a conversation with a critical mindset, you believe your value-add is to point out flaws and missing elements. Both creative and critical mindsets are essential in business, but when people’s mindsets are inconsistent with the needs and goals of the situation, problems occur—often in the form of unproductive or counterproductive action. Skills training will not lead to sustained behavior change unless you address underlying mindsets in parallel. For example, people can be trained in innovation practices—tools to advance creativity, such as the “plussing” Pixar is known for (Sims. Peter, Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries, New York: Free Press, 2011)—but those skills will never be effectively applied by someone with an unconsciously skeptical mindset. Skepticism will surface as negative languageand lead to a focus on flaws. Similarly, someone with rigorous quality management training operating from a creative mindsetmight tend to focus on what is working or look for opportunities to innovate but fail to identify and address flaws, breakdowns, or substandard outcomes. Managing and Changing Mindset Through Responsible Inquiry As success largely depends on ensuring the mindset people bring is appropriate to the situation, the first step in managingand changingmindset is creating awareness. When people are unaware of their own mindset, they remain in a reactive pattern driven by unconscious beliefs and assumptions. Though they may believe they’re trying to do things differently, they often experience repeated failures in the same activities because their actions are shaped continually by the same unconscious, unproductive mindsets. In working with a senior leader at a large technology company (let’s call him Bill), I observed this dynamic in play and helped him apply a simple strategy to get control of and manage his mindset. Bill operated predominantly from a fear-based mindset with the underlying belief that he was “at risk.” Regardless of the situation, his immediate orientation was to look at the places where he was likely to be held unfairly accountable, or to the places where the opinion of others might negatively affect him. With that unconscious predisposition, nearly every action he took had some measure of defensiveness in it. No matter how much Bill tried to reshape his actions, they were unconsciously driven by a mindset of fear. This changed as we began to note and question his fear-based assumptions through a process called “Responsible Inquiry.” When he would say something such as, “If I blow this, I am gone,” we agreed to pause, call it out as an assumption, and note the mindset behind it. With just a bit of dialogue he was able to see that his general fear of failure often was applied inappropriately to situations that, in reality, entailed little risk. We took this a step further and examined the actionsthat arose from his assumptions, and saw that as soon as Bill believed his mistake would get him fired, he immediately took a set of defensive and largely unproductive actions. Ironically, he began to see that those defensive actions were more likely to lead to him being fired than courageous actions he might have taken if he weren’t being driven by fear. Through this simple process, Bill saw the connection between his mindset and actions. More importantly, he began to understand that his results were less a function of his actions than of his underlying thinking, and he was able to break the cycle of unconscious reactivity and make choices more consistent with his true intent. The entire process of mindset management is based on three premises: My mindset drives my actions. I am in control of my mindsets. To take different actions and produce different results, I must own and manage my mindsets. Until a leader accepts his/her own “responsibility” in all of this, mindsets and their subsequent actions are something that will remain “outside of the leader.” Much of the work in mindset management focuses on developing awareness, followed by a responsible mindset driven by the underlying belief: “I am an integral factor in everything that occurs and can influence every situation through my thinking, actions, and reactions.” Defining and managing mindset, along with developing a responsible mindset, offers leaders the key to fundamental change and previously unachievable results. Without these distinctions and practices, however, mindset joins the multitude of esoteric buzzwords that are thrown around without clear definition.
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	42	+And the AC framing comes first for 2 additional reasons -
	43	+First, Anthropocentrism is always epistemically suspect. We must privilege alternative forms of knowledge production, especially in academic spaces.
	44	+Das 14 writes
	45	+Parallax describes the apparent change in the direction of a moving object caused by alteration in the observer's position. In the graphic work of M.C. Escher, human faculties are similarly deceived and an impossible reality made plausible. While not strictly a scientific theorem, anthropocentrism, the assessment of reality through an exclusively human perspective, is deeply embedded in science and culture. Improving knowledge requires abandoning anthropocentricity or, at least, acknowledging its existence. Anthropocentrism's limits derives from the physical constraints of human cognition and specific psychological attitudes. Being human entails specific faculties, intrinsic attitudes, values and belief systems that shape enquiry and understanding. The human mind has evolved a specific physical structure and bio-chemistry that shapes thought processes. The human cognitive system determines our reasoning and therefore our knowledge. Language, logic, mathematics, abstract thought,and cultural beliefs, history and memories create a specific human frame of reference, which may restrict what we can know or understand. There may be other forms of life and intelligence. The ocean has revealed creatures that live from chemo-synthesis in ecosystems around deep-sea hydrothermal vents, without access to sunlight. Life forms based on materials other than carbon may also be feasible. An entirely radical set of cognitive frameworks and alternative knowledge cannot be discounted. Like a train that can only run on tracks that determine direction and destination, human knowledge may ultimately be constrained by what evolution has made us. Knowledge was originally driven by the need to master the natural environment to meet basic biological needs—survival and genetic propagation. It was also needed to deal with the unknown and forces beyond human control. Superstition, religion, science and other belief systems evolved to meets these human needs. In the eighteenth century, medieval systems of aristocratic and religious authority were supplanted by a new model of scientific method, rational discourse, personal liberty and individual responsibility. But this did not change the basic underlying drivers. Knowledge is also influenced by human factors—fear and greed, ambition, submission and tribal collusion, altruism and jealousy, as well as complex power relationships and inter-personal group dynamics. Behavioural science illustrates the inherent biases in human thought. Announcing a boycott of certain "luxury" scientific journals, 2013 Nobel laureate Dr. Randy Schekman argued that to preserve their pre-eminence they acted like "fashion designers who create limited-edition handbags or suits…knowing scarcity stokes demand". He argued that science is being distorted by perverse incentives whereby scientists who publish in important journals with a high "impact factor" can expect promotion, pay rises and professional accolades. Understanding operates within these biological and attitudinal constraints. As Friedrich Nietzsche wrote: "every philosophy hides a philosophy; every opinion is also a hiding place, every word is a mask". Understanding of fundamental issues remains limited. The cosmological nature and origins of the universe are contested. The physical source and nature of matter and energy are debated. The origins and evolution of biological life remain unresolved. Resistance to new ideas frequently restricts the development of knowledge. The history of science is a succession of controversies—a non geo-centric universe, continental drift, theory of evolution, quantum mechanics and climate change. Science, paradoxically, seems to also have inbuilt limits. Like an inexhaustible Russian doll, quantum physics is an endless succession of seemingly infinitely divisible particles. Werner Heisenberg's uncertainty principle posits that human knowledge about the world is always incomplete, uncertain and highly contingent. Kurt Gödel's incompleteness theorems of mathematical logic establish inherent limitations of all but the most trivial axiomatic systems of arithmetic. Experimental methodology and testing is flawed. Model predictions are often unsatisfactory. As Nassim Nicholas Taleb observed: "You can disguise charlatanism under the weight of equations … there is no such thing as a controlled experiment." Challenging anthropocentrism does not mean abandoning science or rational thought. It does not mean reversion to primitive religious dogma, messianic phantasms or obscure mysticism. Transcending anthropocentricity may allow new frames of reference expanding the boundary of human knowledge. It may allowing human beings to think more clearly, consider different perspectives and encourage possibilities outside the normal range of experience and thought. It may also allow a greater understanding of our existential place within nature and in the order of things. As William Shakespeare's Hamlet cautioned a friend: "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy". But fundamental biology may not allow the required change of reference framework. While periodically humbled by the universe, human beings remain enamoured, for the most part, with the proposition that they are the apogee of development. But as Mark Twain observed in Letters from Earth: "He took a pride in man; man was his finest invention; man was his pet, after the housefly." Writing in The Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy, the late English author Douglas Adams speculated that the earth was a powerful computer and human beings were its biological components designed by hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings to answer the ultimate questions about the universe and life. To date, science has not produced a conclusive refutation of this whimsical proposition. Whether or not we can go beyond anthropocentrism, it is a reminder of our limits. As Martin Rees, Professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics, at Cambridge and Astronomer Royal, noted: "Most educated people are aware that we are the outcome of nearly 4 billion years of Darwinian selection, but many tend to think that humans are somehow the culmination. Our sun, however, is less than halfway through its lifespan. It will not be humans who watch the sun's demise, 6 billion years from now. Any creatures that then exist will be as different from us as we are from bacteria or amoebae."
	46	+
	47	+
	48	+Second, critiquing anthropocentrism in debate is key to opening up possibilities for those new forms of thought.
	49	+Bell and Russell 2k write
	50	+We come to critical pedagogy with a background in environmental thought and education. Of primary concern and interest to us are relationships among humans and the “more-than-human world” (Abram, 1996), the ways in which those relationships are constituted and prescribed in mo- dern industrial society, and the implications and consequences of those constructs. As a number of scholars and nature advocates have argued, the many manifestations of the current environmental crisis (e.g., species extinction, toxic contamination, ozone depletion, topsoil depletion, climate change, acid rain, deforestation) reflect predominant Western concepts of nature, nature cast as mindless matter, a mere resource to be exploited for human gain (Berman, 1981; Evernden, 1985; Merchant, 1980). An ability to respond adequately to the situation therefore rests, at least in part, on a willingness to critique prevailing discourses about nature and to consider alternative representations (Cronon, 1996; Evernden, 1992; Hayles, 1995). To this end, poststructuralist analysis has been and will continue to be invaluable.¶ It would be an all-too-common mistake to construe the task at hand as one of interest only to environmentalists. We believe, rather, that disrupting the social scripts that structure and legitimize the human domination of nonhuman nature is fundamental not only to dealing with environmental issues, but also to examining and challenging oppressive social arrangements. The exploitation of nature is not separate from the exploitation of human groups. Ecofeminists and activists for environ- mental justice have shown that forms of domination are often intimately connected and mutually reinforcing (Bullard, 1993; Gaard, 1997; Lahar, 1993; Sturgeon, 1997). Thus, if critical educators wish to resist various oppressions, part of their project they must entail calling into question, among other things, the instrumental exploitive gaze through which we humans distance ourselves from the rest of nature (Carlson, 1995).¶ For this reason, the various movements against oppression need to be aware of and supportive of each other. In critical pedagogy, however, the exploration of questions of race, gender, class, and sexuality has proceeded so far with little acknowledgement of the systemic links between human oppressions and the domination of nature. The more-than-human world and human relationships to it have been ignored, as if the suffering and exploitation of other beings and the global ecological crisis were somehow irrelevant. Despite the call for attention to voices historically absent from traditional canons and narratives (Sadovnik, 1995, p. 316), nonhuman beings are shrouded in silence. This silence characterizes even the work of writers who call for a rethinking of all culturally positioned essentialisms.¶ Like other educators influenced by poststructuralism, we agree that there is a need to scrutinize the language we use, the meanings we deploy, and the epistemological frameworks of past eras (Luke and Luke, 1995, p. 378). To treat social categories as stable and unchanging is to reproduce the prevailing relations of power (Britzman et al., 1991, p. 89). What would it mean, then, for critical pedagogy to extend this investigation and critique to include taken-for-granted understandings of “human,” “animal,” and “nature”?¶ This question is difficult to raise precisely because these understandings are taken for granted. The anthropocentric bias in critical pedagogy manifests itself in silence and in the asides of texts. Since it is not a topic of discussion, it can be difficult to situate a critique of it. Following feminist analyses, we find that examples of anthropocentrism, like examples of gender symbolization, occur “in those places where speakers reveal the assumptions they think they do not need to defend, beliefs they expect to share with their audiences” (Harding, 1986, p. 112).¶ Take, for example, Freire’s (1990) statements about the differences between “Man” and animals. To set up his discussion of praxis and the importance of “naming” the world, he outlines what he assumes to be shared, commonsensical beliefs about humans and other animals. He defines the boundaries of human membership according to a sharp, hierarchical dichotomy that establishes human superiority. Humans alone, he reminds us, are aware and self-conscious beings who can act to fulfill the objectives they set for themselves. Humans alone are able to infuse the world with their creative presence, to overcome situations that limit them, and thus to demonstrate a “decisive attitude towards the world” (p. 90).¶ Freire (1990, pp. 87–91) represents other animals in terms of their lack of such traits. They are doomed to passively accept the given, their lives “totally determined” because their decisions belong not to themselves but to their species. Thus whereas humans inhabit a “world” which they create and transform and from which they can separate themselves, for animals there is only habitat, a mere physical space to which they are “organically bound.”¶ To accept Freire’s assumptions is to believe that humans are animals only in a nominal sense. We are different not in degree but in kind, and though we might recognize that other animals have distinct qualities, we as humans are somehow more unique. We have the edge over other crea- tures because we are able to rise above monotonous, species-determined biological existence. Change in the service of human freedom is seen to be our primary agenda. Humans are thus cast as active agents whose very essence is to transform the world – as if somehow acceptance, appreciation, wonder, and reverence were beyond the pale.¶ This discursive frame of reference is characteristic of critical pedagogy. The human/animal opposition upon which it rests is taken for granted, its cultural and historical specificity not acknowledged. And therein lies the problem. Like other social constructions, this one derives its persuasiveness from its “seeming facticity and from the deep investments individuals and communities have in setting themselves off from others” (Britzman et al., 1991, p. 91). This becomes the normal way of seeing the world, and like other discourses of normalcy, it limits possibilities of taking up and confronting inequities (see Britzman, 1995). The primacy of the human ente prise is simply not questioned.¶ Precisely how an anthropocentric pedagogy might exacerbate the en- vironmental crisis has not received much consideration in the literature of critical pedagogy, especially in North America. Although there may be passing reference to planetary destruction, there is seldom mention of the relationship between education and the domination of nature, let alone any sustained exploration of the links between the domination of nature and other social injustices. Concerns about the nonhuman are relegated to environmental education. And since environmental education, in turn, remains peripheral to the core curriculum (A. Gough, 1997; Russell, Bell, and Fawcett, 2000), anthropocentrism passes unchallenged.1¶ p. 190-192

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	1	+2016-10-15 09:53:50.652

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	1	+NA

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	1	+15

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	1	+North Crowley Reed Aff

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	1	+2- Anthro AC

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	1	+Unbroken