In 1966 Lynn White, a historian who focused on medieval technology, delivered an essay destined to become famous, “The Historic Roots of our Ecologic Crisis.” Immediately published, it began a debate which has not ended, and it may be an even more important concern now. Simply stated, White’s thesis was that our current environmental crisis is not due to technological advances gone out of control. Rather, it’s our mindset. It’s the way we think that has created the problem. White specifically attacked medieval Western Christianity for this problem, suggesting that the church, by setting humanity as the crown of creation, had drawn a line between humanity and nature, and nature was the loser. Nature was always going to be the loser. By the 1960s, this way of thinking could not be laid at the feet of Christians alone. It had seeped into the consciousness and dominated the thinking of every Western person, secular or religious. Such thinking characterized the dominant form of American frontier consciousness: The land is here to serve us.
The debate was heated and long, with lots of ink poured out by both sides; it lasted over the decade of the 70s but became a sort of sideline because protests over Vietnam and other issues filled most people’s plates in that decade. White pitted the ecological views of the Benedictines over against those of St. Francis of Assisi, as he understood them. In his view, Benedictines stressed that humans have “dominion” over nature. St. Francis stressed that humans are part of nature, not apart from it, and we should live accordingly, in harmony with “sister sun and brother moon.” To view the full article visit the La Crusus Sun News.