Peter’s blog: ‘What could we be learning from others?’

A recent article by Janice Lee (‘What Humanity Can Learn From Plants‘), raises this question. It’s well worth reading!

Lee asks why we value ‘scientific’ knowledge over all other ways of knowing and points out some other limitations of our ways, such as rendering non-human living beings as ‘it’, as if they were inanimate objects. She suggests we could learn a lot from trees and also suggests some lessons from moss. She mentions Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Gathering Moss, and points out the value of Kimmerer’s combination of science (doctorate in botany) and Indigenous wisdom (Potawatomi). (Don’t miss her Braiding Sweetgrass.)

Leanne Betasamosake Simpson (Mississauga Nishnaabeg) is a another Indigenous person from whom we can all learn (one of many). She’s a thinker-writer-poet-musician who teaches in Toronto and has written several excellent books. As We Have Always Done (2017) helps us understand how differently Indigenous people see research and knowledge in comparison to our somewhat rigid & limiting scientific & academic approaches.

We all have a lot to learn…