About Interconnectedness

Interconnectedness was written as a keynote address for a conference entitled Ecologise Politics, Politicise Ecology, hosted by the Cape Town Ecology Group and the Western Cape Branch of the World Conference on Religion and Peace, in 1991. Some of the specifics have changed and I've tweaked the piece here and there to account for the changes. I am surprised on re-reading it how much I still go along with, and am pleased to be able to publish it on the web. I the hope that some keen browsers will come upon it and that a few people will even  respond to the message.

The text is provisional and open to improvement. Anyone wishing me to add a link to any part of the text should send it to me and I'll include it where appropriate. Anyone wishing to send me a suggestion for improvement, especially on 'factual' matters, is more than welcome to do it.

As well as to years of wide reading in ecological issues and theory, the piece owes much to the Mahayana Buddhist notion of interdependence, (pratityasamutpada in Sanskrit.) Summed up in its briefest formulation by Nagarjuna, Abbott of Nalanda in about 200CE, it goes:

Things derive their being and nature
in mutual dependence
and are nothing
of themselves.

Vanity Press 1999

©1991,1999, Michael Cope. You may copy any section, print it, transmit it as one or more electrons, distribute it to whoever you wish. If you wish to use any section of it for educational (teaching) or commercial purposes (making money or supporting activities that make money) then you must first seek permission from the author.