Through Western Eyes

This paper attempts to highlight the emergent threat posed by the Western materialistic worldview to a sustainable human civilization and draws a blueprint of ideas which can reverse this trend. In approaching this global problem from a whole-system perspective the author underlines the importance of the inseparability of environmental and other manmade problems facing humankind. He also ques tions some of the taken-for-granted assumptions of growth-based capitalism like competition, self- interest, progress and technological advance. Finally, the paper suggests that a shift in paradigm from the Western model of development to the more 'holistic' Eastern view is the need of the hour

Blueprint · Capitalism · Civilization · Competition (biology · Earth system science · Economics · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Materialism · Neoclassical economics · Perspective (graphical · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Sustainable development · Western culture · Computer Science · Economic Theory and Institutions · Engineering · Law · Philosophy · Political Economy and Marxism · Sustainable Development and Environmental Policy · Ecology