MOTHERS AND MOTHER NATURE: ATTACHMENT, DETACHMENT AND HUMAN ECOLOGICAL INTEGRITY

摘要

Ecological integrity requires sustainable technology and social integrity. Social integrity requires psychological integrity. This in turn requires the integrity of the mother-child relationship, the integrity of attachment. Technocratic birth and early separation from the mother may distort attachment that is basic to social behaviour, to the shaping of the so-called Internal Working Model (IWM)( Bowlby, 1973). Given the significance of undisturbed human imprinting and early mother/child attachment to the development of personality, its importance to the IWM, and its bearing on the relations to others, we assume that such attachment is fundamental to physical, psychological and ecological health as well, in shaping the 'deep structure' of culture and the harmonious relationship to nature. The IWM represents early social experience, the emotional arousal that influences the development of interpersonal relationships, perceptions and expectations (Freedman et al, 1993). If the IWM is harmed, secondary compensating "attachment organizations" will develop. Child delivery is an ecologically biocultural phenomenon that emerges in the natural, social, technological and information spheres (see Fig. 1). These human ecological systems, as adaptive networks of connections, are ecologically connected to each other by relations of dominance, symbiosis, and indifference. Ecological and climatic considerations influence mother and child bonding in any culture. In the north, for instance, an infant is often kept in a cradle; in the south, piggy-backing is typical. Both approaches influence the way a mother and a child communicate and attach. The subsistence systems (hunter-gatherer, agricultural or industrial-technological) have a deep influence on the cultural pattern of child delivery and attachment too. The deterioration of the mother-child attachment can have an impact on attitudes toward nature and society, endangering human ecological integrity. We assume that the changes in ecological awareness and human behaviour are essential to restoring the harmony and security of the mother/ child attachment and the attachment to Nature as well. This is an ecofamilist alternative that seeks to create optimal bonding to Mother Nature. According to our hypothesis, the natural, autopoieetic closed-loop ecological systems exemplified by small-scale societies with a strong reverence for nature and strong social bonds create strong attachment to members of local society and toward nature, while allopoieetic open-loop tehnocratic and informational societies loosen these bonds. High tech society needs a mobile, detached producer and consumer, with less drive to attach and more motivation to buy and exchange. This system overproduces Type-A behavior, which is called culture-bound syndrome by Helman (Helman, 1994) and which is useful to the industrial and commercial complex of globalization.