Human Settlements Review - Parliamentary Monitoring Group

Human Settlements Review, Volume 1, Number 1, 2010
the world as different objects operating as
part of a large machine. Thus the mechanistic
worldview was born. Isaac Newton also
held this mechanistic worldview and these
two people became synonymous with the
mechanistic worldview (Capra, 1975).
This view did not only examine oneself
mechanistically, but also nature and society
were viewed mechanistically or as separate
parts. Separate parts to be exploited by
different interest groups, which has lead to
various environmental and social crises over
the years. There have been positive aspects
to this mechanistic worldview, both classical
physics and technology developed from this
worldview, although they have often lead to
detrimental conditions (Capra, 1975).
It should be remembered that a patriarchal
worldview also dominated societies’ views on
life from that time to modern times. Around
that time, a man named Francis Bacon
who formulated a clear theory for making
experiments and he became famous for this.
He also viciously attacked nature through
phrases containing metaphors referring to
nature as women and that one should enslave
and torture nature in order to learn, use and
abuse. This image of nature was concurrent
with witch trials, which were held frequently
in his time. The effect of Bacon’s attack
was that the view of the nurturing earth was
disappearing to be replaced with the view of
the earth as a machine coupled with patriarchal
views of society (Capra, 1983; Capra, 1988).
Metaphors promoting the domination of nature
prevailed under the mechanistic worldview, at
the same time women were put under male
domination through a paternalistic worldview.
This illustrates the effects of metaphors on
society’s conceptual thought system.
The mechanistic worldview has lead to a
technological revolution in an attempt to put
nature under greater domination and to make
use of nature in a more efficient manner.
This need for technology advancement and
domination over nature shows symptoms
of being ideological, with technology and
economic advancement being elevated to
hyper-normative status with disregard to the
other normative values’ true natures. This is
coupled with a relationship of domination with
technology dominating nature (Schuurman,
1983).
7. Change of Worldview and
the New Paradigm
Solutions to the problems associated with
the paternalistic and mechanistic worldview
need to be formulated and a good first step
is to change the dominating worldviews to
metaphors that do not promote degradation
and fragmented views of what is true nature.
A new worldview has been formulated on
the old worldview that existed before the
mechanistic worldview. It focuses on a holistic
view of nature and life, and follows what is
known as systems thinking or a systems
view of life. It looks at life in its entirety and
includes the interrelationships and the
interdependencies that make up life. For while
mechanistic science studied the basic building
blocks, systems science focuses on the basic
principle of organization (Capra, 1983).
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