Telling into wholeness

Modernity glorifies hyperconsumerism and hyperindividualism, and gives rise to a consciousness of human separation from and superiority to nature. To counter these threats to our biological and sociological ecosystems, higher education in general, and sociology in particular, must adopt postmodern s trategies to educate for survival. The metanarratives that served the moder n age, such as "science" and "progress," prove inadequate for the postmoder n age of ecological crisis. We urgently need a more life-centered vision. T he ecological perspective replants our feet on the bedrock of biological an d sociological connectedness. Although science has been central to modernit y's destructiveness, ecology is a subversive science which can serve us wel l as both science and story; it is the central transformative image of a ne w postmodern metanarrative.