Ubuntu….What is it?

When I first heard this word, I thought of the Linux based operating system.  Of course this is because I am quite the nerd.  However, now that I have read on it, Ubuntu is quite an interesting concept.

A literal translation of Ubuntu is, "I am what I am because of who we all are."  This means that everyone and everything is related.  This includes humans, other animals, plants, and our ecosystem.

This concept can relate to the idea of an Empathic Civilization by Jeremy Rifkin.  While it is not exactly the same, it is very close.  In an Empathic Civilization, we extend our ability to empathize with others to the entire planet and by doing this, have a better understanding and care for humans, other animals, and the environment.  Really, the only difference between these two ideas is that

Ubuntu says that we are directly related to everyone and everything else, unlike the Empathic Civilization which simply says that we should show empathy to everyone and everything around us.
To me, this means that as well as caring for other humans, we should treat the rest of our planet just as nice.  I do not know how easy this will be considering that we can still treat our fellow humans so badly.  Plus, many people resist ways to help our environment like recycling, cleaner energy and fuel, and conserving resources.  So, in my opinion, I really do not know if we can achieve Ubuntu anytime in the near future.

These ideas really fit in well with what I thought we were going to do with this unit.  I thought that we should be able to do something real with this class, and I believe that we could, at the least, do something to better a small group of people, like our school population for instance.  As for what I would like to learn for this unit, I believe that we should learn about different ways to make the Earth a better place, not only for ourselves, but for future humans.

You can view the Jeremy Rifkin Empathic Civilization video here: