DEVASTATED ENVIRONMENTAL AS A PROBLEM OF GEOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE: " MYTHICAL CLEAVAGE" AS MODE OF WESTERN LIFE

Abstract

In this theoretical text I start from the assumption that there is a mythical logic, bible-based, which underlies what is commonly called "environmental crisis" or "nature". The lighting of this problem is not new, though not taken very much into account in discussions related to the environment, for example in Joseph Campbell´s work. If there is a devastation or “crisis” of "nature" , this must be addressed as something peculiar to the Western way of life as a "mythic dissociation" , not as something alien, or as the result of a space´s deterministic itinerary . Our work also suggests that the "reactions", such as regional development projects in the state of Rondônia, are corollaries of this mode of life under the "mythic dissociation". To suggest such interpretations, our study bases on mythology, as well as the theory of humanistic geography. In this sense, the knowledge on regional development, in the case studied, expands beyond determinism, whether economic or political. It has been seen as a corollary of the same reaction perceived as "mythic dissociation" which is the way Western life is formatted.