Reconceptualising the foundations of knowledge to enhance the pedagogic goals of environmental education with special reference to the Three Gorges Dam project

In this paper we shall argue that despite the protracted debate surrounding the TGP, there has been little chance of resolving the issues because the epistemological presumptions which give rise to the disparity in values-orientation underpinning the debate have remained elusive. Our goal here is to make explicit the epistemological dimensions of the debate which thus far have only been implicit. It is our view that the construction of the Three Gorges Dam (TGD) has been motivated by what Laura has called, ‘the epistemology of power’. Understanding the socio-cultural evolution of technologized societies in both the East and the West involves making explicit a dominant epistemological tenet, namely, that ‘Knowledge is tantamount to Power’. From this it follows that the dominant conceptual approach to the technoligization of nature and thus to dam construction is motivated by a particular theory of knowledge which is characterized by mankind‘s obsession with power, dominance, subjugation and control. It is this obsession with power, dominance and control which gives rise to a covert moral tension between the political objectives of engineering pedagogy on the one hand and the moral purpose of environmental education on the other. We submit that the reliance on ‘power epistemology’ as the dominant model for technoloization has created a scientific discourse which has marginalized the importance of the ethical issues surrounding the building of the dam and its long term utilization. Appreciation of this point makes it easier to discern why the noble efforts by some to think environmentally and in qualitative value terms about the Project have been severely marginalized and eventually superseded by technologically disposed instrumentalism