Richard Khan Analysis

            In his paper Towards Ecopedagogy: Weaving a Broad-based Pedagogy of Liberation for Animals, Nature, and the Oppressed People of the Earth, Richard Khan, a professor at the University of North Dakota, writes that people must be taught in such a way that their current mindsets and views. The main way people need to switch their thinking is that they have to change from a capitalist, dominating mindset, to a more socialist mindset in which animals, nature, and people are not dominated and oppressed by a rich few that happen to be at the top of the pecking order. Khan writes about how today’s social system is based on class, but he also compares how people destroy and oppress the environment to social classes: “the exploitation of species, of the environment, and of the poor by the rich, have a single underlying cause… the globalization of technocapitalsm.” Not only are rich people putting down the poor to get ahead in today’s “globalized technocapitalist” system, but also people are putting down the environment to get ahead and outcompete it. If the lower class and the environment are to be saved, this system must end, and a new, more cooperative system must be adopted. If a socialist system such as the one Khan writes about is implemented, the rich, the poor, and the environment can live together harmoniously, without the need to violently outcompete each other.