In-Class #3

THE HABITAT AND THE HABITUSE

I loved the distinction made between habitat, the environment in which we live, and habitus, the system that we create to perceive the environment around us in a certain way. I found this to be evident as I did a research paper on Paulos Gregorios, an Orthodox bishop, who spoke of the different view of “nature” in the Hellenistic understanding. The “habitus” that we spoke of in class months ago came to mind and I started to realize that most of our ecological positions and ways in which we relate to the environment come from Hellenistic understandings of nature that we never intended to have. We relate to our habitat based on this understanding and I thought that, that was interesting.