This dynamic does not always guarantee long-term progress or prosperity: if knowledge is partial or unable to evaluate all of the consequences, a step back to the starting point is required, equipped with a new awareness and a new morality. Harmful drifts of human behavior can occur, when the objective for which respect is exercised is too narrow, directed to particular interests and void of overview: this includes elitist authoritarianism or, trivially, not being able to see the wood for the trees. Observing the relationship between man and the environment brings out a case in point. The earliest form of respect aimed at Mother Nature was of practical and divine origin. The sustenance provided by its resources and the thought that behind so much harmony lies the origin of creation were founding values of tribes and primordial communities. That was knowledge, from there the necessary for life sprang, which per se had to be protected and handed down. In nature the School of Miletus sought the origin and meaning of the whole, and the need for more concrete connections accompanied the philosophy itself up on further questions of mankind. Over the centuries, practice, research and technologies have increased control over nature and the management of its resources has represented a source of pride for heroes, societies and cultures. And knowledge has always turned on the alarm sirens that we can still hear today, speaking of nature. Morality itself had to do a soul-searching and learn how to observe from a higher step, contemplating the interaction of ecosystems, the human interest that every form of life should be included within the circle of respect – because, in the meantime, we have recognized as “life” also the invertebrate, vegetable and mineral one. Knowledge is useful when it is for everyone, and only by expanding the concept of "neighbor" can we speak of evolution. This is what morality has realized about environment. Traditions are memory books collecting those actions so much successful to become memorable and repeatable, in the name of universal value. But if morality were a word, it would be "therefore", a conjunction having a causal meaning: it implies a starting point that translates into an action. It is about afterwards. Collective consciousness must know how to capture time and method in order to update its morality, if it does not want to invalidate the value for which it was born. A society always disappears imploding, falling on steps that no longer have values to walk on. Sometimes all it takes is to improve the examples taken as a reference, knowing how to question them and, if necessary, choosing others, endowed of fundamental value and openness. 37
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