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The Politics of Mystical Ecology
Abstract
“Building the Green Movement. A National Conference for a New Politics” was the motto of the “first open national Greens gathering” that drew more than 600 people July 2-7, 1987 in Amherst, Massachusetts. Although the gathering was considered a success, it was overshadowed by a clash between the “spiritual” or “holistic” Greens and the “left” Greens personified in Charlene Spretnak and Murray Bookchin respectively. The Left Green position is in the socialist tradition. Social and environmental problems are seen as the consequence of specific social relations of domination. Spiritual Greens view social and environmental problems as the consequence of humanity's spiritual alienation from nature.
... "Mystical ecology" (Elkin 1989) or deep ecology's "deluge of […] cosmic Eco la la" castigated by Heller and Bookchin (Bookchin 1987) could appear as such. Because it puts the accent on individual well-being and a "mystified, system-theoretical version of sociobiology" (Elkins 1989) rather than social analysis at the economic and political level, mystical ecology "reveals anti-emancipative implications" and may even "pave the way for authoritarian strategies to solve social problems" (Elkins 1989). Ecospirituality is thus, in this sense, a spiritualization of domination and it places the agents outside the conditions of political action that lie at the centre of the functioning of democratic societies (Elkins 1989;Biehl 1991;Charbonnier 2019). ...
... "Mystical ecology" (Elkin 1989) or deep ecology's "deluge of […] cosmic Eco la la" castigated by Heller and Bookchin (Bookchin 1987) could appear as such. Because it puts the accent on individual well-being and a "mystified, system-theoretical version of sociobiology" (Elkins 1989) rather than social analysis at the economic and political level, mystical ecology "reveals anti-emancipative implications" and may even "pave the way for authoritarian strategies to solve social problems" (Elkins 1989). Ecospirituality is thus, in this sense, a spiritualization of domination and it places the agents outside the conditions of political action that lie at the centre of the functioning of democratic societies (Elkins 1989;Biehl 1991;Charbonnier 2019). ...
... Because it puts the accent on individual well-being and a "mystified, system-theoretical version of sociobiology" (Elkins 1989) rather than social analysis at the economic and political level, mystical ecology "reveals anti-emancipative implications" and may even "pave the way for authoritarian strategies to solve social problems" (Elkins 1989). Ecospirituality is thus, in this sense, a spiritualization of domination and it places the agents outside the conditions of political action that lie at the centre of the functioning of democratic societies (Elkins 1989;Biehl 1991;Charbonnier 2019). It therefore favours an individualist and depoliticized withdrawal, the effects of which are derisory, given the stakes at play, and even dangerous to the extent that they divert attention away from the necessity for radical and revolutionary changes to civilizational paradigms. ...
Scientific consensus on the environmental emergency has prompted recognition that business as usual is not only materially catastrophic but ethically, socially, and politically unfair. Working from different axiological perspectives, scholars in the environmental humanities have framed the crisis as an opportunity for paradigmatic and radical change, encouraging a new “Great Transformation” or “Great Transition”. Such appeals tend to focus on systemic change at economic and political levels. Nevertheless, the ecological crises as a revolutionary opportunity demands an integral metamorphosis of Western capitalist cultures, including the ontological and ethical dimensions embedded in perception, desires, and affects, and grounded in elementary subjective practices. In this light, ecospirituality is integral to transformative ecology. Confronted with the ecological crisis, this calls for us to set to work on the widely discussed issue of the relations between spirituality and politics.
Deep ecological appeals for wilderness preservation commonly conjoin arguments for participatory land use decision-making with their central championing of natural areas protection. As an articulation of the normative meaning of participatory democracy, the discourse ethics advanced by Jürgen Habermas is employed to highlight the consistency and justifiability of this dual claim. I argue that Habermasian moral theory reveals a key tension between, on the one hand, an ethical commitment to wilderness preservation informed by deep ecological and bioregional principles that is oriented to a naturalistic value order and, on the other, the procedural norms of democratic participation. It is claimed that discourse ethics thereby raises critical philosophical and practical questions concerning the political legitimacy of deep ecology. In examining the progressive claims of environmental philosophers and wilderness activists embracing this perspective, I draw empirically upon Canadian arguments for natural areas protection and associated radical prescriptions for a democratisation of land use decision-making.
Özet: Sanayi Devrimiyle birlikte endüstriyel ürün üretimi, kentleşme, enerji için fosil yakıt tüketimi ve atık üretimi gibi eylemlerdeki ve nüfustaki artış nedeniyle doğal çevre üzerinde önemli dönüşümler gerçekleşmiştir. Bu dönüşüm süreci bütün dünya için olumsuz sonuçları beraberinde getirmiştir. Günümüzde küresel çapta yaşanan sorunların başında iklim değişikliği gelmektedir. Hükümetlerarası İklim Değişikliği Paneli (IPCC) Değerlendirme Raporlarıyla da bilimsel olarak ortaya konulduğu üzere, iklim değişikliği probleminin temelinde insan faaliyetleri sonucunda atmosfere salınan sera gazları vardır. İklim değişikliği olumsuz sonuçlarını sıcaklık artışı, kuraklık, seller, taşkınlar ve fırtınalar gibi aşırı hava olaylarının sayı ve sıklığındaki artış, su ve gıda güvenliğinde risklerin ortaya çıkması ve buzulların erimesi gibi sayıları arttırılabilecek pek çok biçimde göstermektedir. Geçmişten günümüze çevresel sorunlara çözüm arayışları sürdürülebilir kalkınmayı temel alan çevre korumacı yaklaşımlardan, mevcut üretim ve tüketim kalıplarında radikal değişiklikler öneren ekolojik hareketlere dek uzanan geniş bir skalada devam etmektedir. Radikal ekolojik hareketlerin en önemlilerinden biri Arne Naess’in ‘derin ekolojisi’dir. Derin ekoloji yaklaşımında ekolojik sorunların temelinde insanın doğayı bir araç olarak algılaması görülmekte ve çözüm olarak da eko-merkezci bir önerme sunulmaktadır. Bu çalışma kapsamında derin ekolojik yaklaşımın düşünsel kökenleri incelenerek; iklim değişikliğiyle ilgili güncel Birleşmiş Milletler dokümanlarıyla bir arada ele alınmış ve yaklaşımın iklim değişikliğiyle mücadeleye katkısı değerlendirilmiştir.
Abstract: tren
With the Industrial Revolution, significant transformations have taken place on the natural environment due to industrial production, urbanization, fossil fuel consumption for energy, waste production and increase in population. This transformation process has brought negative consequences for the world. Today, climate change is one of the most important global problems. As proved scientifically by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Assessment Reports, the problem of climate change arises from the greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere as a result of human activities. Climate change shows its negative consequences in several ways, such as increasing temperature, increasing the number and frequency of extreme weather events such as droughts, floods and storms, the emergence of risks to water and food safety, and the melting of glaciers. The search for solutions to environmental problems from past to present continues in a wide scale ranging from environmental protection approaches based on sustainable development to ecological movements that propose radical changes in existing structure of production and consumption. One of the most important radical ecological movements is ‘deep ecology’ of Arne Naess. In deep ecology approach, main reason of the ecological issues is seen as the perception of nature as a tool and an eco-centric proposition is presented as a solution. Within the scope of this study, the spiritual roots of deep ecology approach are examined, current United Nations documents on climate change have been addressed with deep ecology approach and the contribution of the approach to combating climate change has been evaluated.
Over the last ten years, „Theory U″, written by C.O. Scharmer in 2007, has earned broad international recognition. However, critical reviews of its grounding in social sciences and philosophy have been rare. After a brief introduction to Theory U this article examines its methodic approach in the context of its references to the universal history of Toynbee, and epistemological sources in the works of Nietzsche, Capra, Varela, Husserl, and Steiner. The investigation of Theory U’s historical and philosophical grounding comes to the conclusion that it is evidently falling short of adequately capturing real world complexity and does not match widely accepted academic standards. Despite its evident deficiencies, Theory U deserves the merit of uniquely embracing non conventional schools of thought beyond the mainstream literature on leadership theories.
Purpose
To determine the human and environmental values that need to be protected at every ethical decision‐making point, given that resources are finite and that the needs of future generations have no upper limit.
Design/methodology/approach
A search was made of the Humanities and Area Studies Databases and Articles, the Philosophers' Index, RenDa Fuyin Baokan Ziliao (People's University reprints series), the Arts and Humanities Citation Index on ISI Web of Knowledge, the Arts and Humanities Data Service, the British Philosophy Database, Dissertation Abstracts International, the Routledge Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (REP Online), ZETOC (Electronic Table of Contents) through MIMAS, and Academic Search Elite. Relevant arts and humanities journals were hand‐searched, and reference lists examined for further relevant reports.
Findings
Although decision making in environmental policy relies on logic, empirical fact and intuition, it does not make sense to have a “universal master plan” covering living persons, the unborn, and the non‐human world when designing an environmental policy. Environmental policy options are meaningful in specific contexts; since each context has its own underpinnings and specific preferences on the basis of its own peculiar socio‐cultural and economic circumstances, the necessity of narrative ethics in decision making becomes evident.
Practical implications
As this review demonstrates, the initial concern in environmental matters may centre on the preservation of human health, clean health, clean air and water, endangered species, jobs and the needs of future generations. Decisions may then be reached through cost benefit analysis, which tends to be whether or not the chosen course of action produces greater balance, the greatest happiness to the greatest number. But there are difficulties in determining what constitutes “cost” or “benefit”.
Originality/value
It became evident from this study that, to stand the test of time, context‐sensitive environmental paradigms should be capable of enriching themselves with ideas from other approaches to decision making such that, although problems may have a global dimension, the solutions to them must be context‐sensitive.
Deep ecological appeals for wilderness preservation commonly conjoin arguments for participatory land use decision-making with their central championing of natural areas protection. As an articulation of the normative meaning of participatory democracy, the discourse ethics advanced by Jurgen Habermas is employed to highlight the consistency and justifiability of this dual claim. I argue that Habermasian moral theory reveals a key tension between, on the one hand, an ethical commitment to wilderness preservation informed by deep ecological and bioregional principles that is oriented to a naturalistic value order and, on the other, the procedural norms of democratic participation. It is claimed that discourse ethics thereby raises critical philosophical and practical questions concerning the political legitimacy of deep ecology. In examining the progressive claims of environmental philosophers and wilderness activists embracing this perspective, I draw empirically upon Canadian arguments for natural areas protection and associated radical prescriptions for a democratisation of land use decision-making.
In this article, post-modern theory is described and applied to health politics with examples from community health organizing, social movements, and health promotion. Post-modernism questions conventional assumptions about concepts such as representation, participation, empowerment, community, identity, causality, accountability, responsibility, authority, and roles in community health promotion (those of expert, leader, and organizer). I compare post-modern social movements with their modern counterparts: the organizational forms, leadership styles, and substantive intellectual orientations of the two differ. I explain the social planning, community development, and social action models of community health organizing, comparing them with the priorities of post-modern social movements, and show the similarities and differences between them as to structural preferences, process, and strategies. Finally, and most importantly, I present the implicit lessons that post-modernism offers to health politics and outline the strengths and weaknesses of this approach to health politics.
This was one of the issues resulting in the previously mentioned dispute at the Amherst Green Conference. For a discussion of the "ecology debate" within the American Green movement, see Brian Tokar
Farias has argued that Heidegger's political orientation was not an accident, but a logical
consequence of his philosophy. See Victor Farias, Heidegger und der Nationalsozialismus
(Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer Verlag, 1989). For a dissenting analysis, see Paul Gottfried's review of
Farias' book, "Heidegger on Trial" in Telos 74 (Winter 1987-88), pp.147-51.
29. This was one of the issues resulting in the previously mentioned dispute at the Amherst
Green Conference. For a discussion of the "ecology debate" within the American Green
movement, see Brian Tokar, "Exploring the New Ecologies. Social Ecology, Deep Ecology
and the Future of Green Political Thought," Alternatives, vol. 15, no. 4 (1988), pp. 30-43. See
also George Bradford, "How Deep Is Deep Ecology?" Fifth Estate, vol. 22, no, 3 (Fall 1987),
pp. 3-30;
Crisis in the Ecology Movement
- Murray Bookchin
Murray Bookchin, "Crisis in the Ecology Movement," Zeta Magazine (July/August
1988), pp. 121-23 and "Social Ecology vs. Deep Ecology," Socialist Review (Summer 1988),
pp. 9-29.
also an Earth First! activist cited in Bradford
- Edward Abbey
Edward Abbey, also an Earth First! activist cited in Bradford, op. cit., p. 17.
Earth First!" "Is AIDS the answer to an environmentalist's prayer?
- Miss Ann Thropy
Miss Ann Thropy, a pseudonym, in an Earth First! publication cited in Brad
Edmondson, "Is AIDS Good for the Earth?" Utne Reader, no. 24 (Nov./Dec. 1987), p. 14 and
Daniel Keith Conner, another member of "Earth First!" "Is AIDS the answer to an environmentalist's prayer?", originally published in Earth First! The Radical Environmental Journal
(Dec. 22, 1987), reprinted in Utne Reader, no. 27 (May/June 1988).