I want to take up an issue raised in my last post: that I don't think there has been such a mystical political movement as the Greens since the Dark Ages.
Power is everywhere. A political movement seeks to concentrate power to further an agenda. Often that agenda is simply to concentrate more power than other political movements. An oligarchy is an extreme example of the concentration of power forever, for example in a cartel. A movement of political protest is an extreme example of the concentration of power for a moment, for example to end one instance of injustice. Power is everywhere, but its intensity is not everywhere the same. Power is focused, magnified, directed.
The green movement presents as a commonality of action rather than ideology. The major religions: Hindu, Buddhist, Christianity, Islam, participate in it for reasons of their own. And so do a multitude of other, minority faiths. And organizations and individuals in great numbers. Speaking in unison is not the same as being harmonious, and I hesitate to privilege one voice over others. So let Donald Worster do that for me
...the progressive, secular materialist philosophy on which modern life rests, indeed on which Western civilization has rested for the past three hundred years, is deeply flawed and ultimately destructive to ourselves and the whole fabric of life on the planet.
- Donald Worster, “The Shaky Ground of Sustainability,” in George Sessions, Deep
Ecology for the 21st Century (Boston: Shambhala, 1995) pp. 417–27)
Deeply flawed philosophy, ultimately destructive materialism, threats to the whole fabric, are polemics common in discourses of political change. Progressive, secular, materialist, conservative, are labels applicable to many times, places, situations and ideas. The idea that societies are materialistic to their detriment is by no means a new one. Assertions that materialism represents a mortal threat to people does not present a new class of problem. The formation of broad social coalitions to solve problems arising from materialism is not a new action. The abandonment and/or destruction of material goods is not a novel solution. The unravelling of an entire cosmology is not a new catastrophe.
The green movement is a coalition indistinguishable from many geopolitical grass roots movement, for instance International Workers of the World or the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. It is international, is active in all possible political forums, and has a charter binding the coalition to six guiding principles, the first of which is ecological wisdom.
Ecosophy, or ecological wisdom, is a neologism coined by Arne Naess and Felix Guattari "By an ecosophy I mean a philosophy of ecological harmony or equilibrium", Arne Naess told the Third World Future Research Conference in Bucharest in 1972. Guattari and Naess went their separate philosophical ways and it is not my intent to reunite them here. But I do want to unpack the simple philosophical framework, offered by Naess and others in 1984, called The Platform Principles of the Deep Ecology Movement.
Deep simply means over time. Lots of time, up to all there is. The first three points of the platform principles of ecosophy outline the problem and its scope. The next four suggest a course of action. The last dictates the circumstances in which an obligation arises to act.
1. The well-being and flourishing of human and nonhuman Life on Earth have value in themselves (synonyms: intrinsic value, inherent value). These values are independent of the usefulness of the nonhuman world for human purposes.
2. Richness and diversity of life forms contribute to the realizations of these values and are also values in themselves.
3. Humans have no right to reduce this richness and diversity except to satisfy vital human needs.
4. The flourishing of human life and cultures is compatible with a substantial decrease of human population. The flourishing of nonhuman life requires such a decrease.
5. Present human interference with the nonhuman world is excessive, and the situation is rapidly worsening.
6. Policies must therefore be changed. These policies affect basic economic, technological, and ideological structures. The resulting state of affairs will be deeply different from the present.
7. The ideological change is mainly that of appreciating life quality (dwelling in situations of inherent value) rather than adhering to an increasingly higher standard of living. There will be a profound awareness of the difference between big and great.
8. Those who subscribe to the foregoing points have an obligation to directly or indirectly try to implement the necessary changes.
Ecosophy is a field of discourse in which biology and ethics intersect. I say ethics because it seems to me that Rachel Carson's Silent Spring proposes a situation where birds no longer exist, the silent spring, and asks "is it ethical for birds not to exist?"
This is a bigger, more complex problem than it appears. The absence of birds illuminates an ecosphere, in which all living things are entangled. Not only birds, but many living things associated with birds are rendered non-existent in the silent spring. The problem "is it ethical for birds not to exist?" provides an ecosphere with a moral dimension. These issues were previously veiled by piecemeal descriptions of nature. The unveiled ecosphere offers no ready solution to the moral problem it poses: "is it ethical for birds not to exist?"
Morality, Rousseau theorized, arises from a human desire not to witness suffering. A moral position is one that eschews suffering. It is therefore possible to answer the question Is it ethical for birds not to exist? with a simple statement: It is wrong to cause suffering, an answer implying that once suffering is detected - there exists a situation leading to birds not existing - it is necessary to act to end it.
I don't think there has been such a mystical political movement as the Greens since the Dark Ages, a thought to unpack in a subsequent post. But I want to briefly situate that thought, and its unpacking, on some familiar ground.
Globalized capitalism produces monoculture. Although it is common to talk about pluralistic society monoculture is produced as a matter of fact. Carson's Silent Spring arises from a pluralistic monoculture. There is no overt, and perhaps no covert, political insistence upon monoculture - in Australia multiculture appears in the platform principles of most political parties- but in fact global capitalism (Coca-Cola, McDonalds, Caterpillar Tractors, Windows, Firefox) is producing monoculture. Diversity is hand made, but monoculture is (re)produced everywhere. The platform principles of ecosophy could be easily expanded as humans have no right to impose monoculture, not even to satisfy vital needs. Lest there be a Silent Spring.
Sorry to be superficial in my response but there are so many complex issues here and the only way I can respond at the moment is in the moment. Whilst reading, my Magpies (and I use the word 'my' in a very strange sense, for the Magpies that visit my place everyday looking for, hoping for and expecting to be fed are NOT mine, but I consider them mine for the mere fact that they have entered into a relationship with me and I with them. They trust that I will provide food and they trust that I will not hurt them. They approach closer and closer each day and know my voice) arrived and so, whilst feeding them I had in my mind your question about whether 'it is ethical for birds not to exist'? For me, at least, it is unethical for us humans to consciously do anything that might jeopardize birds (as a species) to discontinue existence, because it is their right to exist. I've had this relationship with this family of Magpies (two parents and two babies) for about seven months now and have noted their different characteristics and behavior. They are indeed individuals that go about their day, living their life of hunting for insects, walking over my balcony chairs, flying off to the park opposite, warbling and enjoying their play and work. If I extend my thought about these birds that I know to the species as a whole I think of the vast responsibility humans have (as those whose own behavior impacts on the Earth) towards non-human beings. I selfishly think how silent it would be indeed if there were no Spring bird songs, those beautiful sounds. How the lives of us humans would be less than glorious without the sounds of other living things. But this is selfish and how can I think beyond the selfish, but I try and I consider that the birds do NOT sing for us, they sing for themselves and that is sufficient for me. That we enjoy their song is an entirely different thing. We must acknowledge that apart from our existence in which we recognize them, that they exist for themselves in their own environment. Their song just as beautiful if we were not there to witness it. But I know that this is does not address your last question, which is about whether we humans, who also need to survive will relinquish our right to vital needs just to protect other species who also have rights. This is a difficult one because 'we' have so much control over and impact upon the natural world. Perhaps all we can do at this stage is attempt to reduce all negative impact, whilst surviving ourselves.
ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting article by Tongjin Yang
ReplyDeletehttp://www.unesco-mexico.org/pdfs/e79b8csoc3.pdf