ECOLOGISM

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 447.

The central feature of ecologism is the belief that nature is an interconnected whole, embracing humans and non-humans as well as the inanimate world (the term ‘ecology' means the study of organisms ‘at home' or ‘in their habitats'). A distinction is often drawn between ecologism and environmentalism. Environmentalism refers to a moderate or reformist approach to the environment that responds to ecological crises but without fundamentally questioning conventional assumptions about the natural world. It thus includes the activities of most environmental *pressure groups and is a stance that may be adopted by a range of *political parties. Ecologism, in contrast, is an *ideology in its own right, in that it adopts an ecocentric or biocentric perspective that accords priority to nature or the planet, and thus differs from the anthropocentric or human-centred perspectives of conventional ideological traditions. Nevertheless, two strains of ecologism are normally identified. ‘Deep ecology' completely rejects any lingering belief that the human species is in some way superior to, or more important than, any other species – or, indeed, nature itself. ‘Shallow ecology', on the other hand, accepts the lessons of ecology but harnesses them to human needs and ends. In other words, it preaches that if we can serve and cherish the natural world, it will, in turn, continue to sustain human life.

A variety of hybrid forms of ecologism have emerged. Eco-socialism, usually influenced by modern *Marxism, explains environmental destruction in terms of *capitalism's rapacious quest for profit. Eco-anarchism draws parallels between natural equilibrium in nature and in human communities, using the idea of ‘social ecology'. Eco-feminism portrays *patriarchy as the chief source of environmental destruction, and usually believes that women are naturally ecological. Reactionary ecologism links the conservation of nature to the defence of the traditional social order, and was most radically expressed in the ‘blood and soil' ideas of *Nazism. However, ‘deep' ecology rejects all conventional political creeds. It tends to regard both capitalism and *socialism as examples of the ‘super-ideology' of industrialism, characterised by large-scale production, the accumulation of capital and relentless growth. It supports biocentric *equality, holding that the *rights of animals have the same moral status as those of humans, and portrays nature as an ethical community within which human beings are merely ‘plain citizens'.

Significance

Ecological or green political ideas can be traced back to the nineteenth-century backlash against the spread of industrialisation and urbanisation. Modern ecologism emerged during the 1960s along with renewed concern about the damage done to the environment by pollution, resource depletion, over-population and so on. Such concerns have been articulated politically by a growing number of green parties which now operate in most developed societies and, at least in the case of the Greens in Germany, have shared government power, and through the influence of a powerful environmentalist lobby whose philosophy is ‘think globally, act locally'. Although, in origin at least, green parties styled themselves as ‘anti-party parties' and adopted radical ecological perspectives, environmental *pressure groups generally practise ‘shallow' ecologism.

However, the spread of ecologism has been hampered by a number of factors. These include the limited attraction of its antigrowth, or at least sustainable growth, economic model, and the fact that its critique of industrial society is sometimes advanced from a pastoral and anti-technology perspective that is out of step with the modern world. Some, as a result, dismiss ecologism as simply an urban fad, a form of post-industrial romanticism. Ecologism, nevertheless, has at least two major strengths. First, it draws attention to an imbalance in the relationship between humans and the natural world that is manifest in a growing catalogue of threats to the well-being of both. Second, ecologism has gone further than any other ideological tradition in questioning and transcending the limited focus of Western political thought. In keeping with *globalisation, it is the nearest thing that political theory has to a world philosophy.