Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Social ecology
Deep ecology has also been criticized by social ecologists, most notably by the
anarchist writer and activist Murray Bookchin, who sees deep ecology as 'vague,
formless, often self-contradictory and predominantly missing the point'. His essentialist
critique of the deep greens leaves little opportunity for dialogue. In
What is Social
Ecology?
, Bookchin (1993) states firmly:
Indeed, to separate ecological problems from social problems - or even to play
down or give token recognition to this crucial relationship - would be to grossly
misconstrue the sources of the growing environmental crisis. The way human
beings deal with each other as social beings is crucial to addressing the ecological
crisis. Unless we clearly recognize this, we will surely fail to see that the hier-
archical mentality and class relationships that so thoroughly permeate society
give rise to the very idea of dominating the natural world. Unless we realize
that the present market society, structured around the brutally competitive
imperative of 'grow or die', is a thoroughly impersonal, self-operating mechanism,
we will falsely tend to blame technology as such or population growth as such
for environmental problems. We will ignore their root causes, such as trade for
profit, industrial expansion and the identification of 'progress' with corporate
self-interest. In short, we will tend to focus on the symptoms of a grim social
pathology rather than on the pathology itself, and our efforts will be directed
towards limited goals, whose attainment is more cosmetic than curative.
In
Toward an Ecological Society
(1980),
From Urbanization to Cities
(1995) and
The Ecology of Freedom
(2005), Bookchin develops his eco-anarchist ideas, arguing
that the future is dependent on how humankind steers its relationship with the natural
world. He looks in part to the experience of indigenous peoples, as well as to classic
anarchist writers such as Peter Kropotkin, for guidance as to how we should 'live
with' nature rather than dominate or exploit it. For Bookchin, the underlying human
problem is hierarchy and inequality. So long as human beings exploit each other in
terms of class, race or gender, humanity will exploit and degrade the natural world.
Ecological harmony is dependent on social harmony, and the practical prescription
for this entails a reversal and transcendence of contemporary capitalist arrangements
- the ending of the detailed division of labour, the concentration of people and
resources in massive corporations and urban developments, bureaucracy, class
hierarchy, the separation of town and country, and the objectification, alienation
and commoditization of nature and humankind. Cities must be decentralized in
accordance with the ecosystems in which they are located, in order to establish a
human-scale direct and participatory civic democracy. New kinds of flexible, versatile
and productive eco-technologies must be applied to ensure that waste is recycled,
reused and reduced. The leading industrialized nations must create an alternative
path of development which will both address global environmental problems and
eradicate the poverty blighting the developing world which the current model for
'progress' has largely caused. However, Best (1998) notes that it is sometimes difficult
to comprehend the practical viability of Bookchin's anarchist politics in advanced
technological societies, since he fails to address the significant role that the media
and education play in socializing and acculturating people to the practices of
