The debate between social ecologist Murray Bookchin and Earth First! co-founder Dave Foreman is interesting because it touches on some of the most pressing issues that stand in the way of any genuine dialogue between those that privilege the humyn socius and those that hope for a renewed world-view that privileges all life—not just humyns. In what follows I would like to evaluate some of the arguments presented in this debate. I wish to discuss the first text in the book named above especially and allow for a dangling thought to be produced by way of Dave Foreman’s repetitious gelassenheit, a Heideggerian term that means ‘letting things be’.
Murray opens the debate by articulating this precise issue.[2] He targets a position (a deep Ecologists position), namely that many think that the natural environment requires protection from all humyns. This position has often been associated with the view that the world would be better without humyns in the first place—that the humyn is a evolutionary mistake, and that Nature is trying desperately to restore the balance. It is important to get clear on this issue because there is a sense in which it lends a hand to the view that implies that natural disasters are good. (Of course, natural disasters are normal, indeed balancing, but the idea that Nature is deciding to destroy humyns is ridiculous because Nature doesn't have agency)
Bookchin counters this first point of view (not the associative cluster) by reductio ad absurdum, arguing that this position erases the differences of responsibility that exist between molar-masses, and that this ‘blames the victim’.[3] In his words, the black kid in Harlem is not the same as the CEO of Exxon. So, by talking about all humyns as being collectively responsible for the catastrophes on the earth, we blame those that are also directly affected by the actions of some humyns. Moreover, because these othered humyns, caught up in the exploits of capitalists are, ex hypothesi, on all fours with these capitalists, we trivialize the actions of the capitalists. In other words, relating the bosses to the workers makes the workers worse, and the capitalists better.
The trouble with this argument is that is let’s humyns off the hook for fucked up processes of consumption. Can we really say that humyns that live in industrial civilization are not to blame? Perhaps we shouldn’t say blamed in the same way; but we cannot let any industrial process off the hook. Just because you happen to occupy a space in fucked up social relations doesn’t mean that you have not contributed to the seething mass of plastic in the Ocean, or the deaths of Trillions of Animals. The original position that there is a problem with being-civilized can be defended provided that we make a distinction between those that have been formed by industrial civilization and those that have not; it would be victim blaming only if we said that all non-industrialized civilized humyns are on all fours with all civilized humyns. So, instead of advocating the death of all humyns, we advocate the death of 'industrialization' and so, all the processes that are picked out by this geographic reality.
Murray Bookchin seems to want to evade these issues because, in his opinion, ecological devastation has a limit; namely, that provided social relations and hierarchies are dissolved—of course only humyn hierarchies—ecological problems will be resolved.[4] In his mind it is patriarchal masculinity and echoes of this form that destroys the planet. But being a capitalist isn’t limited to only this or that body. Similarly, anyone can replicate the form of being-hierarchical. So there is no fixed ‘come what may’ distinction between Oppressor and Oppressed, despite leftist/anarchist rhetoric. (In a language yet to be disclosed we can think of bodies as territorialized and territorializing productions; hence, while there are real issues to be resolved with repeated forms of hierarchy--and bless this anti-o apparatus--there is always more deterritorialization to occur. Only when all individuals are free to follow their own desires can we say that we have a prefigured apparatus for installation.)
The question that has to remain front and center is whether social justice entails ecological justice. Bookchin supports this view by noting that Humyns are part of the natural world and must be considered part of what we mean by Nature. Humyns are a product of natural evolution; we didn’t arrive ex nihilo. So it seems that we are destined to be here and our destiny is defined by virtue of ‘long antecedents in natural history’[5]. But our being here is not this or that; as it turns out, we have evolved to be possibly responsible (“nature rendered self-conscious”), and so, pro-ecological, rather than irresponsible and anti-ecological as our social apparatus has become with patriarchy at the helm.[6] So in Bookchin's view we have to alter our cancerous social apparatus and adopt a view towards the world that is pro-ecological and responsible. This argument trades on the genetic fallacy. It is strictly indeterminate whether humynity ought to continue; it is strictly indeterminate that the existence of Seven Billion humyns ought to be considered an “intended” part of the “natural” flows of “random” mutation. Just because something is or happens to be, doesn’t mean it ought or will continue to be. There are all sorts of conditions that humyns have produced that make the possibility of blind-evolution neither here nor there. It is strictly indeterminate that evolution is our ally, or, more precisely, that something to come isn’t seeking to break-through the civilized humyn being. Of course, this is what Bookchin is advocating when he says that we render ourselves self-conscious and in touch with Nature, as part; but I wonder if this position doesn’t seek to make humyns in control of what is essentially uncontrollable.
Frankly, I doubt very much that the interests of the universe see the necessity of the humyn being in the first place. We should say instead, if humyns want to survive they had better adopt a new land ethic that is ecologically feasible. The idea of being rendered self-conscious implies that one is in a state of being-aware of how things really work (and ought to); and this thought segues rather well into the notion of mega-fauna advocated by Dave Foreman whereby we try to reach a natural threat-based cold-world equilibrium rather than create one that is warm and fuzzy for all humyns, or even create the illusion of one that is warm and fuzzy. In the very least Dave Foreman has a nice little thought experiment here.
Dave Foreman wants to see a return to a world that permits the flourishing of all species (gelassenheit), even the reintroduction of species that would pose a threat to humyn beings.--My oh My! Of course, this point requires a bit of qualification: there has always been a ‘threat’ to the civilized world by way of “the wild”. From coyotes attacking roosts to cockroaches ruining dinner parties, and from rats eating the filth left over by raccoons, the humyn-wild binary has been upset; yet, the end result has always been the destruction of the different by humyn technologies of control. Dave Foreman’s view of gelassenheit is what he calls ‘rewilding’—that is, restoring ‘big wilderness’ (and then conserving it) based on the regulatory (top-down) roles of large predators.[7] So rather than permitting humyns free run over the earth, and thereby limiting the wild to “protected areas”, Foreman advocates, cautiously of course, that the humyn population be reduced drastically so that Nature can regain an originary equilibrium.
At least Foreman is willing to say something.
[1] Bookchin, Murray and Dave Foreman. Defending the Earth. Montréal, Québec: Black Rose Books, 1991.
[2] Bookchin, Murray and Dave Foreman. ‘Looking for Common Ground’ in Defending the Earth, 27-46. Montréal, Québec: Black Rose Books, 1991.
[3] Ibid., 31.
[4] Ibid., 32.
[5] Ibid., 33
[6] Ibid., 34
[7] retrieved from Dave Foreman’s website (http://rewilding.org/rewildit/what-is-rewilding/) on November 16, 2011.
Thanks for the good review. But I don't see the genetic fallacy alleged in the 6th paragraph. Bookchin's not arguing "We evolved, nature produced us, therefore whatever we do has a natural function and we should continue to exist." As you note, B. thinks we had better use our vaunted self-awareness to align ourselves with nature.
ReplyDeleteIf the question is "why bother rescuing such a reprobate species?", the answer comes from imperatives within the species: ethics, and the evolved and still unreliable human aversion to seeing beings (human and other)suffer or suffer injustice -- the answer doesn't come from any essential role Bookchin thinks we play in the system of nature.
Hey Matthew.
DeleteThe form of the genetic fallacy is simply a conclusive inference from an origin that usually presupposes a value. In the context of my post, (and it was written several years ago), what I was suggesting was that some reason underpins the belief that anti-humanism is on all fours with eco-fascism. The humanist might reason that evolution has produced us; and so, we have an obligation to work at saving ourselves, come what may. But as you know, this says nothing about environmental degradation and speciesism that supports every form of humanism. Just because something is doesn't mean it ought to be. Now, you might say that the position that nature is seeking to destroy us justifiably (consider viruses, or whatever) is anthropomorphic, and i'd of course bite that bullet, but I want to insist that we have no special place in the universe and that we deserve the lot we've created for ourselves. If the universe decides to rid us of it, that doesn't seem impossible. How do evolution, social progress and humanism go hand in hand? Is Civilized humanity the end of history? Calling humanist thinking a genetic fallacy opens the way to thinking that we are not necessarily inevitable.