Categories
20th century Analytic theory Books Global Longue durée Social Ecology Values theory

The Philosophy of Social Ecology (1996)


Author(s)

Murray Bookchin


Contents

“What is nature? What is humanity’s place in nature? And what is the relationship of society to the natural world?

In an era of ecological breakdown, answering these questions has become of momentous importance for our everyday lives and for the future that we and other life-forms face. They are not abstract philosophical questions that should be relegated to a remote, airy world of metaphysical speculation. Nor can we answer them in an offhand way, with poetic metaphors or unthinking, visceral reactions. The definitions and ethical standards with which we respond to them may ultimately decide whether human society will creatively foster natural evolution, or whether we will render the planet uninhabitable for all complex life-forms, including ourselves.

At first glance, everybody “knows” what nature is. It is that which is all around us-trees, animals, rocks, and the like. It is that which “humanity” is destroying and coating with petroleum. But such prima facie definitions fall apart when we examine them with some care. If nature is indeed what is all around us, we may reasonably ask, then is a carefully manicured suburban lawn not nature? Is the split-level house it surrounds not nature? Are its furnishings not natural?

Today, this sort of question is likely to elicit a heated avowal that only “wild,” “primordial,” or even nonhuman nature is authentically natural. Other people, no less thoughtful, will reply that nature is basically matter, or the materialized stuff of the universe in all its forms–what philosophers sweepingly call Being. The fact is that wide philosophical differences have existed for centuries in the West over the very definition of the word nature. These differences remain unresolved to this day, even as nature is making headlines in environmental issues that are of enormous importance for the future of nearly all life-forms.

Defining nature becomes an even more complex task when we include the human species as part of it. Is human society with its ensemble of technologies and artifacts-not to speak of such ineffable features as its conflicting social interests and institutions-any less part of nature than nonhuman animals? And if human beings are part of nature, are they merely one life-form among many others, or are they unique in ways that place major responsibilities on them with respect to the rest of the world of life, responsibilities that no other species shares or is even capable of sharing?

Whatever nature may mean, we must determine in what way humanity “fits” into it. And we must confront the complex and challenging question of the relationship of society–more specifically, the different social forms that appeared in the past, that exist today, and that may appear in the future-to nature. Unless we answer these questions with reasonable clarity-or at least fully discuss them-we will lack any ethical direction in dealing with our environmental problems. Unless we know what nature is and what humanity’s and society’s place in it is, we will be left with vague intuitions and visceral sentiments that neither cohere into clear views nor provide a guide for effective action “

Murray Bookchin

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Categories
20th century Analytic theory Anarchism Books Capitalism Direct democracy Europe Socialism Statism - Representationism Strategic theory

The Struggle against the State & Other Essays (1996)


Author(s)

Nestor Makhno

Alexandre Skirda (editor)


Contents

“The fact that the modern State is the organizational form of an authority founded upon arbitrariness and vio­lence in the social life of toilers is independent of whether it may be ‘bourgeois’ or ‘proletarian’.

It relies upon op­pressive centralism, arising out of the direct violence of a minority deployed against the majority. In order to enforce and impose the legality of its system, the State resorts not only to the gun and money, but also to potent weapons of psychological pressure. With the aide of such weapons, a tiny group of politicians enforces psychological repression of an entire society, and, in particular, of the toiling masses, conditioning them in such a way as to divert their atten­tion from the slavery instituted by the State.

[…] The final and utter liquidation of the State can only come to pass when the struggle of the toilers is oriented along the most libertarian lines possible, when the toilers will themselves determine the structures of their social ac­tion. These structures should assume the form of organs of social and economic self-direction, the form of free ‘anti­authoritarian’ soviets.

The revolutionary workers and their vanguard – the anarchists – must analyze the nature and structure of these soviets and specify their revolutionary functions in advance. It is upon that, chiefly, that the posi­tive evolution and development of anarchist ideas in the ranks of those who will accomplish the liquidation of the State on their own account in order to build a free society, will be dependent.”

Nestor Makhno

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Categories
20th century Analytic theory Antifascism Books Europe Social Ecology White supremacy

Ecofascism : Lessons from the German Experience (1996)


Author(s)

Janet Biehl

Peter Staudenmaier


Contents

“What prevents ecological politics from yielding reaction or fascism with an ecological patina is an ecology movement that maintains a broad social emphasis, one that places the ecological crisis in a social context.

As social ecologists, we see the roots of the present ecological crisis in an irrational society — not in the biological makeup of human beings, nor in a particular religion, nor in reason, science, or technology. On the contrary, we uphold the importance of reason, science, and technology in creating both a progressive ecological movement and an ecological society. It is a specific set of social relations — above all, the competitive market economy — that is presently destroying the biosphere. Mysticism and biologism, at the very least, deflect public attention away from such social causes.

In presenting these essays, we are trying to preserve the all-important progressive and emancipatory implications of ecological politics. More than ever, an ecological commitment requires people today to avoid repeating the errors of the past, lest the ecology movement become absorbed in the mystical and antihumanistic trends that abound today.”

Janet Biehl & Peter Staudenmaier

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