Green Web
Bulletin # 78
My Path to
Left Biocentrism: Part VIII
The Left in Left Biocentrism
By David
Orton
“The
earth does not belong to humans.” Arne Naess
“I believe that the ecological crisis will
bring about the end of capitalism.” Rudolf Bahro.
INTRODUCTION
This is the
eighth bulletin in the series entitled “My
Path to Left Biocentrism.” It deals with my experience of how
the left and
biocentrism
came together. Also, there is increasing interest in how left
biocentrism conceptualizes the Left, as well as in its
supportive yet
critical relationship to the philosophy of deep ecology, hence this
bulletin.
I am
expressing here my own views of what the “Left” means in left
biocentrism. The “My Path”
Green Web Bulletins, available
on the
internet, are the attempt to outline my view of the theoretical
dimensions of left biocentrism. In various articles, book
reviews
and Green Web bulletins, going back to the mid-1980s, I have examined
various aspects of the Left and its relationship
to deep
ecology and the green movement. The objective of this
particular bulletin is to try to bring together in one article some
of the main
ideas from these writings, plus my current thinking, in
defining what makes up an ecocentric Left in this age of ecocide.
In April 1998,
when I wrote the first “My Path”
bulletin, concerned with “The Theory”, I
said “‘Left’ as used in left biocentrism
means
anti-industrial and anti-capitalist, but not necessarily socialist.
Thus some left biocentrists consider themselves socialists,
as I do
myself, while others do not.” Left biocentrism thus made room for those
who identified with the work of left biocentrists
but who, in
their current thinking, did not see themselves as socialists, yet
shared a basic anti-capitalist perspective.
The interplay
and contradictions between an acceptance of deep ecology and this left
consciousness – i.e. the interplay between
the
Green and the Red – has been a focus of much of my writing in articles,
book reviews and internet discussions.
Left
biocentrism also contests cultural dimensions that the traditional Left
has had nothing to do with in the past, such as spirituality,
notions of
self, biology, wildlife relations and inter-species communication, etc.
From the
beginning of the conceptualization of left biocentrism, “left” was
consciously viewed in an inclusive manner. A quote
from my 1994
essay “Envirosocialism:
Contradiction or Promise?” illustrates this:
THE
LEFT BIOCENTRIC TENDENCY
While much of the work is
practically focused, theoretically the GW (Green Web) sees itself as
part of a left biocentric
tendency which is emerging in the
green and environmental movements. The deep ecology component draws
from the
work of the Norwegian philosopher
Arne Naess. This left biocentric tendency, also represents a left focus
within the
deep ecology movement. It should
be understood that "left" in this biocentric context, means
anti-capitalist but not
necessarily "socialist". Social,
political, and economic questions, as well as wilderness and wildlife
and the defense of
forests, are part of this left
biocentric agenda. There is a major concern with social justice. Other
tendencies like social
ecology, or ecological Marxism,
or eco-feminist approaches, while raising important questions, are not
biocentric but
remain human-centered in their
fundamental orientation. Ecology is not their core value and humans
occupy center
stage in the ethical
universe...Various names and conceptualizations have been formulated by
writers to try and
encapsulate this emerging left
biocentric tendency: "deep green theory" (Richard Sylvan); "socialist
biocentrism"
(Helga Hoffmann and David Orton);
"ecologism" (Andrew Dobson); "radical ecocentrism" (Andrew McLaughlin);
and "revolutionary ecology" (Orin
Langelle, Anne Petermann, and Judi Bari). The final terminology and
content of
the left biocentric tendency is
yet to be decided. But one sees through the preliminary written work,
some of the
developing commonalities - as
well as some of the problems. The tentativeness of this emerging
tendency needs be
stressed, and that discussions
are ongoing...All left biocentrists, would consider deep ecology a
subversive philosophy,
which cannot be fulfilled within
industrial capitalism. (Annual No.9, Green on Red: Evolving Ecological Socialism,
Society for Socialist Studies,
http://home.ca.inter.net/~greenweb/Envirosocialism.html)
Richard Sylvan
(1935-1996) was an iconoclastic Australian deep ecologist, forest
activist, anarchist and philosopher.
He was an
important theoretical influence for left biocentrism. I first initiated
contact with him in 1987, when I sent him
a letter
criticizing deep ecology. He pointed out that “Deep ecology, like deep
green theory, is not without tenets.” I
believe the
same can now be said to be true for left biocentrism. This bulletin, The Left in Left
Biocentrism, outlines
how I see
these “Left” tenets.
Left
biocentrism, as a theoretical perspective, is becoming more well known
among green ecocentric activists and in
academic
circles with an interest in ecophilosophy. There are now many articles
discussing left biocentrism – on the
internet (both
theoretical and applied to particular issues), and in printed
publications, like the US based Synthesis/
Regeneration:
A Magazine of Green Social Thought and Canadian Dimension. There are also
books which
discuss left
biocentrism, such as the Sustainability:
The Challenge, the Encyclopedia
Of Religion And Nature,
and Patrick Curry’s Ecological Ethics.
The third and subsequent editions of the
undergraduate reader Environmental
Philosophy: From Animal Rights to
Radical Ecology, notes “the emergence of a ‘left
biocentrism.’” As well,
there are a
number of people who are activists
(some are academics), who identify themselves as
left biocentrists
or “left bios”
and who are writing articles as left
biocentrists, for example in the new online journal Dandelion Times:
A Left Biocentric Journal.
Although in
the past I have been the main theoretical exponent of left biocentrism,
others have contributed to my
understanding
and helped shape my ideas. A left bio discussion group on the internet,
functioning for over ten years,
has been one
forum for this collective input. Mine has really been a collective
intellectual endeavour. (The 1998 ten-point
Left Biocentrism Primer,
was the result of an
extended collective discussion, which then became a basis of agreement
for those
joining the discussion group.)
A personal
letter to me about left biocentrism and the above Primer, dated
4/19/1998, from US deep ecologist George
Sessions
(copied also to Arne Naess, Bill Devall, Andrew McLaughlin and Howard
Glasser) noted:
Personally, I
agree with almost
everything you say in the Left Biocentric Primer...It’s a real shame
that the
Green parties came under the
influence of Bookchin and not your version of Left Biocentrism – it’s
obvious
that’s where they need to head.
So, I have no necessary bones to pick with your idea of a Left wing of
the
Deep Ecology movement, more power
to you and your colleagues. I wonder if the word ‘Left’ is the
appropriate one to use (as
opposed to social justice).
The late
German deep green theorist Rudolf Bahro (1935-1997), after reading
various documents I had sent him,
also said, in
a letter dated December 20, 1995, that he was in agreement “with the
essential points” of the philosophy
of left
biocentrism. Bahro, to my knowledge, had not previously talked about
deep ecology in his writings, although
he was clearly
on a similar deep green path and someone steeped in the culture of the
European Left.
Left
biocentrism is open to learning from the Left, yet it differentiates
itself as a separate theoretical tendency, because
it has
critically embraced deep ecology. I see myself first as an Earthling
and all that this implies from an ecocentric
perspective.
So, for example, in opposing the destruction of the natural forest in
Nova Scotia where I live, I actively
oppose my own
destruction. I do also see myself, from a social justice perspective,
as part of the Canadian Left.
My main
sympathies, concerning human-centered politics, are on the
communist/socialist side, not on the side of
capitalism and
its adherents. “Anti-communism” is not acceptable to me, because I
believe, in practice, this signals
an alliance
with Capital. (The valid concern with democratic rights and personal
freedoms in societies which have
called
themselves “communist” is another discussion, which does not invalidate
the alliance with Capital point. Being
anti-dictatorship should not equate with being anti-communist, as is so
often the case.)
DISCUSSION
GENERAL
For left
biocentrists like myself, industrialism, not capitalism, is seen as the
main problem. It was Andrew McLaughlin in
his 1993 book Regarding Nature: Industrialism and Deep
Ecology who first conceptualized this position regarding
industrialism
from a deep ecology (and socialist) perspective:
Industrialism
is the hub of a set of social practices that are destructive to the
rest of nature. Expansionary
industrialism,
in both its variants of capitalism and socialism, requires the
destruction of species and
ecosystems,
and now threatens the whole biosphere. It encourages each of us to
engage in the subtly
frustrating
pursuit of happiness through the consumption of the rest of nature.
What is required is a
perspective
that takes industrialism itself as part of the problem and inspires
efforts at its transformation.
The
development of any non anthropocentric ethic must be part of a much
larger project of radical social
change.
General acceptance of such an ethic requires a new society in which the
experience of being
related to
environments that are not constructed by humans is part of everyday
life. (P. 172)
“Biocentrism”
and “ecocentrism” have been used interchangeably as descriptive
categories since the first articulations
of left
biocentrism in the mid 1990s. Biocentrism, or life-centered, is the
most popular movement expression, even
though
ecocentrism is more theoretically comprehensive, as it includes the
Earth itself, plus all its life forms. For those
who support
deep ecology, it would be quite false to make absolute distinctions
between the organic and inorganic,
or between the
animate and the inanimate, and hence between biocentrism and
ecocentrism. As a personal
preference, I
have come to use mainly left biocentrism, not left ecocentrism, in
writing
about this theoretical tendency
and its
applications. Arne Naess himself has expressed the relationship between
biocentric and ecocentric as follows:
In the
biocentric movement we are biocentric or ecocentric. For us it is the
eco-sphere, the whole planet,
Gaia, that is
the basic unit, and every living being has an intrinsic value. (The Selected Works,
Volume Ten, p. 18.)
The Left, no
matter past myriad forms, has politically always been associated with
social justice for the human species.
This is its
universal symbolism. The use of the description “left” as a qualifier
to biocentrism is meant to send a signal
that the
future biocentric society will also be socially just for humans, in
addition to being just for other species and the
planet itself.
Yet ecological justice must remain primary. There is no justice for
people on a dead planet. We are first
Earthlings in
personal and societal consciousness, as the late Canadian
ecophilosopher Stan Rowe frequently reminded
us. But
activists who support left biocentrism must also be involved in social
justice issues.
The deep
ecology philosophy, within which left biocentrism is embedded, was
initially outlined and summarized in the
early 1970s by
the Norwegian philosopher and environmental activist Arne Naess in an
widely reprinted article, called
“The Shallow
and the Deep, Long-Range Ecology Movement: A Summary.” Much has
been
written on deep
ecology since
then by
Naess and others. I myself adopted this philosophy in 1985. Part of
this meant to try to follow
a low
consumption
lifestyle. One of my favourite quotes from Naess, on this referring to
Western consumption, says:
We must live
at a level that we seriously can wish others to attain, not at a level
that requires the bulk of
humanity NOT to reach. (Philosophical Dialogues, edited by
Witoszek and Brennan, p. 224)
Looking back
at my own environmental actions and writings prior to the adoption of
deep ecology, would indicate, not
to be
presumptuous, that I was on a similar path to this thinking, through my
involvement in forest and wildlife struggles
in the late
1970s and the early 1980s, in British Columbia and Nova Scotia, from a
non human-centered perspective.
An example of
this would be a presentation I made in 1983 on behalf of the Socialist
Environmental Protection and
Occupational
Health Group, at a public meeting held by the Royal Commission of
Forestry in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
(This has
become Green Web Bulletin #10.)
The presentation was made before I had heard of deep ecology. It
was
called “Pulpwood Forestry In
Nova Scotia.” (Later reprinted by the Gorsebrook Research
Institute, Saint Mary’s
University,
under the title “Pulpwood
Forestry In Nova Scotia and the Environmental
Question.”) The following
quote taken
from
this presentation concerns “The Ecological
Perspective”:
The ecological
perspective rejects man’s supposed domination over nature. This
domination is referred to
as the
homocentric or anthropocentric viewpoint which sees the environment
primarily in relationship to
how it
“benefits” human beings... The anthropocentric viewpoint is the basis
of all environmental management
perspectives
where the goal is the exploitation of nature in the most efficient and
rational manner possible.
Such a
viewpoint is fully compatible with the different but existing forms of
political economy, e.g. in the
United States
of America and the Soviet Union... In contrast to anthropocentrism is
the ecological
perspective,
where it is seen as necessary that people be managed so as to live
within the constraints of the
ecological
system of which they are a part. Our existence has to be ecologically
as well as socially sustainable.
The forest
then is a living ecosystem of which we are a part and is not to be seen
mainly as a source of low
cost wood
fibre for the pulp and paper industry.
Like quite a
few others in the environmental movement, finding the ecocentric
philosophy of Naess put my own fragmentary
experiences in
a more theoretical context so that it made sense, and I could declare
“This is what I believe!” I became a
“missionary” for the ideas of Naess (although a critical one). Deep
ecology outlines a new relationship to Nature which is
biocentric or
ecocentric, not human-centered, and the implications for humans which
follow from this. I tried to apply deep
ecology to the
environmental issues with which I was engaged, in order to show that
this was a philosophical “tool” which
activists
could use. I brought to this ecological work a left wing self-identity
and consciousness, grounded in my social
background and
life experience.
POLITICAL BACKGROUND
I was born
into a British working class family of four children – mother and
father life-long supporters of the British Labour
Party, leaving
school at fifteen and serving a five-year apprenticeship in Portsmouth
Dockyard as a shipwright. My father
who “worked on
the bench” in a local aircraft factory in Portsmouth, took his union
politics seriously and involved me in
this during
the period of my apprenticeship. As a teenager I rowed with the local
rowing club in salt water regattas all
along the
South Coast from Portsmouth. Rowing brought about a love of the sea and
also took me out of my immediate
dockyard
environment into other social circles. My nickname in the rowing club –
it’s social base was not working class –
was “Matey,”
which was short for “dockyard matey.” I also spent time as a teenager
walking the saltwater marshes,
observing
waterfowl and being fascinated by the huge tidal harbour with its acres
of mud flats within walking distance
from our house
in Portsmouth.
In 1957, I
immigrated to Canada, basically to escape the then compulsory “National
Service” in the armed forces in England.
In my
new country, I took part in social justice and anti-war issues. I
entered university in Montreal through “Mature
Matriculation”
and obtained a Bachelor degree. Afterwards I did a Master’s degree in
sociology at the New School for
Social
Research in New York. Even though I completed the course work for the
doctorate, I never submitted a thesis.
I was a
one-time university teacher, as my initial two-year contract, to teach
sociology in Montreal in the turbulent late 1960s,
was not
renewed. There were no additional university teaching job offers. My
political background includes having been a
member of a
Marxist-Leninist organization in Canada from 1968 to 1975, and serving
a prison sentence of 40 days arising
out of
participation in a Toronto anti-fascist demonstration in the 1970s. I
ran twice as a federal ML candidate in elections in
Montreal.
According to a
1978 book by Lorne and Caroline Brown, An
Unauthorized History of the RCMP (pp. 122-123), the
RCMP tried
unsuccessfully to enlist the co-operation of Regina university
authorities in preparing a case against me for
"sedition,"
based on remarks I had made at a university seminar as a ML
spokesperson, in November 1969 on the topic
"Revolt vs.
the Status Quo."
A general
overview of the role of the Canadian political police - the RCMP (Royal
Canadian Mounted Police) – on
university
campuses in Canada, carried out with the full knowledge of the
political governing class, can be seen in the
2002 pedantic
book by academic historian Steve Hewitt, Spying 101: The RCMP’s Secret Activities at
Canadian
Universities, 1917-1997. This book, which
curiously does not mention the above Unauthorized
History, is based on
Access to
Information requests, usually heavily censored by those releasing the
requests, plus some interviews with
ex-RCMP
sedition chasers and a few interviews with former students or faculty
who were investigated by the security
services.
Hewitt is no radical himself and justifies much of what he writes
about: “Nor do I contend that a security service
has no place
on a university campus.” (p. 16) But his book is somewhat revealing for
those who claim ignorance about
Canada having
a secret police force concerned with maintaining thought control within
a capitalist paradigm and
targeting
those considered as “subversive” who challenge such a paradigm. The
fixation for the security services was
always mainly
communism. We are told, “When it came
to subversion, Communists received the great bulk of the
police’s attention.” (p. 11) Hewitt
notes generally about today: “In
this new era and the rapid passage of anti-terrorism
legislation, the likelihood that those who engage in
peaceful dissent will be investigated is great.” (p. 211)
In 1977, I
became involved in environmental work in British Columbia and worked
with the BC Federation of Naturalists
on
environmental issues. I continued the environmental work in Nova
Scotia, where my wife and I moved in 1979. Here
I took up
uranium and forest issues, and have been attempting to define a
non-human centered environmentalism. In
1984 we moved
to an old farm that had reverted back to forest.
In 1983, at an
anti-cruise missile rally, I publicly declared myself as a “Green”: “We need a new kind of politics and we
believe the
green movement, which stresses a new type of environmentally conscious
society, is the way ahead.”
Then, in 1985,
I came in contact with the philosophy of deep ecology and adopted it.
I wrote for Canadian Dimension, the national
left social democratic magazine, over a period from 1989 until 2006
(about
25 articles),
trying to bring a deep green perspective to its readership. In the
July/August 2006 issue, I was one of six people
listed as “Environmental
Activists who are Changing the World.” (I only wish it were
true!)
In 2006 I ran
as a Green Party candidate in the riding of Central Nova, where we
live, and made available on the internet the
campaign
material which combined a deep ecology and an anti-capitalist
perspective. (See: Election
Campaign Press Releases)
SOCIALIST BIOCENTRISM
As I noted in
the first “My Path” bulletin,
Arne Naess comes through as sympathetic to socialism in his key book Ecology,
Community and
Lifestyle. He considers class restrictions as limitations to the
possibility of Self-realization for individuals
and also
points out that Green politics wants the elimination of class
differences locally, regionally, nationally and globally.
But Naess has
not explored in any consistent way the relationship of deep ecology to
the Left. This work has been taken up
by people like
Andrew McLaughlin, Rudolf Bahro, Fred Bender, myself, and several other
supporters of left biocentrism, like
David
Greenfield. (See his recent fine, inclusive essay in Dandelion Times also titled “The
Left in Left Biocentrism”)
The present
bulletin focuses on “The Left in Left Biocentrism”. It should perhaps
have been written a long time ago, although
the second
bulletin in the My Path series
(#64), dated April 1998 and devoted to “Actual Issues”, does contain an
extensive
section called “Relationship To The Left.” In it I outlined four
positive and ten negative ideas for how I saw the
relationship
to the Left for left biocentrism. I said at that time the positive
ideas from the Left tradition have to be part of any
left
biocentric synthesis. The initial ideas about this attempted synthesis
were outlined using the conceptual formulation of
“socialist
biocentrism”, in a paper “Green Marginality in
Canada” by Orton and Hoffmann. This paper was presented
in June 1989
at the Learned Societies’ Conference at Laval University, in Quebec
City. Looking back, I see this concern
with socialist
biocentrism as an attempt to combine deep ecology and socialism, but
the contradictions eventually
overwhelmed
any possible synthesis. In hindsight, the concern with articulating a
socialist biocentrism has turned out to be
part of the
theoretical evolution of the left biocentric tendency within deep
ecology. A quote from the “Green Marginality”
paper
illustrates this:
We believe
that the socialist/communist movement, being human-centered, has
difficulty in seeing what the
green movement
is all about in Canada and the United States. We have come to adopt the
basic perspective of
biocentrism or
deep ecology. Biocentrism provides the ideological counter to
‘resourcism’, the dominant view
that the
non-human world exists solely as raw material for the human purpose.
The essence of biocentrism is,
for us, what
it means to be green.
We also
pointed out that “The green movement
has replaced the socialist movement as the center of innovative debate
and
utopian
thinking.”
In September
of 1988, I took the basic analysis from the “Green Marginality”
paper
and presented a talk
“Socialist Biocentrism:
What Is It?”
at a workshop at a Vermont deep ecology conference. I travelled to this
conference with another environmental
activist from
Nova Scotia. It was in Vermont that I first met Andrew McLaughlin,
author of the 1993 book, Regarding
Nature:
Industrialism and Deep Ecology who led a
Council of All Beings gathering at the conference. This was my first
exposure to
such a Council
and it made a big impression on me, as a mechanism for transforming
consciousness away from anthropocentrism.
It was also
the first time I became aware that there were other deep ecology
supporters, like McLaughlin, who were openly
socialist, and
that I was not alone with my ideas of trying to bring together deep
ecology and socialism. I attended a talk
McLaughlin
gave at the conference and remember intervening against one of the
participants who was attempting to red-bait him.
(Andy and I
became friends and a mutual collaboration, which has been helpful for
shaping my ideas, exists to this day.)
In the talk
notes for the Socialist Biocentrism workshop, I said that socialist
biocentrism was “at a very
preliminary stage of
explanation, but the perspective is meant to provide
a theoretical home for greens who support, in principle, a
biocentric
position and who consider themselves socialists of some kind.” I
pointed out that “biocentrism in
green
thinking draws
its roots from the philosophy of deep ecology” and our
experience showed that “by focusing
on the
actual work,
people with marked ideological differences can fruitfully cooperate for
the sake of the Earth.”
I also noted:
Much
of deep ecology writing we find obscure and not relevant to practical
green work. We note the lack of
any real political, economic,
social analysis, or class perspective, by most deep ecology
writers...We believe
that socialist greens, who have a
biocentric position, must be concerned about population. If humans share
the planet on a basis of equality
with other forms of life, then as human numbers expand, other life forms
and their habitats suffer. We do
not believe this position makes us ‘Malthusians.’
LEFT GREEN NETWORK
Attempting to
define a socialist biocentrism, that is, a merging of deep ecology and
socialism, was not just a theoretical
exercise but
had to be seen in the context of the proposal to form “A Left Green
Network” in Canada in 1988. This was
really a
carbon copy of the 1988 “draft” proposal for a “Left Green Network in
North America”, which was very much
influenced by
the ideas of Murray Bookchin and social ecology. This proposal, which
had minimal ecological content but
was high on
social justice, was explicitly directed against deep ecology and aimed
at influencing Greens in the United
States. The
underlying automatic assumption by these “leftists”, which really
bothered me at that time, was that, to be a
Green and also
on the Left, meant to be a supporter of social ecology. There was no
other option open for discussion.
The
biocentric socialist path I was struggling to find, was not even up for
discussion. The call for a Left Green Network
was quite
sectarian. Deep ecology was equated in a circulated document with
“‘deep-ecological’ misanthropy.”
There was also
strong opposition to population reduction. One of the “Principles of
the Left Green Network”, in a
very detailed
document that new people were just asked to sign on to, clearly stated
the adoption of social ecology as its
primary
orientation:
Left
Greens are social ecologists. We root the ecological crisis in its
systemic social causes - capitalism
in particular and hierarchy and
domination in general...Left greens oppose the misanthropic
orientations that blame human
nature, human rationality, or ‘overpopulation’ for the ecological
crisis.
The call was
also imperial, in that it assumed that Canada was just an appendage of
the United States.
I circulated a
document among our green and environmental contacts in Canada (which I
now cannot find a copy of)
called “A Preliminary Response
to the ‘Call For a Left Green Network.’” The following is taken
from a reply,
dated November
15, 1988, by a Nedjo Rogers which serves to bring out some of the
orientation of my Preliminary
Response and
also how it was arrogantly received by some social ecology supporters
of the Left Green Network in
Canada:
Dear David,
...I and some
of the other Vancouver signatories of the Call are members of an
informal collective
called Red and Green. I am a
green and a socialist, and a supporter of social ecology.
If I
understand your ‘preliminary response’ correctly, you support the
formation of a Canadian
Left Green (or Green Left)
Network, but oppose the Call which has been issued on the basis that it
seems to support social ecology
over deep ecology. I agree that it does so, but do not find this
problematic.
That a
socialist green network should be consistent with the aims and
principles of social ecology
seems to me entirely appropriate.
Social ecology, for purposes of clarification, is not entirely
synonymous with ‘Murray
Bookchinism,’ although Murray is its prominent exponent. As its name
implies, social ecology is
derived largely from the socialist/anarchist tradition. Social ecology
sees
the elimination of capitalism and
the achievement of social justice, as well as the preservation and
protection of wilderness, as
essential to the creation of a truly ecological world.
Deep ecology,
in contrast, does not genuinely incorporate the left tradition, and is
indeed inconsistent
with socialism...
I conclude,
therefore, that it is entirely natural that the principles of a left
(or socialist) green network
should be consistent with social
ecology, and inconsistent with deep ecology...
I would be
surprised if any deep ecologist wished to join a socialist green
network. It would imply to
me that he or she were confused,
either ideologically or semantically. If the Call for a Left Green
Network
is seen as objectionable by deep
ecologists, this is perhaps only to be expected. In short, I do not see
a place
for deep ecology within the Left
Green Network...
You make an
important point in your ‘preliminary response’ with which I agree: that
it is important that
we as Canadian socialist greens
organize ‘independently of the U.S.’...Any Canadian reading the Call in
its present form will note a
definite American slant, and a lack of discussion of issues of
particular
concern to Canadians...it
contains nothing inherently objectionable to Canadians...I will send a
copy of
this letter, and of yours, to
other individuals and green organizations whom this matter concerns.
Yours in
social and ecological struggle,
Nadjo Rogers
Another
theoretical struggle where a left biocentric position was outlined in
opposition to that influenced by social ecology
and Murray
Bookchin, was around the issue of ecofascism. Bookchin himself
attempted to associate deep ecology with
ecofascism and
Hitler’s national socialist movement. Janet Biehl and Peter
Staudenmaier, both social ecology supporters,
pursued this
line of thinking and also tried to link Rudolf Bahro to national
socialism. I felt it important to oppose this attack
on deep
ecology and wrote a reply in 2000 called “Ecofascism:
What is It? A Left Biocentric Analysis.” My reply
examined what
could be considered a legitimate use of the term ecofascism.
MARX AND MARXISM
In the 1989
presentation at the Learned Societies’ Conference, we outlined our
changing attitude towards Marx and
Marxism, based
on our experience working as environmentalists and socialists:
Through our experience in the
Nova Scotia environmental movement, we gained some understanding of
questions
which socialist greens have to
face. We ourselves had to change. While our experience is that many
environmentalists
see the capitalist aspect of
various environmental issues, it is much harder for such people to see
themselves as
socialists. This because they do
not see socialism as different. For ourselves, we came, reluctantly, to
the view that
if Marx/Marxism viewed the
natural world as a ‘resource’ – in a similar manner to capitalism –
then it was not
possible to be ‘green’ and a
Marxist, however much one shared the basic Marxist critique of
capitalist society.
A good example
of how I defined socialist biocentrism using struggles
against industrial forestry in Nova Scotia as context, is
shown in the
article “Discussion: Socialist Biocentrism”,
which provided an
exchange between James O’Connor, the
then editor of
the Marxist journal Capitalism,
Nature, Socialism, and myself. (At that time I was on the
editorial board of
CNS, but I
later resigned from the board.) The
discussion shows a fundamental clash of values between O’Connor’s
Marxist
perspective on the environment and my views as a supporter of
deep ecology who was also on the Left. O’Connor’s
comments, “I don’t
understand what Orton’s biocentrist perspective has to do with his
ecological/political practice”,
show an
incomprehension for
understanding a proposed socialist biocentric perspective. He is a
person who, by anyone’s
account, would
be considered at the forefront
of Marxist scholarship, particularly pursuing that more recent line of
inquiry
which claims
an ecological role for Marx and Marxism. My reply
in the exchange addressed four questions:
1) The relationship of theory to
practice in biocentrism;
2) Why nature is ultimately more
important than society;
3) What does socialist
biocentrism mean, from a socialist perspective;
and
4) Can a pulpwood forestry be
supported?
In retrospect,
some Marxists have reproached me saying that recent
scholarship e.g. John Bellamy Foster and Paul Burkett
(authors I
have
not read) have shown that, for Marx, Nature was of crucial importance,
as was an ecological understanding.
I am now
prepared to accept this,
but it does not change the overall left biocentric critique of those
using Marx and Marxism
to write about
ecology and the environmental
movement. To claim Marx was a deep Green seems rather exaggerated. The
proof of the
pudding is in the eating and in this case it must
ultimately be how Marxism has been applied. (See next section
of this
paper on relations to the Left.) I also dislike that current in many
Marxist discussions, which claims “all is foretold” in
Marx, if we
only
really understood him. Joel Kovel’s 2002 book The Enemy of Nature,
was written from a hybrid Marxist
and social
ecology viewpoint. He
noted, “Almost the entire socialist
tradition...has largely been unable
to appropriate an
ecological attitude.” (p.206) (See my
critique of
Kovel’s book, Ecological_Marxism)
ECOSOCIALISM?
The
environmental legacies of “actually existing” socialist and
communist societies are quite negative. (The possible exception
here
would be Cuba, which has shown leadership by example in small plot
intensive urban gardens and in developing
alternatives
to fossil fuel
based rural agriculture, and in the protection of the island’s natural
biodiversity.) It seems to me that
“socialism” or
“ecosocialism”, as a
description of a future deep ecology inspired and socially just post
capitalist society, is not
adequate or
inspirational, given the actual
historical record. Also, the use of the term “socialist” or
“ecosocialist” seems to shut
out options,
implying that post-industrial
societal models of sustainability from the socialist/communist
tradition already exist
and could just
be adopted. This is foolishness
and also Left arrogance. The type of the future ecocentric and socially
just social
formations are
up for discussions. There are no worked-out
social models that can be simply adopted, all is on the table for
discussion.
Socialism is in many ways an expression of the industrial
proletariat, and while its legacy of social justice remains
valid, and
indeed needed for a future ecocentric society, it is not correct in my
view to say that “ecosocialism” will describe the
future post
industrial ecocentric society. The features of such a society are a
work in progress for all of us to engage with.
RELATIONSHIP TO THE LEFT
I first tried
to outline this relationship in point form in the April
1998 My Path bulletin Part II,
“Actual Issues.”
This was later
repeated
(with one additional point) as part of a talk I gave in August 2000 to
the federal convention of the Green Party of
Canada, called
“Is Left
Biocentrism Relevant to Green Parties?” I said the
needed
theoretical path must be from Red to
Green but that
the positive ideas
from the Left tradition have to be part of any left biocentric
synthesis of ideas. The
following
points are the ones taken from that
talk concerning the “positive” and “negative” ideas concerning the
relationship
to the Left
for left biocentrism:
Positive ideas
1. A basic idea within the socialist and communist
tradition is that
society should control the economy, and not the economy
control the
society, as is the situation under industrial capitalism. If the
economy is controlling the society, is it not possible
to have an
economy which accepts operating within general ecological limits, as
each corporation maximizes its own
economic interests. It is easier
to
visualize an economy operating within ecological limits, if it is
controlled by society.
Social control of the economy
does not have to
be centralized, it could be decentralized in a bioregional economy.
2. Sense of collective responsibility for all
members of a society. It
is not acceptable that a few live in luxury and others in
poverty. This
is the social justice contribution of the Left. It means income
redistribution nationally and internationally.
A radical ecological
politics must take account of the interests of the human species for
political success.
3. Class awareness, being aware that not all are
equal, although all
may vote; that the press is "free" to those who own it
in a capitalist
democracy. Environmental, economic and social issues always have a
class dimension, if one looks
beneath the surface of industrial
capitalist society.
4. The Left has a concern for others and accepts the
self-sacrifice of
the individual interest for the collective well-being
of the society.
This is in opposition to the cult of individualism/selfishness
under capitalism.
Negative ideas
1. The Left has a human-centered world view, and
cannot accept a
biocentric/ecocentric outlook, that says animals and
plants and the
general ecosystem have to be treated on the same moral plane as humans.
In any conflict situation,
animals and plants and the
physical Earth
are defeated. Social justice is for humans, and is predominantly at the
expense
of the ecology.
2. The Left says that capitalism, not industrialism,
is the problem.
Implicit in this view is that it is the ownership of wealth,
which is
fundamental. Left biocentrism sees industrial society as the main
problem. It can have a capitalist or socialist
face. This industrial
view also accepts a class analysis.
3. The labour theory of value from Marxism implies
that Nature has no
value or worth unless humans transform it through
their labour. For
deep ecology, Nature has value in itself. Greens see Nature as the
principal source of human wealth
not labour power. [I
would say that
this has been in the recent past the situation on the ground about
Nature
essentially having no value, for many of those
influenced by
Marx and Marxism. But recent Marxist scholarship which
I accept, has
argued that this was not Marx’s original intent.]
4. The assumption that humans can "own" Nature, and
that collective
ownership is best. Yet human "ownership" of Nature
is irrelevant,
whether individual, communal or state, if Nature is being destroyed.
5. Hostility to population reduction as a priority
for an ecocentric
world. This is because for the Left, humans are
essentially the only
species to have value. The habitat needs of other life forms are not
important, particularly when this
means impacting on the human species.
6. The assumption from Marxism that "freedom" comes
from the
development of the productive forces, i.e. the industrial
base, which
will generate the needed wealth for communist society. Consumerism
becomes part of this. Left Biocentrism
opposes more economic growth
and, following Rudolf Bahro, popularizes that industrialized nations
need to reduce their
impact upon the Earth to one tenth of what it
presently is, for long term sustainability. [Bahro wrote this
view in
the
1980s, so the economic expansion situation and its
impact upon the
natural world is much worse today.]
7. The Marxist position that capitalism "fetters"
the forces of
production was wrong. Capitalism massively expands these
forces of
production and destroys Nature in the process. There is no conception
within Marxism of limits to growth, or
the necessity for a contracting
economy for an ecological sustainable society.
8. The Left has a materialist outlook and a culture
which is quite
hostile to expressions of spirituality, religion being the
"opium" of
the people, etc. Left biocentrism holds that individual and collective
spiritual/psychological transformation,
is important to bring about
major social change, and to break with industrial society. We need
inward spiritual/
psychological transformation, so that the interests
of
all species overrides the self-interest of the individual, the family,
the community, and the nation. Animism from
indigenous societies has
much to teach us.
9. The Left promotes the "working class" as the
instrument for social
transformation to a more egalitarian society.
Left biocentrism, like
Bahro, sees the trade unions as united with their employers in
defending industrial society and
privilege. Environmental and green
politics recruits across class, although there is a class component to
such politics.
It has been my experience, for example in
issues
such as uranium exploration/mining and open pit coal mining,
the
killing of seals, pulpmill pollution, the spraying of biocides and
destruction of forests, and the Sable Island
gas project, that the
unions involved or which stand to economically benefit, have had the
same anti-ecological
positions as their employers. This is the same in
many other industries. Both unions and employers have an
economic
interest in the continuation of industrial society and speak with
similar anti-ecological voices. In the
main, of course there are
exceptions, trade unions are generally environmental enemies, not
allies, of the
environmental and green movements.
10. The Left has no alternative economic model to
that of the global,
market economy. For example, the social
democratic Left in Canada (the
New Democratic Party) and in other countries, ends up adapting to the
capitalist
economic growth model, with its endless consumerism
and the
environmental destruction by trans-national
corporations. A
bioregional economic model not based on continuous
growth, which will respect ecological
limits and which serves social
justice, could be an alternative model. [This “no alternative
economic
model” is
certainly true for social democratic parties.
However
ecological models that try to integrate sustainable economies
which are
not capitalist are being discussed by some socialists influenced by
Marx and Marxism.]
11. The Left minimizes individual responsibility for
destructive social
or ecological actions. For example, the
logger is "forced" to clearcut
to feed his family, pay the mortgage, make the truck payments, etc.
Although
the primary locus of blame is the destructiveness of
industrial capitalist society, this position is a denial of
personal
responsibility. Individuals must take responsibility for their actions
and be socially accountable.
Part of being individually responsible is
to practice voluntary simplicity, so as to minimize one's own impact
upon the Earth.
CONFLICT MODEL OF SOCIAL CHANGE
I believe the
above “Relationship to the Left” analysis is basically
accurate from a left biocentric perspective. There is one
additional
“positive” idea which left biocentrists need to incorporate from the
Left, and that is adopting a conflict model of
social change
as opposed
to a “harmony” model. The harmony viewpoint seems to be the approach of
Arne Naess and
is perhaps the
dominant view in deep ecology. This was
first discussed in my 2005 review of Wisdom In the Open
Air:
The
Norwegian Roots Of Deep Ecology and more fully in My Path bulletin Part VII, “Notions of Self in the
Age
of Ecology”, in the
section “A Conflict Model of Social Change.” The
Norwegian book review was undertaken mainly
to examine the
ideas of
Sigmund Kvaløy,
someone highly influenced by Buddhism, Marx and Gandhi.
He advocates a
conflict model
of social change and says that we should
prepare for social strife in working for fundamental ecological and
social change.
The following quote is from my review:
Left
biocentrists like myself, who believe that much
in Marx is valuable, have not tended to see Marxism
as a strong
contributing current to the ecological synthesis which we are trying to
orient towards. I personally
have welcomed the ongoing
historical
materialist critique of capitalist society, the human social justice
contributions coming out of the
socialist and communist social
movements, and the focus on changing this
world. However, it seems that
most previous discussions have focused, perhaps rightly, around how
Marx and
Marxists view Nature – did Marx
recognize the intrinsic value
of the natural world or did he view this world
instrumentally, etc. By
this focus, I believe we have neglected the force driving SOCIAL change
in Marx,
that is the class struggle, or
more generally social conflict
within society. According to Sigmund Kvaløy, the
conflict model of
social change should guide ecocentric greens and environmentalists. As
he says, ‘I’m all
for polarization. That’s the only
way we get deeper
discussions.’ (Wisdom,
p. 150)
REGARDING “OWNERSHIP”
This relates
to point 4 in the list of “negative” ideas from the Left,
which left biocentrists need to reject. Perhaps it is fair to
say that
the Left stresses collective ownership, as opposed to individual
ownership, but what is not normally challenged is
the idea of
“ownership” itself. That is the human-centered idea that the human
species can “own” nature itself and other
species. Yet
nature can be
destroyed whether under state, collective, private, or indigenous
“ownership.” For deep
ecology, as
Naess has said, “The earth does not
belong to humans.” Left biocentrism has a non-human centered
view,
where it would
be more accurate to say that the Earth owns us.
For left biocentrists, community has to include not just
humans but
other animals, plants and the Earth itself. With such a community,
there is a sense of Earth spirituality, as in
past animistic
indigenous
societies. This spirituality acted in the past as a restraint upon
human exploitation of nature,
and it has to
be brought back for
sustainability to be achieved. Left biocentric theory advocates
“usufruct” as opposed
to private
ownership of the natural world.
With usufruct, there is the right of responsible use of the natural
world but
not ownership
of any part of Gaia. We are also subject to
ecocentric governance, which is much wider and more
demanding than
the
governance by human society. There is no “right” to destroy or despoil
the natural world for
narrow human
self-interest. Nature remains a
commons and should not be privatized and subject to individual or
collective
ownership.
I puzzle over
the basic Naess/deep ecology position, which I fully
support – that one cannot own the Earth – and the
promotion in
the
U.S., South and Central America, and in Canada, of what has been called
“private land philanthropy.”
This means
using private property laws to
buy up land for conservation purposes. There are a number of
foundations
doing this,
e.g. the Foundation for Deep Ecology (Doug
Tompkins), Friends of Nature (Martin Haase), the Nature
Conservancy,
and others, who have been doing this as a counter to the
industrialization of the planet. I worry about
reinforcing
property
beliefs, while buying land up for “good” purposes. Society has to
change its basic thinking
regarding
human “ownership” of nature and
other life forms, if we are to chart a new ecocentric course.
Conservation
activities
also have to undermine the existing paradigm of
values, not reinforce the laws upholding so-called property
rights of
societies created by humans.
In Canada, as
in the United States, so-called land owners have often
been vocal voices asserting their “rights” and
demanding
compensation
against those promoting ecological and wildlife interests. Industrial
capitalism has commodified
Nature and
de-spiritualized the world around
us. Changing consciousness, not paying so-called compensation to those
working the
land, even in a good cause such as buying private land for
conservation purposes, is the path we should be
embarking on.
Wildlife
and plant life have no place or intrinsic value within a monetary nexus
devised solely by humans.
As the Deep Ecology
Platform puts it, "The
well-being and flourishing of human and nonhuman life on Earth have
value in themselves...These
values are independent of the usefulness of
the nonhuman world for human purposes."
For
those of us striving to be
deeper Greens, we need to change, not reinforce, the basic value system
which presently
governs us.
REGARDING THE ECONOMY AND THE
LEFT-RIGHT DISTINCTION
Left
biocentrists have a different view of the economy than the Left.
For us, the economy does not just include the long term
welfare of
humans and their habitats, but it also includes preserving and not
significantly altering conditions for the long term
welfare of all
the
other species of life inhabiting the planet. We humans must share a
fixed amount of physical habitat, whether
land or
marine, with other
species on an equality basis. A population reduction strategy must
therefore be part of any green
economic
policy. And, given lifestyle
patterns in high consumption societies like Canada and the United
State, consumption
must also be
sharply reduced. The existing
expansionary industrial capitalist economic model is destructive and
has to be
replaced.
While we are concerned about social justice for
humans, left biocentrists understand that ecological justice for all
species will
normally be primary in the ecocentric society. For the
ecocentric Left informed by deep ecology, there is the
primacy of
ecocentric consciousness – of
“thinking like a mountain” as Aldo
Leopold instructed us. Social justice, while
important, is
secondary to
such a consciousness. The left-right distinction is therefore
subordinate to the anthropocentric-
deep ecology
divide. Coming into a
new relationship with the natural world is primary for left
biocentrists, and social justice
for humans
must keep this basic
orientation in mind.
CLIMATE CHANGE AND PEAK OIL
This was one
of the key themes I pursued, from a left biocentric
perspective, as a federal Green Party candidate in the 2006
election,
and as a writer trying to influence the green movement. Canada’s energy
policy is all about supplying U.S. energy
needs. (See “Change Canada's Energy
Policy”)
I also wrote
an article “Reclaiming
the Commons: Responding to Climate
Change and Peak Oil” which was picked
up by Canadian
Dimension, and also
published in the Spring 2007 issue, No. 43, of Synthesis/Regeneration
as the lead
article in the
“Reducing Energy” issue.
I critically
reviewed George Monbiot’s Heat: How
To stop The Planet
From Burning published in Synthesis/
Regeneration
45, Winter 2008. The overall thesis of
this book, taking the case of the United Kingdom, is that the
existing
high-consumption industrial lifestyle can be kept and climate change
held under control if certain tough carbon
reducing
changes are made. I
believe this to be fantasy.
The “Reclaiming the Commons”
article was a critique of the reformist or
ecocapitalist approach of a marketplace
incrementalism
to global
warming and climate change, promoted by the federal Green Party of
Canada. The following
quotes from
this article give a sense of the
position being advocated:
Deeper greens
must not take part in climate change
discussions which focus on soft energy paths to replace
fossil fuels,
but which keep the existing high energy consumption lifestyle in our
country, thus basically turning
our backs on
the world’s dispossessed.
This does not mean that we are unconcerned about softer technologies
like solar or
wind power, but it does mean that electoral Greens cannot
replace the larger issue of the basic
unsustainability of industrial
capitalist society with the pretense that, by some kind of retrofitting
agenda led by
electoral
Greens, we can painlessly evolve in some
fundamentally new direction.
One such
example, as advocated in the 2006 Election
Platform, was carbon emissions trading. As Greens, we
must see the
atmosphere as part of the global commons. Carbon emissions trading is
just a continuation of the
ongoing
enclosure movement, an attempt to
assert so-called private property rights over the commons by the
rich
and the powerful.
The above
article concluded by declaring:
Greens must
advocate taking back into communal
ownership the energy sector of our economy. As greenhouse
gas emissions
must be cut 50-70% if the atmosphere of our planet is to remain
hospitable to all life forms,
including humans, then boldness
is called
for from those who call themselves Greens... Greens must convey the
electoral message that climate
change and peak oil are calling the
fossil fuel-based industrial capitalist society
into question and that
a new ecologically conscious and socially just society is on the agenda
for all of us.
ABORIGINALS AND THE LEFT
This has been
one area where the ideas of left biocentrism, as
elaborated by myself, have clashed strongly with “traditional”
Left
views, which have focused pretty exclusively on social justice for
aboriginals, not Earth justice first and then considering
social
justice. One of the My Path
bulletins (Part IV), is concerned with
“Aboriginal
Issues and Left Biocentrism”.
There is also
the two-part Green Web Bulletin #67, “Unfashionable Ideas: A Left
Biocentric Critique of the Report
of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal
Peoples”. And
there are a number of other articles and book reviews written
on the
topic of aboriginals and the environment, which preoccupied me for
several years in the 1990s. One of the articles
was called “Deep Left
Dilemmas” and was printed in the July-August 1996 edition of Canadian
Dimension magazine.
(Reprinted as
Green Web Bulletin #51) I wrote this
article as an Earth defender and left biocentrist/ecocentrist for
readers
of this social
democratic magazine. I outlined a critique of
what I called the “social environmentalism” world view in a nine-
point
form. For social environmentalism, social justice is upheld over
environmental justice, as opposed to a left biocentric
view that
environmental issues are more fundamental than social issues. The
article stirred up a lot of controversy. The nine
points
regarding
environmental-aboriginal relations for social environmentalists, both
native and non-native, are summarized
below:
1. Aboriginals
in Canada communally “owned” the
country before the arrival of the European colonizers and therefore
must be compensated. With this position, ownership
of non-human Nature
becomes accepted.
2. Because of
support for past treaties (“treaty
fundamentalism”), feudal/bourgeois legalities are upheld and a class
view
of history is denied. This is expressed by upholding
as valid
treaties of oppressor convenience signed 200-300 years ago...
Why should
British colonial treaties signed with indigenous peoples be taken as
sacrosanct today?
3. The
“unceded” land concept or “beyond the treaty
frontier” language, such as promulgated by sovereigntists in British
Columbia, accepts the past legitimacy of the whole
treaty process in
Canada. Implied is that if a treaty was signed by
the British colonial
powers dispossessing the native peoples, then everything is okay!
Revolutionary movements have
‘traditionally’ had contempt for, and
disregarded past feudal and bourgeois legalities.
4. Treaties
are seen as frozen-in-time, yet
paradoxically they are guides to the assertion of contemporary land,
hunting and
fishing ‘rights’, when everything has ecologically
changed
for the worse.
5. Social
environmentalists support the traditional
hereditary chief system, as opposed to the elected band councils.
Traditional indigenous cultures are held up as
social and ecological
models. While there are many corruptions to the
band council system, at
least there are elections. There exists a social critique of indigenous
peoples and cultural
traditionalism – but one would not know it from
the social environmentalists.
6. Social
environmentalists will not oppose
aboriginals commercially hunting, fishing and trapping in provincial
and federal
parks, wildlife refuges and other protected areas.
Aboriginals retain a human-centered ‘use’ orientation towards
wildlife...
in the past animism provided a buffering or
mitigating
context for such a human-use orientation towards wildlife. But
this is
not the situation today under the impact of industrial culture and
modern destructive killing technologies. By their
practice, as well as
giving support to the fur industry and use of the leg hold trap,
commercial hunting by natives of polar
bears, walrus, seals and soon to
be grey whales, etc., social environmentalists are in head-on
opposition to the vitally
important animal rights component of the
environmental movement.
7. An
acceptance without public questioning of
aboriginal claims, statements and demands and that natives define the
terms
of reference of any alliance with environmentalists.
8. An
acceptance that only aboriginals can define
the appropriate use of land in aboriginal areas.
9. An
acceptance of the existing industrial system
through support for ‘sustainable development’ or ‘integrated resource
management’, provided aboriginals are partners with
governments and
industry.
The article
concluded with the plea that environmentalists “must seek
to ally with natives who have biocentric and
anti-capitalist
sentiment.” Social justice for native peoples in Canada has to
be
fought for by left biocentrists, but not at the
expense of the
Earth.
An article by
Canadian anthropologist Peter Harries-Jones called
“Bargaining The
Sacred: The Approach from
‘Immanent
Holism’” in the
previously referred 1998 book Sustainability:
The Challenge,
discusses left biocentrism
and its view
on aboriginal issues. Jones was
part of a panel responding to my presentation on
environmental-aboriginal
relationships
at a 1995 Learned Societies’
Conference in Montreal. Jones outlines many of my positions in his
essay,
including my
characterization of aboriginal views of land use as
“deep stewardship.” I have given the position that deep
ecology goes
beyond deep stewardship, although building on this. Here are two quotes
from this essay:
The central
tenet of left biocentrism is a required
dismantling of our present industrial society by abrogating
free trade
capitalism, and its corollaries: endless economic growth, consumerism,
progressive privatization
of property rights. Left
biocentrism can only
have one agenda for industrial economy and that is to put it
into
reverse. P. 45
Orton
made the case that the generally depleted
nature of biodiversity and all wildlife resources have created
a new
set of ecological circumstances, a totally changed ecological context
for traditional practices which
overrides claims made in the name
of
the sacred. For Left biocentrists, the well-being of Earth remains the
ultimate yardstick for all
environmentalists, native and non-native
alike. Thus, given the choice between being
green or being red, the
former must prevail. The primary claim, where any fundamental choices
have to be
made, ‘must come down on the side
of wild nature. Humans
have options. Animals, plants and the physical
environment do not have
options.’ P. 46
GREEN ELECTORAL POLITICS AND DEEP
ECOLOGY
I have been a
Green since the early 1980s. I opposed the call for the
forming of a paper federal Green Party in November
of 1983 in
Ottawa,
because a green movement had to exist before an electoral party could
be formed. In a letter from me to
the designated
representative for
Nova Scotia, Phil Burpee, I wrote: “It
is a movement that has to be
built at this time, not a
federal political party.” This letter was
the
follow-up to a meeting held in Truro concerning the founding convention
of the
federal Green
Party. According to Jim Harding’s undated pamphlet
“The Founding Of
The Canadian Greens”, 174
people
registered for that
Ottawa convention and of these, 125 were from Ontario. I only joined
the Canadian federal Green
Party in May
of 2006.
There is a lot
of ambivalence in my views around Green electoral
politics. On one hand, I think that Rudolf Bahro, by his
withdrawal
from the German Green Party in the mid 1980s, and the reasons he gave
for this, basically express my own
sentiments. He
considered that such
electoral politics are only "brushing the teeth of the dragon," i.e.
industrial society. In
other words,
electoral politics are inherently
programmed for tokenism and hence ultimate irrelevancy, given the
present
ecological
crisis. Yet in a Canadian context, many people have
turned to the federal Green Party, which has become a
recognized
political force, polling around ten per cent in popular support. There
is also significant electoral support for some
of the
provincial Green
parties, as in British Columbia and Ontario. Such support seems to mean
that there is a belief that
such parties
are places where serious
discussions and ultimately actions can be undertaken in a political
context, to oppose
the ecocidal
course that Canadian society has
embarked upon. My own electoral commitments have been of a token
nature,
with my main
activities directed outside electoral politics. I
do see this federal Green Party, with all its flaws and its main
focus
on the belief that there is an ecocapitalist step-by-step path to
sustainability within industrial society, as part of an
international
movement calling for a shift in consciousness in how we humans relate
to the Earth. As well as being asked to
be a candidate
in the federal
election of 2006 in the riding where I live – the overall campaign
slogan I used in my riding was
“Make Peace With Nature – Vote Green”,
I
became a member of the “shadow cabinet.” This made me ostensibly the
national Green
Party spokesperson for deep ecology. This was perhaps a
first for any green party, that is, having someone
representing
deep
ecology as a spokesperson for this philosophy in a shadow cabinet
position. I was in the cabinet for
about a year.
All of us in the
shadow cabinet were asked to hand in our resignations before a party
convention which was to
elect a new
leader for the federal party. This
turned out to be Elizabeth May. My Green Party experience bears upon
the
ongoing quest
to arrive at some mutually acceptable “tenets” for
left biocentrism and where we should work or direct our
activities.
My
pre-convention resignation letter to the shadow cabinet of August
25th, 2006 noted in part:
Personally,
I continue to believe that support for a
basic deep ecology orientation and its application to the
everyday
world around us needs to be a founding pillar for any Green Party.
However, based on my own
experience within the shadow
cabinet, I
believe that there has to be some shared basic fundamental values
between members, in order to have
fruitful policy discussions with all
their necessary compromises within the
shadow cabinet. I do not believe
that these shared values existed for me with most members of the
cabinet.
HANDLING CONTRADICTIONS AND ACCEPTABLE
VARIANCE
There is a
left bio internet discussion group, which has functioned now
for over ten years. It has served as an electronic
community,
linking
supporters of left biocentrism and deep ecology in several countries,
although the main base is Canadian.
It has been a
‘group’ which
provided a welcome sense of community for like-minded people and a
place where ideas
could be
exchanged and tested, and yet remain within
the group.
A My Path bulletin (Part III) written
in May of 2000, called “Handling
Contradictions”, dealt with internal contradictions
and how to
resolve
them among those who supported deep ecology and left biocentrism, e.g.
vegetarianism and non-violence.
The bulletin
made a distinction between primary and secondary
contradictions. This was partly based on working with the left
bio
discussion group:
Left
biocentrism supporters see some contradictions
as primary, and others as secondary. From this perspective,
the primary
contradiction is with industrial capitalist society and its
Earth-destructive anthropocentric world
view and practices. Secondary
contradictions are differences which are firmly held beliefs on various
other issues.
It has become
clear to me since then, that the primary unity for left
biocentrists is support for deep ecology or ecocentrism in
theory and
practice. A Left unity is more difficult to obtain and exploring this
is one of the reasons for writing this particular
bulletin “The Left in
Left Biocentrism.” Political or left differences, if lifted into
consciousness for discussion and potential
policy
perspectives, can
lead to heated discussions which sometimes cannot be resolved. One
example of this would be non-
bridgeable
differences concerning
Palestine and Israel and its supporters. While there are some Zionist
sympathizers among
the supporters
of left biocentrism, this is far from
my own view. The continuing occupation of the West Bank and the
blockade
of Gaza by
land and sea by the armed forces of the state of
Israel is personally very disturbing to me. But this is something
hard
to discuss, let alone resolve in the left bio internet discussion
group. So this must be considered a secondary
contradiction.
The bulletin
on “Handling Contradictions” also gave my critique of
ecofeminism: “The fundamental left
biocentric critique
of
ecofeminism,
which has a number of faces, is its human, female gender exclusiveness,
and hence splitting character
for a general
philosophical theory.” For
eco-feminists, it seems the main problem holding back the progressive
evolution
of society is
androcentrism – male-centeredness and hence
male chauvinism – and not deep ecology’s anthropocentrism.
Fred
Bender’s 2003 book, The Culture Of
Extinction, which generally I am
very supportive of, notes in its discussion of
ecofeminism: “Radical
eco-feminism’s primary affiliation, like that of social ecology, is
with the Left, not with ecology.”
(p. 364) I
agree with this
characterization. (See also on the internet the Dialogue on ecofeminism
between Fred Bender and
ecofeminist
Wendy Lynne Lee.) However, Patrick
Curry’s 2006 book, Ecological Ethics:
An Introduction does not
support this
position. For Curry, “The effects of
genuine eco-feminism
are ecocentric and invaluably so.” (p. 95) So his
position would
be one
example of variance in this theoretical tendency. But I consider this a
secondary contradiction. Curry
also has his
own view of
Self-realization, expressed in his book, (pp. 76-78) which differs from
that of Arne Naess and myself,
and from some
other left bios who have
expressed themselves on this concept. This then would be another
example of a
secondary
contradiction.
ANTI-COMMUNISM AND LEFT BIOCENTRISM
In an
industrial capitalist society, the SOCIAL collective changes we
are seeking, alongside and as part of the ecocentric
transformation,
are more associated with the Left than the Right, although "individual"
– as opposed to a collective sense of
identity –
responsibility and
accountability for how one lives (part of left biocentrism as I
understand it), is normally more
associated
with the Right. I have
resisted defining the left in Left Biocentrism as "socialist",
believing that this was sectarian.
I opposed many
on the Left who said
that we had to choose between two options for the future: either
capitalism or
ecosocialism,
believing that this closed off other
venues, while being open about my own pro-communist and pro-socialist
sentiment on
the social justice side.
What
constitutes the “left” part of left biocentrism has become of some
urgency to resolve. A number of ecocentric activists
and writers
are
aligning with the left biocentric theoretical tendency and sometimes
have trouble leaving behind “left” conflicts
and internal
battles from
the past with which they have previously identified e.g. as
Trotskyists, as Anarchists, or as ‘Democratic’
Socialists, or
if
non-Left, with a residual anti-communism and anti-Marxism, part of
being socialized in North America. This
residual
anti-communism and
anti-Marxism has manifested itself in uninformed and intellectually
embarrassing comments from
my
perspective. The reality about Marx is
that he was an intellectual giant, whose ideas continue to influence
social change
activists
today. Marx combined scholarship – remember all
those hours spent in the British Museum? – and political activism.
Is
not the United States government proposed bail out of Wall Street at
the taxpayers’ expense in September of 2008, an
illustration
of Marx’s
point made so long ago that “The
executive of the modern state is but a
committee for managing
the common
affairs of the whole bourgeoisie”?
I cannot
accept that Stalin and Mao are equated with Hitler, and that
nothing positive has occurred in China or the former
Soviet Union
after
the communist revolutions in those two countries. This is
neo-conservative thinking and language, as far as
I am
concerned, and
totally divorced from reality. Today left biocentrists need to see
themselves as part of an inclusive
ecocentric
Left which is
non-communist but not anti-communist. We must put the often bloody
disunities of the old Left
behind us and
not bring them into
contemporary eco-politics.
From personal
experience in Canada, I have known many very dedicated
and self-sacrificing people who gave up a lot,
like careers
for
example, to come forward to work as “communists.” Their motivation was
to better society, like Norman
Bethune in the
1930s and so many others
who are not in the history books. Fascists I have not known personally,
but
their ideals
are hatred, not human betterment. I have confronted
fascists, as in the 1970s, when, in opposing the holding
of a “Keep
Canada White” meeting in Toronto, it resulted in jail time and a
criminal record for myself.
Another source
of anti-communism, among those sympathetic to deep
ecology and left biocentrism, seems to be some kind
of engagement
with
Tibetan Buddhism, which is often wrapped in anti-communist packaging.
For example, Joanna Macy, in
her
autobiography Widening Circles: A
Memoir, does not repudiate her past work with the CIA or her
frequently
expressed
anti-communism. (See my 2001 review “Joanna Macy and the CIA”.)
From what I
can see, as a non-Buddhist, there is a total discrepancy
between the spiritual role of Buddhism, as it has influenced,
say,
supporters in the West, and its socially oppressive role in Tibet and
its institutionalized role in other countries. The US
strategy
towards
China is one of global encirclement and attempted internal
de-stabilization within China, including Tibet.
Have a look at
the US
military bases in various countries around China, and try and match
this with Chinese bases around
the United
States! The CIA has financed
the Dalai Lama with direct economic subsidies, as well as financed and
trained
opposition
groups inside and outside of Tibet. The name of The
National Endowment for Democracy, a CIA front organization,
comes up as
source through which US government funding was funnelled. CIA
assistance in the past has included training
Tibetan cadres
in the
United States at a known military training camp, Camp Hale, near
Leadville, in the Rocky Mountains
of Colorado.
Trained cadre were
assisted by the CIA into re-entering Tibet to carry out armed
activities. The majority of
Tibetans,
prior to the arrival of the
Chinese army into Tibet, had a serf-like, extremely oppressive
existence and Buddhism
was used to
rationalize this in the interests of
a land-owning aristocratic class of Tibetans, including Buddhist lamas.
It was
no Shangri-La.
The Chinese revolution, despite various mistakes
and set-backs, ended feudalism in Tibet and vastly
improved the
life
conditions of the majority.
My idea of
spirituality for post-industrial society is not linked to a
defined religion but is Earth-centered. This is a kind of
animism, or
worldly ecological spirituality, or pantheism, as opposed to the inner
and other-worldly spirituality of the socially
recognized
religions.
An ecocentric
revolutionary Left must include not only socially
progressive humans committed to social justice for all and not
be
determined in its thinking by various past political flavours – it must
also be a Left which has learned the lessons of deep
ecology. This
includes, most importantly, the non-subordinate interests of species
other than humans and the planet itself.
In a July 2008
book review essay on the recent text by Michael Petrou Renegades: Canadians in The Spanish Civil
War
I
sought to learn any
lessons from this past struggle of relevance to the ecocentric Left
today. The lesson was that the
disunities
among the Left in Civil War
Spain seriously undermined the Republican side and must be left behind
today and not
brought into
contemporary eco-politics. The Earth’s
seeming terminal distress has no time for Left self-indulgence and the
fracturing of
our ranks. In my review, I also looked at the negative
role of Trotskyism in the Spanish Civil War.
From
my perspective, the ecocentric left is
non-communist but open, where appropriate, to learning from societies
like the
former Soviet Union, China or Cuba. The biocentric or
ecocentric left has to see itself as a being a
revolutionary left, as
the late Australian deep ecologist Richard Sylvan urged in his 1996
book, The
Greening
of Ethics: From Human Chauvinism to
Deep-Green
Theory: "Deep environmental
groups should begin to
prepare, carefully
and thoroughly, for revolutionary action." (p. 220) I personally think
it quite necessary to
retain the word "revolution"
because it conveys
the enormity of the social changes that are needed to move to
an
ecocentric society... Anti-communism fits a basic position of
maintaining the dominance of Capital. This is
why it has no place in my
own view of the basic tenets for a viable left biocentrism.
Furthermore, the fundamental
redistribution of human-created
wealth
globally, a central appeal of communism, is something which is
absolutely
needed for a post-capitalist
sustainable, ecocentric and
socially just society. (See The Spanish_Civil_War
and the
Canadian Left.)
Another reason
for opposing anti-communism has to do with maintaining
one’s personal integrity. Prior to the emergence of
Islamic
fundamentalism, serious opposition to capitalism was usually seen by
the security agencies, whose first task is to secure or
maintain the
bourgeois state, as linked in some way to support for communism. This
has certainly been true for the involvement of
the RCMP on
university
campuses in Canada. There is something humiliating, if one is viewed as
a social change agent, to have to
declare
oneself publically as non- or
anti-communist, in order to be given a hearing and be taken seriously.
Anyone
socialized in the West has to understand that, since the 1917
Russian Revolution, capitalist societies have considered
themselves as
engaged in deadly ideological warfare with the communist ‘other.’ Al
Gore reminded us, if we needed a reminder,
in his 1993
book Earth in
the Balance: “Opposition to
communism was the principle underlying
almost all of the
geopolitical
strategies and social policies designed
by the West after World War II.” (p. 271) Frances Stonor Saunders
in
her 1999 book The CIA And The
World Of Arts And Letters, a work
of quite impressive research, shows the involvement
of the CIA in
shaping Western culture in an anti-communist direction. The Agency used
major writers, poets, musicians and
painters, who
let their talents be
mobilized for US foreign policy goals, under the banner of “artistic
freedom”, as opposed to
following a
“party line” inside and outside of
the Soviet Union.
Obviously, to
be on the Left in the West means defining oneself within
a culture of anti-communist negativity. This has often
impacted those
who see themselves as part of an ecocentric Left, but it is important
to shed this residual anti-communism.
Personal
integrity means
rejecting an anti-communist self-definition. It should also mean
rejecting those who, from a former
Trotskyist,
social democratic, or
anarchist background, declare themselves part of the Left and yet try
to bring past battles
on the Left,
plus a strident anti-communism – as
in a hatred of all things communist – into left biocentrism. Perhaps
there is
a need for an
addition to the Left
Biocentrism Primer, which makes it clear
that anti-communism (and anti-Marxism) has
no place
within the left
biocentric theoretical tendency of deep ecology.
Left
biocentrism is open to learning from the Left, yet it
differentiates itself as a separate theoretical tendency, with a number
of criticisms
of the traditional Left. I continue to see myself first
as Earth-centered and all that which this implies from an
ecocentric
priority perspective, but I also see myself as part of the Canadian
Left. My main sympathies, concerning human-
centered
politics, are on
the communist/socialist side, not on the side of capitalism and its
adherents.
CONCLUSION
This long
bulletin – My Path to The Left in Left Biocentrism – has
attempted to show some of the historical evolution of this
theoretical
tendency and my own experience in trying to help this tendency unfold.
It is necessary to document this evolution,
because of the
growing
interest in left biocentrism. A number of new left biocentric
writers are expressing their views on this
tendency, and
it is good to have a sense of
the ‘orthodoxy’ as a backdrop to fresh voices. As I
have shown, my own
conceptualization is one to
which others have contributed in significant ways, as they joined the
task of trying to bring a left
focus into
deep ecology. I have also
tried to show how my initial concern was to outline a “socialist
biocentrism” and why
eventually I
considered it necessary to discard
this term and adopt the terminology of left biocentrism. I have shown
how
the
traditional Left and the social ecology Left were not at all
sympathetic to attempts of trying to link deep ecology and a
Left
perspective. I would argue that this hostility towards deep ecology
persists in many Left quarters, as well as ignorance
about the work
of
left biocentrists.
At this time
of ecocide, left biocentrism has a lot to offer a Left
which is open to its message. I believe this theoretical tendency,
which has
evolved to merge deep ecology and social justice, is part of
the path forward to an ecocentric and socially just
post-industrial
society.
September, 2008
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Last updated: September 09, 2012