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In the opening years of the 21st century, we face enormous challenges. We can no longer afford the luxury of pursuing various intellectual and vocational disciplines apart from environmental and social realities. We must reform our economy and way of life towards a life sustaining society. To do this, we need a “ecoliterate” citizenry, aware of our interconnectedness with all living beings, and willing to act on that awareness. Now all education must include ecological education, and all psychology, ecopsychology.
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ECOLITERACY
Ecological literacy might be called "ecowisdom" because it encompasses such a broad array of understandings, knowledge, attitudes, and experience. I began using the term “ecoliteracy” to indicate the learning we need to seek in all dimensions of human life: intellectual, psychological, somatic, social, and spiritual. As someone developing ecoliteracy, I aspire to the following capacities:
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ECOPSYCHOLOGY & DEEP ECOLOGY
These two movements seem very closely related to me; in fact, I have trouble distinguishing between them. I decided to use excepts from Coming Back to Life (by Joanna Macy and Molly Young Brown) to describe these two movements; as you read, you will no doubt see a great deal of overlap yourself (for example, the concept of the “Ecological Self”).
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Ecopsychology
Western psychology has virtually ignored our relationship to the natural world. In its definition of mental health, our connection to the source of life does not figure, nor is our destruction of our life support system included in its list of pathologies. It has failed to ask Paul Shepard's rather obvious and haunting question: "Why does society persist in destroying its habitat?" Now the new discipline of ecopsychology addresses this failure and studies the human psyche within the larger systems of which it is a part. It explores how our cultural alienation from nature engenders not only careless and destructive behavior toward our environment, but also many common disorders such as depression and addiction. Psychotherapists within the movement recognize how their profession has blinded itself to the larger context of their clients' lives and pathologized their pain for the world. These pioneers break new ground as they help clients find strength and meaning through experiencing their interconnectedness with all life, and acting on its behalf. |
Deep Ecology
Our interdependence with all life of Earth has profound implications for our attitudes and actions. To clarify these implications, and free us from behaviors based on outmoded notions of our separateness from nature, deep ecology arose, both as a philosophy and a movement. The term was coined in the 1970's by Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess, a mountain climber and scholar of Gandhi. |
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In contrast to reform environmentalism, which treats the symptoms of ecological degradation – clean up a river here or a dump there for human well-being – deep ecology questions fundamental premises of the Industrial Growth Society. It challenges the assumptions, embedded in much Judeo-Christian and Marxist thought, that humans are the crown of creation and the ultimate measure of value. It offers us a broader and more sustainable sense of our own worth, as viable members of the great, evolving community of Earth. It holds that we can break free from the species arrogance that threatens not only ourselves but all complex life forms within reach.
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Beyond Anthropocentrism
We cannot genuinely experience our interrelatedness with all life if we are blind to our own human-centeredness, and how deeply embedded it is in our culture and consciousness. Deep ecologist John Seed, an Australian rainforest activist, describes both the ways it constricts us, and the rewards we find in moving beyond it. |
John Seed points out that this liberation is more than an intellectual process. For him, as for many other people, it has been engendered and deepened by taking part in actions on behalf of Earth.
The Ecological Self
Arne Naess has a term for the wider sense of identity that John Seed describes. He calls it the ecological self, and presents it as the fruit of a natural maturation process. We underestimate ourselves, he says, when we identify self with the narrow, competitive ego. "With sufficient all-sided maturity" we not only move on from ego to a social self and a metaphysical self, but an ecological self as well. Through widening circles of identification, we vastly extend the boundaries of our self-interest, and enhance our joy and meaning in life. |
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A welcome and significant feature of this concept is the way it transcends the need to sermonize about our moral responsibilities to other beings. When we assumed that we were essentially separate, we preached altruism – the Latin term alter being the opposite of ego. This is not only philosophically unsound, from the perspective of deep ecology and other nondualistic teachings, but also ineffective.
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Asking deeper questions
Naess and his activist colleagues called for a "deep, long-range ecology movement." Whether or not it is yet discernible as a movement, certainly its ideas have circulated widely, providing a powerful impetus both to green activists and to academic debates. |
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While these ideas have evolved into a deep ecology platform – including such principles as the recognition that life forms have an intrinsic right to exist, and that human population is excessive in relation to the carrying capacity of Earth – deep ecology is neither an ideology nor a dogma. Of an essentially exploratory character, it seeks to motivate people to ask, as Naess puts it, "deeper questions" about their real wants and needs, about their relation to life on Earth and their vision for the future. As parts of a larger living whole – be it a society, an ecosystem, or a planet – our comprehension of it is necessarily partial; we cannot stand aloof, blueprints in hand, and deliver final answers. But the questions we ask of ourselves and each other act as a solvent, loosen up encrusted mental structures, free us to think and see in fresh ways.
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Related movements: Ecofeminism and Ecojustice
This kind of basic inquiry has fostered movements and modes of thought that do not necessarily link themselves with deep ecology, though they share many of its philosophical premises as well as much of its critique of the Industrial Growth Society. Many activists and thinkers, including the authors, identify themselves with more than one of these overlapping movements, each of which brings distinctive concerns and perspectives.
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Obvious parallels exist between the ways that entrenched power structures treat nature and the ways they treat women. Ecofeminism emerged in the 1970's, as scholars, writers, and organizers illumined these parallels and explored their common cultural roots. Many incisive voices argue that the war against nature waged by the Industrial Growth Society arises from more ancient patterns of domination. They question deep ecologists' focus on anthropocentrism as the source of our pathology, and challenge them to discern the androcentricism (patriarchy) that underlies it. Their insights help us recognize the mindset bred by centuries of male rule– the dualism and objectification, the divorce of mind from body, of logic from experience; and they offer more holistic ways of knowing.Defender of the redwoods, the late Judy Bari was an ecofeminist who personified the deepest values of the movement. Despite assaults that eventually cost her life, she persisted in her commitment to non-violence, and her compassionate concern for the loggers' future, and her penetrating analysis of the corporate forces destroying their livelihood and the land itself.
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As ecofeminism brings the issue of gender to our understanding of the environmental crisis, the ecojustice movement brings issues of race, class, and poverty. The old divide between activists in defense of social and economic rights and those in defense of nature no longer holds. It is increasingly evident that their goals are inseparably linked and mutually reinforcing. The wreckage and contamination caused by the Industrial Growth Society degrade humans and habitats alike: polluting industries are located and toxic wastes are dumped where poor people and people of color live. The farms workers sprayed by pesticides, the miners poisoned by uranium, the tribes whose forest homes are clear-cut, are largely people of color. Given persistent prejudice, their race and poverty make them easier to dismiss. The ecojustice movement has effectively challenged environmentalists to broaden their awareness to the suffering of humans as well as trees and dolphins. Through its outreach to larger sections of society, it holds promise for a vastly wider participation in the work of the Great Turning toward a Life Sustaining Culture.
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Click here for Molly’s article on “Ecopsychosynthesis” that appeared in the first edition of Conversations in Psychosynthesis, the journal of the Association for the Advancement of Psychosynthesis (AAP). You can contact the AAP at: http://www.aap-psychosynthesis.org
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For additional information, please visit: www.joannamacy.net, www.ecopsychology.org, www.deepecology.org , thoughtoffering.blogs.com/ecotherapy, and www.evbooks.net.
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