Ecofascism: Deep Ecology and Right-Wing Co-optation
Ecofascism:
Deep Ecology
and Right-Wing Co-optation
Alongside the
rise of environmental activism in the last few decades, nationalist
and even fascist ideas are gaining an increasingly high profile in
Europe. With social tensions exacerbated, neo-fascist groups of
various kinds are winning electoral representation and committing
acts of violence against foreigners.
To a casual
observer, there would seem to be a vast gulf in ideology and outlook
between the new right and environmental activism. But these movements
are invoking ecological themes to update their ideology and now speak
the new language of ecology. In ways that are similar to the beliefs
of progressive-minded ecologists, fascist groups emphasize the
supremacy of the Earth over people and evoke "feelings" and
intuition at the expense of reason.
This is an
extremely sensitive issue among activists. To accuse an individual or
a philosophy of racist tendencies is always going to cause offense.
Much-needed debate has been poisoned by wild mud-slinging and
sensationalist accusations of eco-fascism. In this article, I don't
want to point the condemnatory finger at groups or individuals and
ignite a McCarthyist witch-hunt. Rather, I want to illustrate how the
nature and content of certain belief structures within the
environmental movement make it easier for new-right groups to reach a
wider audience. I will discuss this in the context of Deep Ecology as
it has been one of the most widely debated and has parallels with
1930s Germany.
…many environmental groups …still rate population growth over the systematic over-consumption of the industrialized world.
Deep Ecology
is difficult to define. It encourages subjective intuition as a means
of understanding its principles. The basic idea is the belief that
nature does not exist to serve humans. According to Deep Ecology, all
species have a right to exist for their own sake, regardless of their
usefulness to humans. Biodiversity is a value in itself and is
essential for the flourishing of both human and non-human life. Deep
Ecology locates the origin of the ecological crisis in human belief
systems, be they religious or philosophical. Deep ecologists identify
ancient Near Eastern religions, Christianity, and the scientific
worldview as fostering a mindset that seeks to dominate nature. It is
by “asking deeper questions” that these origins of the ecological
crisis are identified and social causes are dismissed as a “shallow”
analysis.
Deep Ecology
gained both publicity and controversy in the 1980s when it was
adopted as a philosophy by the Earth First! wilderness movement that
had begun to take dramatic direct action against the logging of
old-growth forests. Its most controversial figure was founder David
Foreman, who welcomed famine as a means of limiting the population.
This is something that Deep Ecologists believed to be necessary to
restore ecological balance on the planet. Similar statements about
the AIDS epidemic were issued by a fellow Earth First!er. The
implications are that if human beings are no better intrinsically
than animals, then their premature death is morally acceptable.
Population control goes beyond contraception to calculated neglect,
fostering a “permissible” degree of famine.
In the Sudan,
famine was caused by extreme mismanagement. Pressure by the World
Bank for increased cotton production in the late 1970s, rising oil
prices for highly mechanized agricultural practices, and a
considerable decline in home-grown food reserves were at fault.
Portraying this as a “natural” response of the Earth in order to
counteract over-population is to deflect blame away from the real
culprits: British colonialism, American agribusiness and the World
Bank. This was the original example of Deep Ecology theorists’
ignoring socio-political factors when dealing with ecological and
demographic issues. It is disturbing that such extreme, misanthropic
and misguided statements went initially uncriticized from within the
Earth First! movement, first being challenged by Social Ecologists
such as Murray Bookchin.
Such scare-mongering plays directly into the hands of the new right…
However, it
is unfair to smear all Deep Ecology supporters. David Orton
repudiates the right-wing accusations of the population issue,
saying, “Deep ecology supporters, contrary to some social ecology
slanders, seek population reduction, or perhaps controls on
immigration from a maintenance of biodiversity perspective, and this
has nothing to do with fascists who seek controls on immigration or
want to deport ‘foreigners’ in the name of maintaining some
so-called ethnic/cultural or racial purity or national identity.”
There are two
reasons why I find such a statement from a “moderate” Deep
Ecologist worrying. The first is that it misses the point that you do
not necessarily have to “be” a fascist in order to propagate
right-wing ideology. Secondly, it still places the issue of
population control ahead of the issue of how resources are unevenly
distributed among the global population. It is astonishing how many
environmental groups (and not just Deep Ecologists; the mainstream
Dutch environmental group Milieu Defensie is a depressing recent
example) still rate population growth over the systematic
over-consumption of the industrialized world. This misinforms the
person on the street, reinforcing fears that their stably populated
Western country may be overrun by the teeming dark-skinned multitudes
of the Third World. Such scare-mongering plays directly into the
hands of the new right and lends inadvertent support to calls for
stricter border controls.
We would do
well to examine the example of the Wandervögel, a youth movement
that arose in Germany during the first three decades of the 20th
Century. Peter Staudenmaier, co-author of the paper “Ecofascism:
Lessons From The German Experience,” characterizes this movement as
“a hodge-podge of counter-cultural elements, blending
neo-Romanticism, Eastern philosophies, nature mysticism, hostility to
reason, and a ... search for authentic, non-alienated social
relations. Their back-to-the-land emphasis spurred a passionate
sensitivity to the natural world and the damage it suffered. Although
some sectors of the movement gravitated towards various forms of
emancipatory politics, most of the Wandervögel were eventually
absorbed by the Nazis.”
“When respect for nature comes to mean reverence, it can mutate ecological politics into a religion that ‘Green Adolfs’ can effectively use for authoritarian ends.”
It is
striking how many traits the Wandervögel have in common with the
Deep Ecology movement. In particular, their self-conception that they
were a “non-political” response to a deep cultural crisis,
favoring direct emotional experience over social critique and action.
In the same paper, Janet Biehl states, “When respect for nature
comes to mean reverence, it can mutate ecological politics into a
religion that ‘Green Adolfs’ can effectively use for
authoritarian ends.” In Britain, a wing of the National Front
issues the cry, “Racial preservation is Green!” while in the
United States, white supremacist Monique Wolfing remarks that animals
and the environment, “are in the same position as we are. Why would
we want something created for ourselves and yet watch nature be
destroyed? We work hand in hand with nature and we should save nature
along with trying to save our race.”
The key
question is whether supporters of Deep Ecology are vulnerable to
absorption by far-right groups in the same way that the Wandervögel
were. The main fear for this happening lies in Deep Ecology's
demonization of reason. Deep Ecology sees reason as endemic to
human-centered worldviews that have produced the ecological crisis.
Alternatively, Deep Ecology promotes intuition as equal or even
superior to reason. As a result Deep Ecology is subject to the
dangers represented by earlier anti-rational and intuitionist
worldviews that, once carried over into the political realm, have
produced anti-human and even genocidal movements. Peter Staudenmaier
fears that this is “perhaps, the unavoidable trajectory of any
movement which acknowledges and opposes social and ecological
problems but does not recognize their systemic roots or actively
resist the political and economic structures which generate them.”
The primacy of intuitive thought means that it lacks the self-analysis that normally acts as a safety check to prevent straying onto moral thin ice.
Deep Ecology,
as a philosophy, seems to be both systematically and morally
problematic. Where Deep Ecology theories have gone wrong is in the
extreme reaction to perceived centuries of human exploitation of
nature and the dominance of rationalist thought. The primacy of
intuitive thought means that it lacks the self-analysis that normally
acts as a safety check to prevent straying onto moral thin ice. These
factors then serve to prevent an accurate picture of the ecological
crisis from emerging. The role of personal consciousness-raising on
both rational and intuitive levels should be complementary rather
than competitive. In the manner of the classic circularity of extreme
left and right thought, Deep Ecology has the potential to find itself
back at the totalitarian starting point it intended to usurp.
Sources
Janet Biehl
and Peter Staudenmaier. 1995. Ecofascism:
Lessons From the German Experience,
(from AK Press, 22 Lutton Place, Edinburgh, Scotland, EH8 9PE)
Greenpepper
can be reached at: http://squat.net/cia/gp/
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