Ecology and fascism

There have been a number of attempts around here recently to connect ecology with white supremacy, fascism, fundamentalism and so on. Rather than derail other threads any further with them, I thought it might be useful to start a separate thread on the topic.

The science to my mind undoubtedly suggests that there are some very serious problems with our present way of life. For example Sir Robert May's, recent address to the Royal Society puts it thus:

But we also live in - or more accurately, on the brink of - the worst of times. The well-intentioned actions that gave us better health, more food, more energy all have unintended adverse consequences, which we are only just beginning fully to appreciate. It took essentially all of human history to reach the first 1 billion people, around 1830; a century to double that; 40 years to double again to 4 billion around 1970. Today we are 6.5 billion, headed, barring catastrophe, to around 9 billion by 2050. The total number of people our planet can sustainably support depends on the assumptions you make8. But given that we currently sequester one quarter to one half of all net terrestrial primary productivity to our use - a circumstance without precedent by any single species in the history of life on Earth - we are likely already to be at or beyond Earth's sustainable carrying capacity. Turning to food, we could not feed today's population with yesterday's agriculture, and it is doubtful whether we can feed tomorrow's with today's agriculture. The Green Revolution's doubling of food production involved, amongst other things, massive inputs of fossil-fuel energy subsidised fertilizers; around the globe, more than half of all the atoms of nitrogen and phosphorus in green plant material that grew last year came from artificial fertilizers, rather than the natural biogeochemical cycles that built the biosphere and which struggle to maintain it. The consequent impacts of habitat loss and other disturbing factors upon the diversity of plants and other animals with which we share our planet is only just beginning to be fully appreciated. And 90% of the energy subsidies that make daily life easier put the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, to an extent that has begun to change the global climate in a deeply serious way.

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Now I think the first question is whether one accepts what the science seems to be saying.

If one has some strong existential committment, perhaps to fundamentalist Christianity, or perhaps to some capitalist or dialectical materialist faith in Progress, or even to the unique insights of people such as Jeff Rense and Joe Vialls, that prevents one from even provisionally considering these kinds of science-based conclusions, then any accusations that one throws around to try to make people who do, shut up, or to try to discredit them or to shout them down, should be seen for just what they are.

There are however, several different ways to respond to what the science is saying, even among those who are familiar with it and broadly accept it.

For example, there is a long running fight, in which the term 'eco-fascism' has frequently been used, between Social Ecologists like Murray Bookchin and Deep Ecologists like Dave Foreman. I agree with Bookchin about many things and disagree with him on others, but if he's correctly reporting Foreman's comments, I broadly agree with him here when he says:

Foreman, who exuberantly expressed his commitment to deep ecology, frankly informed Devall that "When I tell people who the worst thing we could do in Ethiopia is to give aid---the best thing would be to just let nature seek its own balance, to let the people there just starve---they think this is monstrous. . . . Likewise, letting the USA be an overflow valve for problems in Latin America is not solving a thing. It's just putting more pressure on the resources we have in the USA."

One can reasonably ask such compelling questions as what does it mean for nature to "seek its own balance" in East Africa, where agribusiness, colonialism, and exploitation have ravaged a once culturally and ecologically stable area. Or who is this all-American "our" that owns "the resources we have in the USA"? Are they the ordinary people who are driven by sheer need to cut timber, mine ores, and operate nuclear power plants? Or are they the giant corporations that are not only wrecking the good old USA but have produced the main problems these days in Latin America that send largely Indian folk across the Rio Grande?

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The battle-lines between these two groups are drawn up over two issues as far as I can see, and I lean strongly towards the Social Ecologists on both of them. The first is a philosophical difference, about whether nature takes priority over humanity. The second is about how one is to interpret concepts like carrying capacity. The Social Ecologists would want to say something like the following.

This arithmetic mentality which disregards the social context of demographics is incredibly short-sighted.

Once we accept without any reflection or criticism that we live in a "grow-or-die" capitalistic society in which accumulation is literally a law of economic survival and competition is the motor of "progress," anything we have to say about population is basically meaningless.

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Foreman, who exuberantly expressed his commitment to deep ecology, frankly informed Devall that "When I tell people who the worst thing we could do in Ethiopia is to give aid---the best thing would be to just let nature seek its own balance, to let the people there just starve---they think this is monstrous. .

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Allowing people to die as part of a 'rebalance' is certainly akin to fascism or any ideology that permits the death of thousands for a supposed greater good (all civilisations are guilty really). And it certainly doesn't address the political issues that are the real problem, a typical american approach that will not entertain the question of class.

I do wonder what political solutions will be forced upon us by our refusal to moderate our lifestyle. It is entirely feasible that severe authoritarian measures will one day be introduced in order to address global warming, resource mismanagement, etc.

It was 19 years ago that I tried to get to the bottom of the things Foreman is said to have said. (I was editing a small Bookchin book at the time).

They turned out mighty elusive, though much-quoted from seconday sources. (The things he is supposed to have said about AIDS, in particular, were barely stood up, if that, by the actual texts.)

Yes, there is a current of thought that regards humans as "the problem" and Foreman is close to it - and probably did put more value on "the American wilderness" than on human life. But he's a tiny minority. The position is played out in much more interesting and relevant detail in arguments over animal rights - which are not "ecology".

Jo/Joe said:

Allowing people to die as part of a 'rebalance' is certainly akin to fascism or any ideology that permits the death of thousands for a supposed greater good (all civilisations are guilty really). And it certainly doesn't address the political issues that are the real problem, a typical american approach that will not entertain the question of class.

I do wonder what political solutions will be forced upon us by our refusal to moderate our lifestyle. It is entirely feasible that severe authoritarian measures will one day be introduced in order to address global warming, resource mismanagement, etc.

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Well yes, that rather bothers me too.

Check out this from Garrett Hardin, who still has quite a following, mainly among those US environmentalists who still think capitalism is pretty cool.

Lifeboat Ethics

Nasty stuff isn't it?

laptop said:

It was 19 years ago that I tried to get to the bottom of the things Foreman is said to have said. (I was editing a small Bookchin book at the time).

They turned out mighty elusive, though much-quoted from seconday sources. (The things he is supposed to have said about AIDS, in particular, were barely stood up, if that, by the actual texts.)

Yes, there is a current of thought that regards humans as "the problem" and Foreman is close to it - and probably did put more value on "the American wilderness" than on human life. But he's a tiny minority. The position is played out in much more interesting and relevant detail in arguments over animal rights - which are not "ecology".

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That's interesting. I was a bit suspicious of the above quote as you could probably tell from the way I phrased it, not least because the fight between Social and Deep ecologists in the US has gotten so acrimonious over the years.

Bernie,
I personally dislike the term "ecofascism"- it hides the various different strands of deep ecologism- just as the term "Islamofascism" hides the different strands of radical Islamism.

I disagree with Bookchin in many areas but he's on the ball here:

Deep ecology, with its Malthusian thrust, its various centricities, its mystifying Eco-la-la, and its disorienting eclecticism degrades ... into a crude biologism that deflects us from the social problems that underpin the ecological ones and the project of social reconstruction that alone can spare the biosphere from virtual destruction.

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This below is also the point AFAIK in every society where very cheap birth control, universal education, a welfare state, minimum labour standards have been won-- there has been a change in demography with people choosing to have fewer children because they are able to do so-- meaning "natural increase" of population slows down and in some cases like Japan Sweden Norway it turns into a "natural decrease".

arithmetic mentality which disregards the social context of demographics is incredibly short-sighted

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Check out this from Garrett Hardin, who still has quite a following, mainly among those US environmentalists who still think capitalism is pretty cool.

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It's a couple of steps away from fascism that's for sure. There is a real logic to it that is dangerous, but only because it excludes so much of the human picture. It relies on an elitism and rule by and for minority interests that have got us into this state in the first place.

sihhi said:

Bernie,
I personally dislike the term "ecofascism"- it hides the various different strands of deep ecologism- just as the term "Islamofascism" hides the different strands of radical Islamism.<snip>

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That's a useful comparison I think. The problem is, throwing these terms around gets you nowhere much unless you're simply trying to do a smear job on an ideology you don't like. That's why it annoys me when Bookchin's mob go in for it, even though I have a certain amount of sympathy with their basic approach

Jo/Joe said:

It's a couple of steps away from fascism that's for sure. There is a real logic to it that is dangerous, but only because it excludes so much of the human picture. It relies on an elitism and rule by and for minority interests that have got us into this state in the first place.

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Yep. You might also find it interesting to compare his most famous work The Tragedy of the Commons with e.g. Section 8 of Capital v1 (the "Primitive Accumulation" bit) or a serious agricultural historian like Joan Thirsk talking about what actually happened to the 'commons'

Bernie Gunther said:

That's a useful comparison I think. The problem is, throwing these terms around gets you nowhere much unless you're simply trying to do a smear job on an ideology you don't like. That's why it annoys me when Bookchin's mob go in for it, even though I have a certain amount of sympathy with their basic approach

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Deep ecologism is not an ideology I like but I can attack and destroy it on its claims and not insert a spurious term "fascism".
It makes no sense to describe the deep ecologists as eco-fascist uness at the very least there is the key-aspect of classical fascism- the corporatist nation-state- within it.

At the very worst it debases the very fascism allowing the right-wing to describe any environmental restrictions on business as "green fascism" or "eco-fascism"

See here>: http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3b647d791eee.htm

It's interesting that he obviously tries to avoid history to a great extent. The 'tragedy of the commons' he refers to is a hypothetical scenario with it's own built in contradictions - social stability is achieved, so why is there no avenue for collective solutions?

I can't see much purpose in the term eco-fascism. It makes even less sense then Islamo-fascism where at least you could claim anti-semitism is a powerful factor. Ecology is a niche political issue and it doesn't necessarily attract the compassionate.

I don't think a concern for the environment indicates a particular political leaning. It tends to be associated with the Left in the UK but in middle Europe its often as loudly championed by the Right as a symbol of pious good citizenship. This is true in modern Switzerland were the most Rightwing Cantons are the most Green, whilst the Leftwing ones are always building motorways.

Concern for the environment certainly doesn't imply a right wing political leaning, but the seeds for extremity are there (as with any set of beliefs). The danger is the fear that environmental issues might eventually inspire.

oi2002 said:

I can't see much purpose in the term eco-fascism. It makes even less sense then Islamo-fascism where at least you could claim anti-semitism is a powerful factor. Ecology is a niche political issue and it doesn't necessarily attract the compassionate.

I don't think a concern for the environment indicates a particular political leaning. It tends to be associated with the Left in the UK but in middle Europe its often as loudly championed by the Right as a symbol of pious good citizenship. This is true in modern Switzerland were the most Rightwing Cantons are the most Green, whilst the Leftwing ones are always building motorways.

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This is kind of why I started with the question 'first do they accept the science says there's a problem ?'

Given that they do accept there's a problem, the next question isn't scientific, it's political. So you get left analysis talking about the role of capitalism in driving ecological damage, and you get right analysis talking about immigration and stuff.

oi2002 said:

I don't think a concern for the environment indicates a particular political leaning. It tends to be associated with the Left in the UK

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But there are also plenty of right wing environmentalists in Britain Jonathan Porritt, Anita Roddick, David Bellamy etc etc.

Where have they said anything comparable to the examples above?

oi2002 said:

I can't see much purpose in the term eco-fascism. It makes even less sense then Islamo-fascism where at least you could claim anti-semitism is a powerful factor. Ecology is a niche political issue and it doesn't necessarily attract the compassionate.

I don't think a concern for the environment indicates a particular political leaning. It tends to be associated with the Left in the UK but in middle Europe its often as loudly championed by the Right as a symbol of pious good citizenship. This is true in modern Switzerland were the most Rightwing Cantons are the most Green, whilst the Leftwing ones are always building motorways.

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I guess also, there's a kind of environmentalism or maybe conservationism is a better word, that doesn't start from science at all, but starts from some emotional attachment, or existential committment.

I think some of the Nazi volkisch stuff seems to start that way, and maybe some of the Deep Ecologist stuff. Which is why it's perhaps tempting for some to make a connection between them. Again though, whatever their starting point, in general their political expression is very, very different.

Bernie Gunther said:

I guess also, there's a kind of environmentalism or maybe conservationism is a better word, that doesn't start from science at all, but starts from some emotional attachment, or existential committment.

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That's exactly the case with someone like Dave Foreman:

Dave Foreman said:

We need that green fire in our eyes. Somehow we've got to remember how to think like a mountain, and somehow we have to speak for Wolf.

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http://www.ecofuture.org/pk/pkar9510.html

sihhi said:

That's exactly the case with someone like Dave Foreman:


http://www.ecofuture.org/pk/pkar9510.html

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It also seems to be the case with Arne Naess. Naess appears to start off from his existential committments, rather than from science. At least on the basis of a few things of his that I've read. (e.g. "The Basis of Deep Ecology")

I don't know enough about either Naess or Foreman to be sure about this and would welcome clarification from someone more familiar with their writings.

Of course there's an argument - a strong one in my view - that any politics compatible with an understanding of ecology must be the opposite of fascist.

Such a politics must embrace the fact that the world is woven from a multiplicity of diverse actors and influences; and that the health of the world-web depends on it being able to work out what apears to be an inbuilt tendency to maximise that diversity and complexity, free from the imposition of (for example) monoculture.

Fascism, by contrast, is built on the dark side of the Enlightenment notion of the individual as discrete, isolate, heroic actor. Integral to it is the Führerprinzip, a last-ditch stand against the reality of diversity, an attempt to impose the Will of one on the whole world, often in the name of a group identified by that Will as superior to the rest of the world-web.

This does not rule out the existence of individuals who claim to be ecologists but whose rhetoric and practice is incompatible with such an ecological world-view.

Nor of those who simply invert the fascist principle, declaring the alleged Master Race the problem and proclaiming everything else superior to it. These latter, like others who make "overpopulation" the core of their rhetoric, have exactly one perfectly self-consistent way of putting their beliefs into effect, and it is suicide.

according to someone writing in last months le monde diplomatique, the probability that something equating to fascism will be necessary to control emissions has apparently been discussed at bilderberg meetings in the last few years.

sorry the the awkward grammar.

where to said:

according to someone writing in last months le monde diplomatique, the probability that something equating to fascism will be necessary to control emissions has apparently been discussed at bilderberg meetings in the last few years.

sorry the the awkward grammar.

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Interesting. Can you recall the title of the article? I don't see anything obvious in the english web edition.

sihhi said:

<snip>This below is also the point AFAIK in every society where very cheap birth control, universal education, a welfare state, minimum labour standards have been won-- there has been a change in demography with people choosing to have fewer children because they are able to do so-- meaning "natural increase" of population slows down and in some cases like Japan Sweden Norway it turns into a "natural decrease".

arithmetic mentality which disregards the social context of demographics is incredibly short-sighted

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That natural decrease, if it's to be achieved in the places where population growth is presently rising, in my view may intrinsically require that the ongoing process of primitive accumulation in those places, cease.

I can't see that approach being very popular with the neo-liberals or the multinationals though.

I think they'd find some form of 'lifeboat ethics' more palatable.

I think one of the strengths of the ecological movement is that it can be a broad church. On some issues, for instance the value of local production it can find itself supported by very conservative forces and as the science sinks in this may be increasingly the case. It's a bit like public hygene in the 19th century really.

That's a tricky one. You're probably right about that on many specific issues oi2002, but there's always going to be a fundamental point of contention around where you draw the line of who gets to be sustainable or live well.

Conservatives are I think, always going to go for some sort of 'lifeboat' ethics. For example, they're probably going to want to keep all or at least most of the benefits of industrial capitalism, and of expropriating resources from the developing world as required, while conserving nature and a nice environment locally for the benefit of their own family, or nation, or race, and protecting it from any nasty side-effects of the global system that lets them live in such relative prosperity and comfort.

Where that line gets drawn varies according to one's political leanings: eco-communists of various kinds would include the whole human race and the deep greens would include all of nature, in their struggle for sustainability, even if that means less prosperity for their own nation, or family or in the latter case, their own species.

While the actual historical eco-fascists like the Nazi 'blood and soil' crowd would probably have wanted to see those benefits only go to the volk, at the expense of the rest of humanity.

laptop said:

Of course there's an argument - a strong one in my view - that any politics compatible with an understanding of ecology must be the opposite of fascist.

Such a politics must embrace the fact that the world is woven from a multiplicity of diverse actors and influences; and that the health of the world-web depends on it being able to work out what apears to be an inbuilt tendency to maximise that diversity and complexity, free from the imposition of (for example) monoculture.

Fascism, by contrast, is built on the dark side of the Enlightenment notion of the individual as discrete, isolate, heroic actor. Integral to it is the Führerprinzip, a last-ditch stand against the reality of diversity, an attempt to impose the Will of one on the whole world, often in the name of a group identified by that Will as superior to the rest of the world-web.

This does not rule out the existence of individuals who claim to be ecologists but whose rhetoric and practice is incompatible with such an ecological world-view.

Nor of those who simply invert the fascist principle, declaring the alleged Master Race the problem and proclaiming everything else superior to it. These latter, like others who make "overpopulation" the core of their rhetoric, have exactly one perfectly self-consistent way of putting their beliefs into effect, and it is suicide.

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Spot On.

I think the analysis of fascism encrouching into our lives and our debates is severely hampered by an incomplete understanding of what fascism means to those who practice it. When discussing fascism in the not-explicitely-political parts of the social sphere (like ecology) it should be done with an eye to the history of such ventures, especially Kraft durch Freude (the link probably tries too hard to be objective and leaves out the change of KdF in wartime, but it is a start), the leisure wing of the Deutsche Arbeitsfront (the only union allowed by the Nazi Party, to which membership was basically mandatory). As reported in the link, they did a lot of seemingly good and innocent work - organising holidays, building a road and car infrastructure, etc, for workers (also theater-companies, travelling medical specialists, etc). However, when push came to shove all the 'positive' effects of KdF was shelved (for instance - the Volkswagon, originally KdF-Wagon, was produced only for military needs after the war started) and the infrastructure that it had innocuously raised was turned to recognisably 'fascist' uses - most tellingly the KdF medical resources became the vanguard of the euthanasia program, run initially by KdF.

Fascism is firstly concerned with mobilisation, as any effective activism must be, and any aspect of its doctrine must be viewed as the aggressive instantiation of a machine creating and sustaining fascism at the cost of everything else. Here Deleuze and Guattari's theoretical writings might be useful, with it's discussion of how fascism, through it's constituent elements - capitalism and social fragmentation - overcodes its set of values (through a set of values) over all human action to the point where everything becomes fascist and that which isn't fascist can no longer exist. In attacking fascist arguments we must attack it's code - lifeboat ethics, the Führerprinzip, etc. - but above all the machinery of encoding: in this case the market forces that will drive the unwanted Ethiopians into starvation and us into the queues for our ration of industrial-agricultured foods.

Good Intentions said:

<snip> Fascism is firstly concerned with mobilisation, as any effective activism must be, and any aspect of its doctrine must be viewed as the aggressive instantiation of a machine creating and sustaining fascism at the cost of everything else. Here Deleuze and Guattari's theoretical writings might be useful, with it's discussion of how fascism, through it's constituent elements - capitalism and social fragmentation - overcodes its set of values (through a set of values) over all human action to the point where everything becomes fascist and that which isn't fascist can no longer exist. In attacking fascist arguments we must attack it's code - lifeboat ethics, the Führerprinzip, etc. - but above all the machinery of encoding: in this case the market forces that will drive the unwanted Ethiopians into starvation and us into the queues for our ration of industrial-agricultured foods.

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Interesting perspective. You could say something very similar about capitalism itself, which leads one to wonder if it's useful to consider fascism as something capitalism does when stressed?

Bernie Gunther said:

Interesting perspective. You could say something very similar about capitalism itself, which leads one to wonder if it's useful to consider fascism as something capitalism does when stressed?

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I'd certainly say so.

I also highly recommend Anti-Oedipus by Deleuze and Guattari, especially for someone with the respect you have for systems theory, etc. It's not an easy read, especially not in translation, but any political theory book that starts of with a useful definition of what a machine is is fighting the good fight.