220 CHAPTER 10
KEY FIGURE
MURRAY BOOKCHIN (1921–2006) A US anarchist social philosopher and environmentalist, Bookchin was a leading proponent of the idea of ‘social ecology’. As an anarchist, Bookchin emphasized the potential for non-hierarchic cooperation within conditions of post-scarcity and radical decentralization. Arguing that ecological principles should be applied to social organization, he linked the environmental crisis to the breakdown of the organic fabric of both society and nature. His major works in this field include The Ecology of Freedom (1982) and Re-enchanting Humanity (1995).
Debbie Bookchin/ Wikimedia Commons
Anarchists have also advocated the construction of decentralized societies, organized as a collection of communes or villages, a social vision to which many deep ecologists are also attracted. Life in such communities would be lived close to nature, each community attempting to achieve a high degree of self-sufficiency. Such communities would be economically diverse; they would produce food and a wide range of goods and services, and therefore contain agriculture, craftwork and small-scale industry. Self-sufficiency would make each community dependent on its natural environment, spontaneously generating an understanding of organic relationships and ecology. In Bookchin’s view, decentralization would lead to ‘a more intelligent and more loving use of the environment’. Although such thinking has been eagerly embraced by the radical wing of the green movement, it marks a clear divide between anarchism and mainstream ecologism, which sees government and state agencies as the principal means through which environmental issues should be addressed. Ecofeminism The idea that feminism offers a distinctive and important approach to green issues has grown to such a point that ecofeminism has developed into one of the major philosophical schools of environmentalist thought, its key theorists including Karen Warren, Vandana Shiva andCarolynMerchant.The basic theme of ecofeminismis that ecological destruction has its origins in patriarchy: nature is under threat not from humankind but from men and the institutions of male power. Feminists who adopt an androgynous or sexless view of human nature argue that patriarchy has distorted the instincts and sensibilities of men by divorcing them from the ‘private’ world of nurturing, home-making and personal relationships. The sexual division of labour thus inclines men to subordinate both women and nature, seeing themselves as ‘masters’ of both. From this point of view, ecofeminism can be classified as a particular form of social ecology. However, many ecofeminists subscribe to essentialism, in that their theories are based on the belief that there are fundamental and ineradicable differences between women and men. Such a position is adopted, for instance, by Mary Daly in Gyn/Ecology (1979). Daly argued that women would liberate themselves from patriarchal culture if they aligned themselves with ‘female nature’. The notion of an intrinsic link between women and nature is not a new one. Pre-Christian religions and ‘primitive’ cultures often portrayed the Earth or natural forces as a goddess, an idea resurrected in the Gaia hypothesis.
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