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Radical Environmentalism Mentalists Is That People Can Learn to “Listen to the Land” and Discern Its Sacred Voices

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Radical Environmentalism Mentalists Is That People Can Learn to “Listen to the Land” and Discern Its Sacred Voices A sample entry from the Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature (London & New York: Continuum, 2005) Edited by Bron Taylor © 2005 All Rights Reserved R Radical Environmentalism mentalists is that people can learn to “listen to the land” and discern its sacred voices. Other means of evoking and Radical environmentalism most commonly brings to mind deepening a proper spiritual perception include visual art the actions of those who break laws in sometimes dramatic (appearing in tabloids or photography presented in public displays of “direct action” in defense of nature. Such performances), which appeal to one’s intuitive sense of the action – which may involve civil disobedience and sacredness of intact ecosystems, and music, dancing, sabotage, some instances of which involve risks to drumming (sometimes combined with sacred herbs or people – have generated criticism and vilification of these “ENTHEOGENS”), which can erode the everyday sense of ego movements. Radical environmentalists are sometimes and independence in favor of feelings of belonging to the labeled terrorists and believed to harbor, and hope to universe, or even kindle animistic perceptions of interspe- develop, weapons of mass death. The focus on their tactics, cies communication. real and imagined, often obscures their religious motiv- Many radical environmentalists can accurately be ations as well as their ecological, political, and moral claims. labeled “nature mystics.” And many of them express Not all radical environmentalists engage in illegal affinity with religions they generally consider more activities, of course, and many specific tactics are contro- nature-beneficient than occidental religions, such as those versial within these movements, especially those which originating in Asia such as Buddhism and Daoism, might entail risks to living things, including human adver- religious beliefs or practices surviving among the world’s saries. While the embrace of direct action and support for remnant indigenous peoples, or being revitalized or extra-legal nature defense is an important common invented anew, such as PAGANISM and WICCA. Paganism denominator in radical environmental sub-cultures, it is and Wicca are considered to be (or to be inspired by) the even more important to understand radical environ- Aboriginal nature religions of the Western world, which mentalism as a cluster of environmental political phi- have been long suppressed by imperial Christianity and losophies, and corresponding social movements, which Islam. claim to understand the roots of the environmental crisis Sometimes newly invented nature spiritualities, such as and offer effective solutions to it. In this sense radical JAMES LOVELOCK’s Gaia hypothesis or THOMAS BERRY’s Uni- environmentalism includes not only groups like EARTH verse Story (and the corresponding EPIC OF EVOLUTION), FIRST! AND THE EARTH LIBERATION FRONT, but also bioregional- have become new, free-standing religious movements ists and green anarchists, deep ecologists and ecopsy- which promote radical environmental ideas. Other times, chologists, ecofeminists and participants in the feminist stories without an immediately apparent religious theme, spirituality movement, Pagans and Wiccans, anti-globali- such as ALDO LEOPOLD’s epiphany about the intrinsic value zation protestors and some animal-liberation activists. of all life, including predators, upon seeing the “green fire” Radical environmentalists can be recognized by their die in the eyes of a she-wolf he had shot, have become diagnoses and prescriptions regarding the environmental mythic fables incorporated into poetry, song, and move- crisis. Their diagnoses generally involve a critique of the ment ritualizing. Regularly, newly invented songs, myths, dominant streams of occidental religion and philosophy, or nature-related ritual forms are grafted onto already which are said to desacralize nature and promote oppres- existing religious forms in the constantly changing sive attitudes toward it, as well as toward people. Prescrip- religious bricolage that characterizes countercultural spir- tions generally include overturning anthropocentric and ituality in general, and radical environmentalism in par- hierarchical attitudes (especially capitalist and patriarchal ticular. Increasingly, nature-related spiritualities birthed ones). Accomplishing this is generally believed to require and incubated at the margins of countercultural environ- “resacralizing” and reconnecting with nature (which is mentalism are escaping these enclaves and influencing usually gendered as female, as in “mother earth” or both mainstream environmentalism and institutional “mother nature”), combined with direct-action resistance religion, and arguably, even institutions like the United to oppression in all forms. Nations, and the UNITED NATIONS’ “EARTH SUMMITS.” In such Reconnection and consciousness transformation can be ways radical environmental spirituality has, despite its facilitated in a number of ways. Most important among marginality, become a significant social force. these is spending time in nature with a receptive heart, for Whatever the nature of the hybrids and new religious the central spiritual episteme among radical environ- amalgamations, the religious alternatives to occidental Radical Environmentalism 1327 monotheisms that characterize radical environmentalism view of the present – namely that human beings are pre- are thought to harbor environmentally friendly values and cipitating a massive extinction episode and threatening to promote behaviors that cohere with them. These alter- life on Earth – are gathered from contemporary environ- natives promote not only a sacralization of nature but a mental science. They differ widely over whether, how, and kinship ethics wherein all life forms are considered family when there might be a reharmonization of life on Earth, in the journey of evolution. Within this kind of worldview, based on differing perceptions about human beings and all life deserves respect and reverent care. their potential for changing in a positive direction. Not all participants in radical environmental move- Toward the envisioned, needed changes, radical ments, of course, consider themselves “religious,” and this environmentalists have invented new forms of ritualizing, includes many scientists and CONSERVATION BIOLOGY pion- such as the COUNCIL OF ALL BEINGS, to promote proper spir- eers who have supported certain radical environmental itual perception. Such ritualizing functions in a typically groups and initiatives. Participants who do not consider religious way, drawing devotees and intensifying com- themselves religious usually say this is because they mitment. Moreover, movement stories and rituals express equate religion with the Western, institutional forms that ethical mores and social critiques that are essential to the they consider authoritarian and anti-nature, and have action repertoires of the movement. thus rejected. Nevertheless, such figures rarely object to Although such stories and ritualizing promote solidar- and almost always rely on metaphors of the sacred to ity and ethical action, radical environmentalism is plural express their conviction that nature has intrinsic value and contested, both politically and religiously; it is charac- (value apart from its utility for humans). They likewise terized by ongoing controversies over strategies and tac- commonly describe environmental destruction as “dese- tics, as well as over who owns, interprets and performs the cration” or “defilement.” Even though some participants in myths and rites. Nevertheless, certain core beliefs, values, these movements consider themselves atheists, this gener- and practices make it possible to speak of “radical ally means they do not believe in other-worldly deities or environmentalism” in the singular, as a complex and divine rescue from this world, not that they disbelieve that plural family; for there are some critical ideas and beliefs there is a sacred dimension to the universe and biosphere. that unify these groups, at the same time that there are And they often characterize as “spiritual” their own con- penultimate ideas and practices that produce various and nections to nature and ultimate values. different tendencies, priorities, and practices. Certainly religious studies scholars can identify fea- Views generally shared by radical environmentalists tures of these movements that are typical of what they call are depicted in the chart below, “Binary Associations “religion.” They have myth, symbol, and ritual, for Typical of Radical Environmentalism” (adapted from example. The myths usually delineate how the world came Taylor 2000: 276). to be (cosmogony), what it is like (cosmology), how people fit in and what they are capable of (moral anthropology), Shades of Radical Environmentalism and what the future holds. Whatever the variations may Differing stresses on the relative importance of such elem- be, radical environmentalists share an evolutionary cos- ents lead to differing priorities and factions among radical mology and cosmogony – they generally derive their view environmentalists. Among the most militant and best- of the unfolding universe from cosmological and evo- known branches of the radical environmental tree are lutionary science and their understandings of humanity EARTH FIRST! AND THE EARTH LIBERATION FRONT, which are from primatology and anthropology. Their apocalyptic discussed separately in more detail elsewhere in this Binary Associations
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