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The Eco-Crisis and Species Ego-Death: Speculations on the Future

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The Eco-Crisis and Species Ego-Death: Speculations on the Future THE ECO-CRISIS AND SPECIES EGO-DEATH: SPECULATIONS ON THE FUTURE ChristopherM. Bache Youngstown,Ohio ABSTRACT:A profoundlydisruptive confrontation with the limits of the carrying-capacity of the planet appears inevitable in thiscentury.Thiscrisis,however, mayfunction as a kindof global initiation intoa new stageof humanity's psycho-social development. By drawing comparisons to the mystical ordeal of the dark night of the soul, this paper suggeststhe eco-crisis may constitutewhat amountsto a dark night of the species-soul, drawing us collectively into a deeper experience of our spiritual common ground. THECRISISOF SUSTAINABILITY Ourbestenvironmental estimates arethatcurrent industrial andsocial trendsaredriving humanitytoward a devastating ecological and economiccollapse that will take place probably withinthe nextseveral decades.As we showno sign sof pullingback fromthe policy of perpetual economicexpansion,the only uncertaintyseems to be how severe the ecological overshoot will be and howcatastrophic the periodafterthe collapse. Few have attempted to predict this approaching crisis more precisely than Donella Meadows, Dennis Meadows, and Jergen Randers in their book Beyond the Limits (1992).The soberinggraphbelow is their computer modelprojectionof the fate of the planet if we continueour currentrates of populationgrowth,industrial production,and material consumption.The scenario reflected in thisgraphassumesthat the worldsoci­ ety continues on its currentpath as long as possible,that is, that the policiesthat influ­ ence economicand populationgrowthremainessentiallythe same,that technologyin agriculture,industry,and socialservices continues to evolvein roughlythe same man­ ner as now, and that there is no extraordinary effort to reduce pollution or conserve resources. In this projection, population and industrial growth continue until 2020, when a combinationof environmentaland natural resource constraints constrict the capacityof the capitalsectorto sustaininvestment.As industrial capital falls,foodpro­ ductionand social services(such as health care) fall with it, causing a decreasein life expectancy and a rise in the deathrate.J In Awakening Earth,DuaneElgin (1993)describes humanity's near futurein similarly dire terms. This essay is an abbreviated version of a line of thought developed in Chapter 8 of my book, DarkNight.EarlyDawn: Steps to a Deep Ecologyof Mind, Send correspondence to: Christopher M. Bache, Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Youngstown State University, One University Plaza. Youngstown, OH 44555. Copyright © Transpersonal Institute TheJournal of Transpersonal Psychology,2000,Vol. 32, No.1 89 FIGURE 1 COMPUTER MODEL I'ROTECI'lON OF THB FATE OF THE PLANET 1900 2000 2100 Weare movinginto a time of steel-gripped necessity---a timeof intense,planetary compres­ sion.Within a generation,the world will becomea superheated pressure cooker in whichthe human familyis crushed by the combined andunrelenting forcesof an expanding world pop­ ulation,a dramatically destabilized globalclimate,dwindling supplie sof nonrenewable ener­ gy, and mountingenvironmentalpollution.The circle has closed, and there is nowhere to escape.These forces are so unyielding,and the stressesthey will place on our world are so extreme,that humancivilizationwill either descendinto chaos or ascendin a spiraling pro- cess of profoundtransformation.{p.120)2 Elgin describesthe earlytwenty-first centuryas "superheated decades;' andalreadythe pressure is building.People are beginningto realize that theEarth cannot sustainper­ petual economicgrowth,but most of us cannot yet see an alternative. If Meadows,Elgin,andmanyotherenvironmentally informed writers arecorrect,a col­ lective anxiety will intensify in thedecades aheadas centuriesof ecologicalr ODscome due.Without a fundamental realignment of our socialpriorities,we willbe simultane­ ously overtaken on many fronts by eventsthat get out of hand and cannot be stopped. Peoplewill becomeincreasingly alarmedas condition srelentlessly deteriorate,forcing them to let go of their assumptionsat deeper and deeper levels.There will be fewer givensthat can be assumed-how and wherewe willlive,whatwe willdo for a living, what societycan provide,what can be possessed.Panicwill grow as whatwe had con­ sidered the normal and necessary structures of our world are torn away from us. Millions,possiblybillionswill die or find their livespressed to desperatelimits. "The world will seem to be goinginsane,"predictsElgin,and becausethe world is wired in a globaltelecommunications network,all this sufferingwill takeplace right in front of us throughthe "electronic intimacy"of television, intensifyingour pain by showingus 90 The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 2000, Vol.32, No. 1 the full scopeof both our local and globalpain.These scenariosare familiarto readers of the ecologicalliteratureand do not need to be rehearsedfurther. If the world becomesa "superheated pressurecooker,"it willput our collective senseof realityunderenormous pressure.As the suffering and deathsmount,as the anxietyand despair deepens,all of this trauma willregister not onlyin our individual mindsbutalso in our sharedsocialawareness.It is importantto appreciate that the scopeand intensity of thiscrisismaybe unlikeanything we haveeverfacedbefore.It willnotbe likesevere naturalcatastrophes that affect only a small percentage of the earth'spopulation and are over relatively quickly,or evenlike the Black Deaththat decimated Europein the 14th centurybut left other continentsuntouched.Givenhow deeplyintertwinedour global economies are,this crisiscouldaffectthe entireplanetand last for decades. Because the dimensionsof this crisis will be historically unprecedented, we do not knowhow we will react as a species.It goes withoutsayingthat the extreme natureof the crisiswill severely temptus to respondin a regressive manner.Therewill no doubt be many voicescallingfor the "necessary sacrifice"of a certain percentage of the pop­ ulation for the survival of the rest, and othersbeatingthe national drumsfor a seriesof resource warsthatmay allowus to maintainour ecologically destructive lifestyle a few decades longer.All the measures of self-worththat divided us in the past, including race, gender,religion,nationality,and so on, may be exploitedto legitimizecreating narrowdefinitionsof our self-interest.Howwe respondto this crisiswill takethe mea­ sure of our wisdom and compassionas individualsand as a civilization.It willrequire that we use everythingwe have learned-and more. It may also change all of us psy­ chologicallyand spiritually,in profoundand unexpectedways. Alreadysome social theoristsare describing these impendingsocialconvulsions as a "descent into hell,"!If sucha descent doestakeplace,humanity will cryouten masseto comprehend the suffering thathasovertaken it. If werespond to thiscrywithonlya tech­ nologicalanswerthat addressesthe "how" but not the "why,"or if we can offer only regressive theologies of divine or karmic retribution,we will worsen the crisis by strip­ pingit of itsdeeper existential significance .Inorderto maximize our chances of coming through this critical periodof history successfully ,itis important that we understand as best we can the underlyingdeep structureof these events.Part of this means under­ standing whatthis terriblesuffering may represent in humanity's evolutionary develop­ ment andthe opportunity thatwe arebeinggivento radically transcend our present psy­ cho spiritual condition. In order to begin this discussion, I want to suggest a parallel between thisimminent social crisis and theexperience known as "darknightofthe soul," THE DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL The "darknightof the soul"is an advanced stageof psycho spiritual growth reached by only themostcommitted spiritual aspirants.Thisdifficult phasetakesitsnamefromSt. John of the Cross's classicwork,Dark Night of the Soul, and has been the subject of many commentaries(Bache, 1991,2000;Underhill, 1961:Wilber,1995).This "night" has well-definedcharacteristicsthat appear, under different names, in mystical tra­ ditions around the world. It comes after a series of lesser trials and just before final awakening intounitive consciousness.It is the final stageof a long spiritual process of The Eco-Crisis and Species Ego-Death: Speculations on the Future 91 intense purification in which one's identity as a discrete self is challenged at its core and eventually surrendered. Its trials and hardships culminate in a spiritual death described as being more profound than mere physical death. According to many mys­ tical traditions, physical death alone does not unravel our deepest instinct for living as a separate self, and thus is often said to be followed by another birth. What dies in the dark night is our deep attachment to living as a separate, private self, cut off from each other and from the universe at large. Thus the dark night represents the culmination of a long history of spiritual gestation, usually assumed to extend over many lifetimes. What is born in the dawn that follows is an abiding sense of participation in and com­ munion with the omnipresent Divine. I want to suggest that the coming eco-crisis may precipitate a crisis for humanity that parallels the transformation the mystic undergoes in the dark night of the soul. In this reading of history, humanity may be entering what we might call the dark night of the species-soul, that is, a period of profound collective purification that will force us to confront and surrender everything from our collective
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