Deepness of Questions and the Deep Ecology Movement 1. This Is A
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Notes Chapter 4: Deepness of Questions and the Deep Ecology Movement 1. This is a revised and shortened version of an unpublished manuscript, “Deep- ness of Questions,” written in the 1970s and distributed to only a few people because of its manifest weaknesses. I have revised it because some interest in it persists, and because of the prominent place it received in Warwick Fox’s important book, Toward a Transpersonal Ecology (1990). 2. The term chain is important. The structure of systematization may be schematized as follows: from premises A and B, conclusion C is drawn. From premises C and D, conclusion E is drawn. From premises E and F, conclusion G is drawn. Thus, a chain of premise-conclusion relations is asserted. The rules of inference that are applied are rough. Requirements of logical validity lead to vast unnecessary complications for people other than professional logicians. 3. The study is reprinted in this SWAN volume; see chapter 18, “Expert Views on the Inherent Value of Nature.” Chapter 5: The Deep Ecology Movement: Some Philosophical Aspects 1. For more about interspecific community relationships, see my “Self- realization in mixed communities of humans, bears, sheep, and wolves” (1979b [in this volume]). 2. I cannot here do justice to the many authors who have contributed to the understanding of the emerging deep ecology movement. Only three will be mentioned. The newsletters written by George Sessions, Department of Philosophy, Sierra College, Rocklin, CA, are indispensable. There are six letters, April 1976, May 1979, April 1981, May 1982, May 1983, and May 1984, about 140 pages in all. The significant contributions by poets and 617 NOTES TO PAGES 41–50 artists are fully recognized. Most of these materials are summarized in Ses- sions 1981. Bill Devall provides a short survey, in part historical, in his po- tent article “The deep ecology movement” (1980). See also Devall and Ses- sions 1985. Finally, The Trumpeter: Journal of Ecosophy was started in 1983 by Alan Drengson. It was published as a print journal for fourteen years and is now an online journal. 3. I proposed the name Deep, Long-Range Ecology Movement in a lecture at the Third World Future Research Conference (Bucharest, September 1972). “The shallow and the deep, long-range ecology movement” (Naess 1973 [this volume]) is a summary of that lecture. Adherents of the deep ecology movement fairly commonly use the term deep ecologist, whereas shallow ecolo- gist, I am glad to say, is rather uncommon. Both terms may be considered arrogant and slightly misleading. I prefer to use the awkward but more egalitarian expression “supporter of the deep (or shallow) ecology move- ment,” avoiding personification. Also, it is common to call deep ecology consistently antianthropocentric. This has led to misconceptions: see my “A defense of the deep ecology movement” (1983). It is better described as nonanthropocentric. 4. The technical term biospheric should perhaps be avoided because it favors the scientifically fruitful distinction between biosphere and ecosphere. I use the term life in a broad sense common in everyday speech, and may therefore speak of landscapes and larger systems of the ecosphere as “living”—ulti- mately speaking of the life of the planet. The biospheric point of view re- ferred to in the text is not a narrower point of view than the ecospheric be- cause bios is used in a broad sense. 5. Many authors take some steps toward derivational structures, offering mild systemizations. The chapter on environmental ethics and hope in G. Tyler Miller’s Living in the Environment (1983) is a valuable start, but the deriva- tional relations are unclear. The logic and semantics of simple models of nor- mative systems are briefly discussed in my “Notes on the Methodology of Normative Systems” (1977a [this volume]). For defense of the thesis that as soon as people assert anything at all we assume a total view, implicit with on- tology, methodology, epistemology, and ethics, see my “Reflections About Total Views” (1964 [this volume]). The best and wittiest warning against tak- ing systematizations too seriously is to be found in Søren Kierkegaard’s Con- cluding Unscientific Postscript (1941). 6. Trusting Bill Devall, one may say that “Muir is now understood as the first Taoist of American ecology” (Devall 1982); see also Cohen 1984. 7. For empirical studies of attitudes of “Wilderness-users,” see the survey by 618 NOTES TO PAGES 52–91 Chris. R. Kent in his thesis The Experiential Process of Nature Mysticism, Hum- boldt State University, 1981. 8. The term atman is not taken in its absolutistic senses, not as a permanent in- destructible “soul.” This makes it consistent with those Buddhist denials (the avatman doctrine) that the atman is to be taken in absolutist senses. Within the Christian tradition, some theologians distinguish “ego” and “true self” in ways similar to these distinctions in Eastern religion. See, e.g., the ecophilosophical interpretation of the Gospel of Luke in Verney 1976: 33–41. 9. For criticism and defense of this fundamental norm, and my answer, see In Sceptical Wonder: Essays in Honor of Arne Naess (Gullvag and Wetlesen 1982). My main exposition of Ecosophy T was originally offered in the Norwegian work Økologi, samfunn og livsstil (1976), later published in English as Ecology, Community, and Lifestyle (1989). Even there, the exposition is sketchy. Chapter 6: The Deep Ecology “Eight Points” Revisited 1. The eighteen points of my 1973 paper “The shallow and the deep, long-range ecology movements” (in this volume) smacked too much of the special meta- physics of a younger Naess, as I soon found out. They were discarded in favor of the Eight Points, to the regret of some readers (e.g., Richard Sylvan, among ecophilosophers). The 1973 paper, for example, claimed the ego to be like “knots in the biospherical net or field of intrinsic relations.” I still may use the sentence “All living beings are ultimately one,” which embarrassed Sir Alfred Ayer in our one-hour debate (see Elders 1974: 31). Chapter 7: Equality, Sameness, and Rights 1. For more about the relevance of tradition and culture, see my “Self-Realization in mixed communities of humans, bears, sheep, and wolves” (1979b [in this volume]); see also Naess and Mysterud 1987. Chapter 11: A Note on the Prehistory and History of the Deep Ecology Movement 1. See, e.g., Rohrer 1920. For areas outside Europe, see several articles in Tobias 1985. There is, of course, nothing “Aryan” about the cult of mountains. 2. From Henri Frankfort’s “The Birth of Civilization in the Near East” (1959), as quoted in Tobias and Drasdo (1979: 201). 619 NOTES TO PAGES 101–56 Chapter 12: Antifascist Character of the Eight Points of the Deep Ecology Movement 1. The distinction Green/green corresponds roughly to deep/shallow, deep/ reform, interpersonal/nonpersonal ecology (W. Fox 1990). There are several other terminologies closely resembling the above. In short, roughly speak- ing, a distinction similar to that between a deep and a shallow movement— or better, a reform movement—is widespread within the total ecology move- ment. This means that we have (descriptive) data to refer to in changing the formulation of the Eight Points. Or, of course, we can propose a different set of points. As reformers of the terminology, we are not working in thin air. Chapter 16: Should We Try to Relieve Clear Cases of Suffering in Nature? 1. The language of norm 1 (Self-realization!) and hypothesis 1 (The higher the self-realization attained by anyone, the more its increase depends on an in- crease of the self-realization of others) is introduced in Ecosophy T in order to avoid the more usual unconditional, unrestricted “Yes to life,” whatever its manifestations. Higher self-realization does not mean here anything different from the more complete realization of potentialities related to the self, the specific characteristic of each living being. The world of potentialities of a living being has no very definite borders but may be in continuous or discon- tinuous development. The conceptual framework is not very different from that of J. von Üexkull as described in my Erkenntnis und wissenschaftliches Ver- halten (1936). 2. This is according to point 5 of the proposed theoretical platform of the deep ecology movement. 3. See note 2. Chapter 17: Sustainability! The Integral Approach 1. Among many other statements the following, using only fifteen words, should be mentioned: the requirement that “present [vital] needs must be covered without endangering the capacity for meeting future [vital] needs” (Research Policy Conference 1988: 17; I added the word vital). Chapter 18: Expert Views on the Inherent Value of Nature 1. The Mardøla River in Sogn and Fjordane counties and the Alta River in Finn- mark County were regulated to build electricity works in 1970 and 1980. 620 NOTES TO PAGES 167–205 Both projects were supported by the Norwegian Water Resources and En- ergy Administration. The author participated in the heated debates on both of these projects. 2. Minister Kåre Kristiansen was a representative for the Christian Democratic Party. Its Norwegian name is Kristelig Folkeparti. 3. The Norwegian name of the movement is Samling om skaperverket. 4. Røros, in southeastern Norway, was once an economically important mining town. 5. The largest lake in Norway; it has been heavily polluted by agricultural and household chemicals. 6. Since 1985, when my questionnaire was distributed, the term quality of life (livskvalitet) has undergone a remarkable change of status. It is now a main- stream word, and this may be considered quite an achievement of the envi- ronmental movement. 7. These Scandinavian environmental organizations are in Norwegian named Fremtiden i våre hender and Alternativ Norden.