ANIMISM, SPIRIT AND ENVIRONMENTAL ACTlVlSM A Thesis Presented to The Faculty of Graduate Studies of The University of Guelph In partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree of Master of Arts December, 2000 O Brendan Myers, 2000. National Library Bibliothèque nationale 1+1 ofhnah du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographie Services services bibliographiques 395 Wellington Street 395. rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A ON4 Ottawa ON KI A ON4 Canada Canada Your file Vmro réference Our fï!è Notre rêfdrence The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive licence aIlowing the exclusive permettant à la National Library of Canada to Bibliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distribute or sell reproduire, prêter, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in microfom, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la foxme de microfiche/nlm, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électronique. The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts from it Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or othewise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimes reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. Abstract Animism, Spirit, and Environmental Activism Brendan Myers University of Guelph, 2000 Advisors: Prof. Peter Loptson, Prof. John McMurtry. The first chapter presents Animism as a coherent foundational principle for environmental philosophy. Beginning with an examination of what spirit means to indigenous people. 1 offer a revision of classical animism, called "global animism". Three general principles constitute global animism: motion and transience, energy and connectivity, and a global Iife-seeking purposiveness, called The Will to Life. The second chapter explores how the Will to Life can mistake itself. Parasitism is the Will to Life in self-negating pathological disorder. Certain human activities must be characterized as parasitism, because of their destructiveness. An "activist sequence" explains why environmental activisrn, including and especially radical and confrontational activism, is a needed force to hait the destruction of the environment. Finally, a guiding ethical principle called the "activists' imperative" argues that we are called upon to disobey the demands of disordered social institutions. The environmental activist is a catalyst for the rectification of the disordered Will to Life. Acknowledgements For good conversations that inspired me during the late nights in which these pages were written, 1 am indebted to many people, but especially these whom I now name: Marion Ross, Greg Currie, Michael Nabert, Janice Nutter, Matthew Clooney, Anne Marie Kelly, Jessi Kelly, Marilyn Story, Nuala Reilly and family, Shore Chamoe, Toni Xerri, and Raymond Izarali. I am also grateful to certain instructors in the department who, while I was an undergraduate student, inspired me to continue with philosophy: Brian Wetstein, Jeff Mitscherling, and Jean Harvey. I extend particular gratitude to my dedicated M.A. advisors: Peter Loptson, for his thought-provoking criticism, his attention to detail. and his patience with a project somewhat out of his usual field; and John McMurtry, for his steady stream of research resources, and his firmness when l strayed frorn the path. Finally, I am thankful to my parents, Robert and Linda Myers, without whom my production would not have happened. Table of Contents Chapter One P9- 1 Objections and replies concerning ecocentrism and anthropocentrism. PS* 9 What is Spirit? P9- 16 The Three Principles of Global Anirnism Pg- 24 Motion and Transcience P9* 25 Energy and Connectivity Pg- 28 The Will to Life PS* 38 Objections and replies concerning the Will to Life P9- 43 The ecological role of philosophy P9- 47 Chapter Two P9- 54 Diagnosing the Pathological Disorder P9. 59 Isolating the disorder P9- 70 Curing the disorder: The sequence of confrontational activism Pg- 79 The Hidden Meaning of "Think Globally Act Locally" P9= 99 The Activists' lmperative pg. 107 The Value Foundation of the Activists' lmperative pg. 113 The usefulness of non-confrontational activism pg. 120 Activism as an expression of the Will to Life pg. 127 Closing Remarks pg. 131 Chapter One Ten years ago 1 sat against a cedar tree that grew from the edge of a lirnestone cliff overlooking the Grand River. It was my habit at the time to go to that tree because it was a good place to read books undisturbed. The wind shaking the autumn leaves and the rocks at the shallow river bottom produced a sound that washed over me. I kept to my books, but at some point I put down the books and listened to the river, flowing over the rocks. And then 1 listened to the wind in the trees. 1 enjoyed the life around me. When I returned home in the evening, I had left my books behind. I had known about the food chain and the water cycle by then, and I knew about some of the threats to environmental life from pollution and unrestrained resource extraction. These facts were taught in my primary school as "Social and Environmental Science". These are important things to know about. when one wishes to think about environmental philosophy, but even some ecologists admit the need for a kind of "greater picture", or holistic conception of what this thing called nature is, and the position of human beings in it. The journal that 1 kept at the tirne cites that day in Auturnn as the day that 1 became philosophically and spiritually interested in nature at the level of the greater picture. This project is a continuation of that interest, for 1 am inquiring into a certain way of thinking about nature. To inquire into nature at ail, in the philosophical discipline of metaphysics, grants a kind of value to nature because to do so presupposes that nature is worth thinking about, and important among problems which metaphysicians engage. The best conceptions of nature grant value to nature, and also to the thinker who conceives it as valuable. When the method and style of the investigation into nature are guided by reason, inspiration, care, or any other virtue, the thinker invests herself with virtue. Philosophy contends with great problems, and sol at least for a little while, everyone who does phiiosophy is elevated in this way to a certain kind of greatness. This thesis asks two central questions. The main question for the first chapter is, "what is the spirit of nature?" By spirit I mean a foundational principle of being which may be thought of as "behind", "supporting", or "within" things, in a way that is at least loosely analogous to the ordinary language concept "spirit". The question for the second chapter is, "what ethic follows from the spirit of nature?" It is, among other things, the project of philosophy to expose the underlying assumptions that people have about such grand topics as nature and metaphysics, so that we can examine them, and then affirm or reject them based on some standard of excellence. I must also add that this is primarily not a work of interpretation, for 1 am not simply giving an account or an explanation of one or two other thinkers, but 1 am constructing a new insight by synthesizing the thoughts of many thinkers as well as original thoughts of my own. The origin of the English word "Nature" suggests birth, for it comes from the Latin word "natura", the future tense of "nasci", and "nat-", meaning, "to be born".' There is also the notion that a thing's nature is the fundamentai, persistent qualities of something that make it what it is. We also Say that an event is natural when it is uncoerced or unencumbered by an external force acting upon it (which means, free) and hence able to behave in accord with its own order. Finally, there is the environmentai sense of the word, in which we Say nature is the aggregate of al1 living beings, atmospheric conditions, physical elernents, and so forth, in an ecosystem. An attitude towards nature presupposes a decision about what nature essentially is, and so philosophy, and in particular metaphysics, is a relevant fieid of inquiry with which to develop and criticize scch attitudes. It is important to know what one's attitude towards nature is, because such attitudes invariably direct the ways in which we use nature, or abuse nature as the case may be. If we conceive of nature one way, then we use it one way, and if we conceive of nature a different way, we use it another way. Consider . AI1 sources for word origins used in this thesis corne from maryof Wwd Ori- by Joseph Shipley (Philosophical Library, New York, 1 945) farming: is it the means of subsistence for a population, or is it a commercial enterprise? To argue that farming is a means of providing sustenance for a population, one has the attitude that nature is a source of nourishing sustenance. To argue that farming is a commercial enterprise requires one to have the attitude that nature is a repository of material resources that cm be sold. Stan Rowe, a Canadian ecologist, in his book Home Place, has argued that thinking of nature as a resource led to the colonization of the prairie provinces; farming in the Canadian West was begun partially to compete with American westward expansion but also to seIl food to the rapidly growing labour force in the industrialized eastern provinces, and in Europe? Consider resource extraction: are forestry and rnining to be understood as a triumphs of human technological power, or as activities which contribute to the betterment of llfe by supplying us with the rnaterials we need to make things? Or, are they an exercise of unrestrained profit-seeking greed? Consider genetic engineering and reproduction technology: is it the successful progress of the human quest for knowledge, or the means for prornoting health and fertility? Or, is it a misguided and dangerous intervention in the process of life? One attitude cornes from the conception of an organism as an object, and the other, as a Rowe.