The Greening of the Peace Movement

Religious-style belief is hard to overcome. (4.00 / 1)

I've read Klein's book. I've long been a huge fan, and I learned a LOT from DC as I do from everything else she writes. But I'm not sure I totally buy into her hypothesis. I agree that the neo-liberal types will exploit every disaster, but I don't subscribe to the idea that the government-corporate cabal is so clever and efficient that they can arrange these things in advance. (Hence nmy eyeball rolling at the Truthers).

That said, what's your alternative to industrialism? Do you really want to live without computers, bicycles, subways, etc?

I dunno that we're all that disconnected from each other. I'm actually of the beief that recent tech developments have found me many, many new acquaintances--even friends. I'd be infinitely less connected to other people without this machine. Including my own family. And I'm WAY closer--quite literally--to the source of my food than I would ever have been--and you can thank the Net for that, too!

And I'm still, I think, a capitalist, though I'm leery of labels (calling myself a "Green" has been tough, as there's a shitload in the Green platform and in historically Green thinking with which I disagree quite vehemently--same with calling myself an "Episcopalian" for that matter: I joined both because alone I am worth shit, and they're the only game in town so far as I'm concerned if you wanna organize around SOMETHING). What's the name for the misbegotten spawn of a menage between a capitalist, socialist, and anarchist?

I think that while every generation embraces techno advances TOO uncritically, some folks have always objected--sometimes for good (would we had never split the atom), sometimes for the worse (the anti-vaccination crowd). Tech is neutral, but humanity has ALWAYS depended on technological advances, since the day the first hunter gathered attached a piace of sharpened flint to a stick.

It doesn't pay to be either uncritical or overly critical. There are, for example, a lot of people opposed to GMOs on what strike me as almost religious grounds--they really haven't studied the whole issue, and are all too willing to throw the baby out with the bathwater. (The trouble isn't that GMOs are "bad"--many are terrific--the trouble is the lack of oversight and political power wielded by those who employ them to clearly destructive ends--e.g., terminator genes, "Round-up ready" modified seed, etc).

Our problem--because I essentially agree with you--is that the idea that we CAN'T go on at this rate is a strikingly novel one. It's 100% accurate, but it  flies in the face of what people believed--with reason--for five thousand years. We have a VERY hard row to hoe. Our problem is that we haven't yet figured out how to communicate these extremely unpleasant truths in a palatable fashion.

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by: michael horan @ Tue Aug 31, 2010 at 04:34:12 AM UTC

I don't think that eschewing industrialism (0.00 / 0)

means living completely without it.  In the book "Seeing Green," there is a green quoted as saying something like, I only push for smallness because now everything is too big - what I really seek is the human scale.  And that, to me, is an essential idea of what being green means...and that does apply to what you're saying.  The answer isn't living like the Amish, it's finding a good balance between technology/industry and tradition/back-to-the-earth living.  In other words, finding a way for humans to live so that we are not in conflict with the earth, but working with it - and in my mind that doesn't mean giving up computers or bicycles (in fact, the latter are essential to that way of living, I think).  It might just mean more efficient computers that run on renewable energy that are completely recyclable and turned off at night, and computers with an internet that we don't let dominate our lives or separate us from others.

Perhaps that's impossible.  But that's how I see it.

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by: rossl @ Sun Sep 05, 2010 at 22:20:00 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

industrialism, growth, & technological determinism (0.00 / 0)

I guess I'm replying to Michael, Patrick, and Ross here... and I feel like we're mostly in agreement.

I tend to agree that technology is neutral, but married to our economic and political system, it is anything but. Our laws and our economic reward systems favor quick, thoughtless money-making. Consequences be damned. I prefer the idea of the Precautionary Principle. So while some GMOs might arguably be safe and even miraculous, we have no safe and effective way of knowing because those hawking GMO products have obscene financial incentives to deceive, manipulate, and even define the process, and their political contributions help them do it. We need political resistance to get-rich-quick at the expense of the planet schemes, and we don't have it. Let's build that before we bash the folks who reflexively protest anything genetically modified. Even organic standards, in the hands of profiteers, are a joke.

I think capitalism is inexorably tied to growth, and in that sense, is not a sustainable system. Exchanging money for goods and services, to me, makes a whole lot of sense, but I doubt that makes me a capitalist. Growing the economy year after year might make sense for a while, maybe even thousands of years. But at some point it breaks down as a viable system. We're permanently destroying our only home, so industrial growth no longer makes sense. We might have to ease our way out of that trap, but pretending like it's our future is just going to put off the inevitable collapse.

I think Michael's right that we haven't figured out how to communicate these harsh realities, and also we haven't figured out how to bridge to anything different. I think the Green Party will play a unique role in developing transformational policies at the local level... across this planet.

I also agree with Patrick's take, and it's too easy to throw terms around without care. And I think there certainly are social systems that predate industrialism -- though I doubt they predate agriculture -- which have helped to sink us into the abyss we are now in.

And Ross, I think an ecological balance with our technology usage is absolutely possible. I think cradle-to-cradle and biomimicry design concepts are very potent ways to organize our industrial endeavors. And there's a need for a shift in the policy playing field to favor them over other approaches. Enter the Greens!

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by: eli_beckerman @ Tue Sep 21, 2010 at 05:11:18 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Technology or society? (0.00 / 0)

While I think I teased out some distinctions between myself and Michael clearly enough in the other "Greening" post, I can see some other analyses where I differ from you Eli or at least would like to explore the differences.

And pointing out disagreement or differing perspectives is not an exercise in opposition but one of clarifying thought and learning from one another.  I am a fan of the idea of overlapping consensus.  In other words, people have differing values and perspectives on the world.  What sustains community and creates the swell for common action is where values, plans, and visions overlap, as well as an ability to respect and understand differences.

I'll focus on the distinction between left and right.  Its a heuristic device to simplify political ideologies.  When it first arose in France the demarcation was between people who supported the monarchy, nobles, and clergy (the right) and those who did not (the left).  So classical liberals, secularists, social liberals, proto-socialists, agrarians,  and so forth all sat on the left.  Nowadays the political spectrum is usually defined in economic terms, so the liberals of yesteryear are on the right and everyone else center and left.  

Greens criticize this framework and rightfully so.  Its too economistic, too materialistic, and lacks complexity.  And our modern mass media have defined it in such a way as to make a desert of political language and discussion.

I would agree that Marxian Socialism would be on the industrialism side of the equation and with a few exceptions, ( like if you pick and choose your Marx or take up eco-socialist critiques from the likes of Joel Kovel and John Bellamy Foster) the thrust of the Marxist worker's movement is to make capitalism humanistic but not of necessity ecological.  

However, when you get beyond orthodox Marxism (and especially Marxist-Leninism) there are plenty of examples, from utopian socialisms, to anarcho-communism and the anarcho-collectivism of Krotpotkin, to quasi socialistic stuff of Chartists, Diggers, and the historical Luddites, to religious socialisms from Tolstoy, Buber, and Bloch, to the variety found in left and council communisms, autonomism, and thinkers like Castoriadis, Fromm, Marcuse, Gorz, etc.  

So given this history and these lines of thought, its hard to call all socialists fans of Industrialism.  But we like to call them leftists and many would self-identify that way.  What they agree on is some notion of human rationality, of Enlightenment, of human equality, and the potential for democratic decision-making to govern society.

The German Greens, where this idea of "neither left nor right but Forward!" came from, were attempting to bridge the gap between conservative agrarians, religious ecologists, a few "eco-fascists", (the right)  then eco-centrists, eco-libertarians, Realos, (the center) and eco-anarchists, eco-socialists (the left).  Deep ecologists with a heavy critique of humanity per se, well they're all over the place.

The ecological right has much less faith in human rationality or its possibility.  And when I say rationality I do include a holistic emotive and reflective capacity, not just some cold heartened logic or anthropo-centrism.  Individuals might be rational but society isn't, so its best to stick to traditions, ritual, authority, and leaps of faith to keep humans restrained.

Having said all that I think the concept of Industrialism focuses too much on technology to explain the rift between humanity and nature.  According to this view (correct me if I am horribly off), technology has a strong level of independence from humanity, so history could in fact be reduced to the march of new technologies, their greater energy consumption, and the growing materialism they tie humanity to.

I would say yes we are tied to technology rather closely, but there are processes and social systems that precede Industrialism enough to make it a symptom rather than a cause.  The ethics of domination, the development of hierarchy, the creation of instrumental rationality (humans as objects, nature as object) in bureaucratic and economic relations, I think underlie why our technologies can be so anti-ecological and destructive.  And it can be argued that capitalism or at least its fundamentals were in place before Industrialism proper.

So I hesitate with Industrialism as the correct category to combat because you could replace the technology with new kinds of instrumental rationality divorced from high technology or simply with mysticism and authoritarianism.  So I end up agreeing with Michael at least on the point as concerns Tech neutrality and the problem lying in social and power relations.

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by: Patrick Burke @ Fri Sep 03, 2010 at 03:09:43 AM UTC

I think you should know, Eli, (0.00 / 0)

that after reading a piece you wrote a few months ago about the difference between being green and being progressive - after a bit of a shift in my thinking had already taken place - I read "Seeing Green" and "Green Politics" at your suggestion.  Because of that I've gone from being an independent progressive to a strongly Green political ecologist.  Thank you.

And as for the Iraq war and industrialism...well, have you posted this anywhere else?  Because you're one of the better voices out there pointing out the difference between the industrialism of progressive Democrats and the Green ecological point of view.

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by: rossl @ Sun Sep 05, 2010 at 22:15:16 PM UTC