Wild Nahani
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Deep ecology
and the Wilderness Concept
Basics
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THE
DEEP ECOLOGY
* * *
What is Deep Ecology
"Deep ecology is radically traditional as it connects a very ancient stream of religious and philosophical minorities to Western Europe, North America and the East, and also has strong ties to many philosophical and religious positions of native peoples (including Indian Indians). 'America). In a sense it can be considered as the wisdom that preserves the memory of what men once knew "(Devall & Sessions, 1989). The thought of deep Ecology focuses more than any other, the value in itself of nature and the holistic global value of all things also because "the imprecision on the 'origin' of deep ecology is little compared to summary judgments, denigrators, ironic that are read very often in the mass consumer print " (Salio, 1994). The explicit initiator of this vision of natural and vital reality is the Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess who in the seventies through a specific and revolutionary article categorically distinguished the ecology in superficial (Shallow ecology) and in deep (Deep ecology). Deep ecology, as implied by its own literal definition, goes well beyond the superficial and aseptic analysis of the environmental problems typical of classical ecological science, demonstrating, on the contrary, only a complete and totalizing vision of the world. "It is the idea that we can not make any net ontological division in the field of existence: that there is no bifurcation in reality between man and non-human realms .... when we perceive boundaries, the our deep ecological awareness is less " (Fox, 1983 in Devall & Sessions, 1989). However, the essence of deep ecology is well antecedent to the ideas of Arne Naess as already in the remote historical epochs (Indian culture, animist, etc.) we have highlighted mental attitudes and practical unifications where each element had value in itself and was universal . "I am a stone, I saw life and death, I felt happiness, pains and worries: I live the life of the rock. I am part of Mother Earth, I feel her heart beating on mine, I feel her pain, her happiness: I live the life of the rock. I am a part of the Great Mystery, I felt his mourning, I felt his wisdom, I saw his creatures that I have sisters: the animals, the birds, the waters and the whispering winds, the trees and all that is on earth and everything in the universe " (Hopi Prayer). "While superficial ecology can be considered predominantly inspired by an instrumental value ethic, although understood in a" reformist "(conservation and preservation) and not as a pure and simple exploitation, deep ecology supports theses of the intrinsic value of objects natural " (Salio, 1989). Also excellent is the definition of the term made by Capra (1997): " The superficial ecology is anthropocentric , that is , focused on man. It considers human beings above or outside of Nature as the source of all values, and assigns to Nature only an instrumental value, or of 'use'. Deep ecology does not separate human beings - or anything else - from the natural environment. It does not see the world as a series of separate objects, but as a network of phenomena that are fundamentally interconnected and interdependent. Deep ecology recognizes the intrinsic value of all living beings and considers human beings simply as a particular thread in the plot of life ". Naess declares that "the essence of deep ecology lies in asking more radical questions", that is, in asking questions that question the "superficial" certainties of our conception of the world, a concept that sees man as the absolute protagonist of the Earth, ruler of all creatures. Deep ecology passes this paradigm and flows into the impersonal shifting man from the central engine to the simple element of the "plot of life of which we are a part" (Capra, 1997). Deep ecology reconditions the style of human life, poses questions about every attitude of everyday life and attempts to ground into thought a new universal and all-encompassing ethic . In other words, a profound ecologist will have a positive attitude in any sector of social and "natural" relations because it universalizes a principle which, from the outset, is based on a monistic, radical and equal vision. Capra writes again (1997): "The power of abstract thought has led us to consider the natural environment - the plot of life - as if it consisted of separate parts, which different groups of interest can exploit. Furthermore, we have extended this fragmented vision to human society, dividing it into different nations, races, political and religious groups. The fact of believing that all these parts - in ourselves, in our environment and in our society - are really separate, has alienated us from Nature and our peers, and has therefore degraded us. To regain our full human nature, we must reconquer the experience of connection with the whole plot of life. This reconnection, religio in Latin, is the true essence of the spiritual foundation of profound ecology ".
Capra continues (1997): "For deep ecology, the global question of values is decisive; in fact, it is the central characteristic that defines it ....... It is a vision of the world that recognizes the intrinsic value of non-human life forms. All living beings are members of ecological communities linked to one another in a network of interdependent relations. When this deep ecological conception becomes part of our awareness of every day, a radically new ethical system emerges.
Today the need for such a profound ecological ethic is urgent, especially in science, given that much of what scientists do is not used to promote life or to preserve it, but to destroy it ......
In the context of deep ecology, the idea that values are inherent in all that is a living part of Nature, has its basis in the profound ecological or spiritual experience that Nature and the I are one. This total dilation of the ego to the identification with Nature is the foundation of deep ecology ....
It follows that the relationship between an ecological perception of the world and a corresponding behavior is not a logical but psychological relationship. From the fact that we are an integral part of the plot of life, logic does not lead us to rules that tell us how we should live. However, if we have profound ecological awareness, or experience, to be part of the plot of life, then we will (and should not) be inclined to have respect for all that is a living part of Nature. In fact, we can not help reacting this way. " The basic principles of deep ecology can be summarized as follows (from Devall & Sessions, 1989): 1. The well-being and prosperity of human and non-human life on Earth have value for themselves (in other words: they have an intrinsic value or inherent). These values are independent of the usefulness that the non-human world can have for man.
2. The richness and diversity of life forms contribute to the realization of these values and are also values in themselves.
3. Men have no right to impoverish this richness and diversity unless they have to meet vital needs.
4. The prosperity of human life and cultures is compatible with a substantial diminution of the human population: the prosperity of non-human life requires this diminution.
5. The current interference of man in the non-human world is excessive and the situation is getting progressively worse.
6. Consequently, collective choices must be changed. These choices influence fundamental ideological, technological and economic structures. The state of things that will result will be profoundly different from the current one.
7. The ideological change consists mainly in the appreciation of the quality of life as an intrinsic value rather than in adhering to an ever higher standard of living. The difference between what is qualitatively large and what is quantitatively will have to be clear.
8. Those who share the previous points are obliged, directly or indirectly, to attempt to implement the necessary changes. The eight schematic points shown above show how deep ecology is one of the few conceptions that has repositioned man in the right harmony with nature (in line with a new ethics of the earth). Here is a simple parallel between the principles of the dominant culture and the "profound" of deep Ecology (from Devall & Sessions, 1989): Dominant Culture: CD Deep Ecology: EP CD: Nature Domain EP: Harmony with Nature CD: L natural environment is a resource for man EP: All nature has an intrinsic value / equality of the biospecies CD: Economic growth / material for the increase of the human population EP: Needs simple materials CD: Confidence in the abundance of resources EP : Limited resources of the Earth CD: Progress and high technology solutions EP: Appropriate technology: non dominating science CD: Consumerism EP: Sobriety / recycling CD: Centralized / national community EP: Minority tradition / bioregion Livingston (in Devall & Sessions, 1989) rightly affirms that the arguments concerning the protection of nature have always been set towards direct and indirect human interests, so much so that without a complete change in the the awareness and the depth of the spirit, it is not possible to connect in truth with the natural world and therefore "there is no hope of overturning the situation and of protecting the woods and wild animals from human destruction". For example, the establishment of a protected area is a classic intervention of superficial ecology, always, as mentioned, in an anthropocentric key. Never question the "certainties" of society and modern science, but only criticize the apparent negative aspects of the surface without ever going to the heart of the matter. It is dutifully just a protective intervention, mind you, but it must be complemented by that "profound" vision of natural reality where man is an indistinct element in a single whole and where every attitude is always spontaneously in harmony with the other . Let's pause for a moment to reflect. We try to change our life. We enter into the deep spirituality of nature and lose ourselves within its strength, without thinking of a goal or our particular interest. They write Lombardo & Olivetti (1991) "One step after the other. The important thing is not to anticipate, not to think about 'how much is missing to arrive'. Walking, inside one's shoes, without considering external time. Those who have learned to do it, in the mountains or more generally in the natural environment, know it well ..... Walking is, in the first place, going in search of lost time .... Time is lost because the full present does not it exists more, in our life, not even in moments of leisure and disengagement. We live in a dimension where the past is canceled ..... but also the present is dead, replaced by a continuous anticipation of what we will do in ten minutes, an hour, two days. A limit continuously moved forward ". So let's try to rejoin the nature, try to reach the essence of things in their depth, even in the depths of ourselves, and finally turn off the greed of external feelings. "In the long run, to participate joyfully and wholeheartedly in the movement of deep ecology, one must take life very seriously. Who maintains a low standard of living and cultivates an intense, rich, inner life, is able, better than others, to have a deep ecological vision and to act accordingly. I sit down, breathe deeply and feel exactly where I am " (Arne Naess). Writes From the House (1996): "In the thought setting of deep ecology, our species is not particularly privileged. Living beings and ecosystems, like all elements of the Cosmos, have a value in themselves. All of Nature has an intrinsic and unitary value, just as it has a value in itself every component, formed in a billions of years process. The human species is one of these components, one of the branches of the tree of life ........ The natural world is not 'the heritage of all, but it is much more: it is billions of years before our species . If we really want to talk about belonging, it is humanity that belongs to Nature and not vice versa ........ In this picture the western-biblical idea about the human position appears more or less like a curious delirium of greatness.
While in the ecology of the surface the Earth must be respected because it is of all present and future generations, in the deep ecology the human species is neither custodian nor owner of anything ". However, as previously mentioned, surface ecology is also important, especially for interventions that must be immediately reflected in the field of conservation. Also taking into account that in order to achieve a profound vision of ecology it is necessary to start a radical change in one's own thought; it is not excluded that the mental acquisitions of surface ecology are one of the fundamental stages towards the deep ones. Hoping that the surface ecology is not yet another spectacle of Western "civilization"!
"For the deep ecological perspective, living wild nature means:
a) develop the sense of place;
b) redefine the role of man in the natural system: from conqueror of the earth to a person who experiences a full contact with nature;
c) cultivating modesty and humility; and finally,
d) understand the life cycle of mountains, rivers, fish, bears ........
As a deep ecologist ........ Muir investigated nature and did not just admire it. He began to understand that locusts or pines and stones should not be understood as separate entities because they were closely connected " (Devall & Sessions, 1989). Finally, it must be remembered that an idea, even if supported by a minority, can produce substantially positive effects over time. Kaczynskj (1997) writes: "Before the final struggle revolutionaries should not expect to have the majority on their side. History is made up of active and determined minorities, not the majority, who rarely have a clear and precise idea of what they really want. In the time necessary to reach the final effort towards revolution, the task of revolutionaries will be to build a small group of deeply involved people rather than trying to win the favor of the masses. As for the majority, it will be enough to make it aware of the existence of the new ideology and to remind it of it frequently ... ".
"What matters is not only the idea, but the ability to believe it to the end" (Ezra Pound).
"Only if we can see the universe as a whole in which each part reflects the totality in which the great beauty lies in its diversity, we will begin to understand who we are and where we are. Otherwise we will be just like the frog of the Chinese proverb that , from the bottom of the well, look up and believe that what he sees is the whole sky "(Tiziano Terzani).
DEEP ECOLOGY
of Guido Dalla Casa
The alleged lack of rights in animals, the illusion that our actions towards them are unimportant or there are no duties towards animals, is a revolting crudity and barbarity of the West.
Arthur Schopenhauer
If you can not even get in touch with your spirit, how can you hope to get in touch with the spirit of a tree?
Rarihokwats
In contrast to the Cartesian mechanistic conception of the world, the world view that emerges from modern physics can be characterized by words like organic, holistic and ecological. It could also be designated as a systemic vision, in the sense of the general theory of systems. The universe is no longer seen as a machine made up of a multitude of objects, but must be represented as an indivisible, dynamic whole, whose parts are essentially interconnected and can only be understood as structures of a cosmic process.
Fritjof Capra
To relate all value judgments to humanity is a form of philosophically indefensible anthropocentrism.
Arne Naess
This world is really a living being furnished with soul and intelligence ... a single visible living, containing all the other living beings, all of them by nature are congeners ...
Plato
God sleeps in the stone,
dream in the flower,
awakens in the animal,
he knows he is awake in the man.
(Asian proverb)
Foundations of deep ecology
In the thought setting of deep ecology, our species is not particularly privileged. Living beings and ecosystems, like all elements of the Cosmos, have a value in themselves. All of Nature has an intrinsic and unitary value, just as it has a value in itself every component, formed in a billions of years process. The human species is one of these components, one of the branches of the tree of Life.
So instead of talking about "environment" as if Nature were a stage for human actions, we will use expressions like "the Living Complex":
- "environmental impact" will become "alteration made to the Complex of the Living";
- the "environmental advocates" will become "people worried about the health, harmony and psycho-physical balance of the Complesso dei Viventi".
The natural world is not "the heritage of all", but it is much more: it is billions of years before our species. If one really wants to speak of belonging, it is humanity that belongs to Nature and not vice versa.
Instead of ambition, success, personal affirmation (or group or species), knowledge, mental serenity, ego attenuation and perception will be considered values: ultimately a sort of identification with the Universal Mind, of tune with the cosmic vital rhythm.
In this context, the western-biblical idea of the human position appears more or less like a curious delirium of greatness.
While in the ecology of the surface the Earth must be respected because it is of all present and future generations, in the deep ecology the human species is neither custodian nor owner of anything. This idea recalls Red Cloud's response to European invaders who wanted to buy the best part of Lakota and Oglala territory: "The earth is of the Great Spirit; you can not sell or buy ". It is a pity not to know the Amerindian languages, because probably the real meaning was "the earth is the Great Spirit". Naturally the whites occupied those lands with violence.
Even the idea of "progress" implies a certain cultural conception and a certain vision of history that are not shared by all of humanity. Much of human culture is experienced in Nature without worrying about progress and history. Even if nothing is static, everything is dynamic and fluctuating, this does not mean that the concepts of progress and regression are necessary: the improvement or the deterioration refer only to parameters and values of a particular model and have no universal meaning.
The concept of progress is an invention of the West to destroy other human cultures and remain the only culture of the planet: it only makes sense if we take as reference a particular scale of values, which is always relative and arbitrary.
The term "development" actually means the degree of overwhelming our species over other species and industrial civilization over other human cultures.
In contrast, there is no privileged model in deep ecology. The global balance and the variety and complexity of living species, ecosystems and cultures are values "in themselves". The terms "growth" and "decrease" are complementary, in dynamic equilibrium, without positive or negative connotations.
Consequently, the concepts of resources and waste are not necessary: they presuppose the idea that processes or modifications are carried out that take something fixed - the resources - and download something else - the waste, which means non-functioning. cyclical, incompatible with the equilibrium condition.
With these premises the so-called "production" is - ultimately - a waste production. The same term "civilization" is useless and dangerous, because it implies a merit judgment based on a particular scale of values, considered obvious.
In fact, "Civil" today means "conforming to the principles of the West" and nothing more. There is no reason to consider Western civilization as the best of the Yanomami, Papua, Eskimos, Dogon, or a thousand other cultures on Earth. In the same way in deep ecology it makes no sense to speak of "useful", "harmful" or "harmless" species, since anything in Nature has its justification in itself and in the Complex it belongs to. It does not have to serve someone or something.
Basically in the deep ecology the concept of "environment" is overcome to make room for the perception of being part of a much wider psychophysical Entity, that is of Nature, which manifests itself in the greatest variety and harmony, in the greatest dynamic balance of species ; it is a self-correcting system with Mind.
To use the words of Fritjof Capra:
The new vision of reality is an ecological vision in a sense that goes far beyond the immediate concerns of environmental protection. To underline this deeper meaning of ecology, philosophers and scientists have begun to make a distinction between "deep ecology" and "superficial environmentalism". While superficial environmentalism is interested in more efficient control and management of the natural environment for the benefit of "man", the movement of deep ecology recognizes that ecological balance requires profound changes in our perception of the role of beings human beings in the planetary ecosystem. In short, it will require a new philosophical and religious basis. (8)
Some aspects of the current crisis
In deep ecology it is not a question of "combining development and the environment" but of realizing that ecological drama originated in industrial civilization and invaded the world following the tumultuous expansion of this model. The myth of industrialization arose in Western culture only two or three centuries ago.
The problem is not only practical, but above all philosophical. In fact, just as an example, the fundamental practical discoveries to "start" the technology were already known in Chinese culture for several centuries. But in China they did not give birth to the process of industrialization, which was imported only in very recent times, returning from the West. Evidently the background of Chinese thought - largely inspired by the philosophies of Tao and Buddhism - could not direct those knowledge on the path then followed in Europe: the motivations were therefore essentially cultural. The official explanation that the Europeans were "ahead" is just a turn of words. Even the Indian culture three thousand years ago had probably more refined concepts than the European one in the fifteenth century: in India at that time there was certainly no lack of ability to make certain discoveries, but there was the precise perception that it was impossible and inappropriate to follow a certain path.
In fact, with the conception of a world made up of complementary and equivalent polarities (Taoism) or of a world devoid of any individual or collective "ego" (Buddhism) it would have made no sense to "dominate" something, as we will see in Chapter 6.
On the other hand, the inspirational foundation of Western or Jewish-Christian culture is the Old Testament, and here one of the causes of our attitude towards Nature must be sought. We'll talk about it in the next chapter.
But there have been other successive evolutions, above all the extension in the general thought of the philosophy of Descartes and of the physics of Newton, right in the centuries that immediately preceded the birth of the industrial civilization .....
...... All our "nineteenth-century" culture of today is permeated by the antithesis, by the contrast with nature: life is seen as "struggle against the forces of nature". In other philosophies this would mean "struggle against the organism to which we belong", which is meaningless and causes neurosis and conflict. Not for nothing where the environment is more degraded there is also more human crisis, with high rates of crime, psychopathies, suicides. The division between "man" and "the environment" is artificial and fictitious.
If the cancer cells could express themselves, they would probably have an idea of "development" very similar to that of industrial civilization, which invades, making them uniform, the other species and other human cultures, with a similar trend to that of tumors that progress to expenses of the other cells of the organism, whose behavior is based not on permanent growth, but on dynamic equilibrium.
There are many examples of petty life that highlight the collective unconscious of the current industrial civilization.
Many people, if they move away from the cities, are especially concerned with things such as vipers and landslides, but they are quietly put on the highway. We do not need too many statistics to realize that the car is thousands of times more dangerous than any natural event: not enough sixty thousand deaths per year and one million injured in road accidents, only in Europe, to perceive this fact.
How many would enter the Amazon forest? Yet it is clear that it is much more dangerous to go through some neighborhood of New York or Sao Paulo at night. Our unconscious conceptions, that is cultural, push us to fear natural events much more than those due to machines or our like, against any numerical evidence.
This is a technological, non-scientific civilization: the desire to know, but to manipulate, does not prevail.
Moreover, everything that touches the foundations of our culture can not even be studied: it is simply denied or set aside and left without investigation of any kind. For example, any study on the possibility of "reincarnation" or "rebirth", or anyway on psychic phenomena in the vicinity of death, or on interference or spirit-matter identity is in fact rejected a priori by the official world.
The so-called "movements for life" consider it obvious to be concerned only with human life, but they are not concerned at all with the torture inflicted on many forms of life and the state of health of the Complex of the Living.
In our culture happen the most hallucinatory genetic manipulations on all living species, with the creation of hybrids and strange beings: very few worry about it. Instead, at the only distant hint of giving birth to a chimpanzee-man (apart from its impossibility), there was the disdainful revolt of official scientists. Any manipulation of that kind is an absurdity. But at least the chimpanzee-man, if left free in some surviving forest or savannah of this poor planet, would have reminded us that we are of the same, identical nature of other living beings.
The basics of Western culture on this subject are extremely fragile. Beings such as the Australopithecus or the Homo erectus have become extinct for a few hundred thousand years, an insignificant time in the overall scale of Life. The fact that these hominids are extinct is completely contingent. If they were alive, our culture, depending on the opinion of some institution, would take one of the following attitudes:
- consider hunting these beings as a sport;
- close the hominids in the cages of the zoos;
- restore slavery;
- consider the killing of a hominid as a voluntary homicide punishable by life imprisonment.
It is perhaps because of this that there is always a subtle "fear" of finding some Yeti alive on the slopes of the Himalayas. All to continue to oppose "man" to "animal": so we lose sight of the spirituality of life.
But even if we limit ourselves to the species now living, we can see that: the more our knowledge about primate behavior increases, the more the differences between human and non-human primates diminish. For example, the difference in genetic information between our species and the chimpanzee is one or two percent.
From an expert's article:
Our closest relatives are chimpanzees. The genetic difference is only about one percent. We are more closely similar to chimpanzees than two frogs are likely to meet each other. (9)
In other words, the Judeo-Christian culture has not yet managed to conceive an ethics of life and remains anchored to a morality that is exclusively concerned with the human species.
The idea of man, in the thought of the West, is constructed in opposition to the idea of an animal: humanity and animality appear as antithetical terms, both in the biblical conception and in the scientific idea of Baconian derivation. But this is a largely mythical and scientifically unsustainable contrast.
Ethics and law in deep ecology
The studies of an ethic not only limited to our species and a jurisprudence that does not see humans as the only subjects of law have just been born in recent years, apart from isolated exceptions of precursors.
Among these we can certainly remember Aldo Leopold who, in his A Sand County Almanac stated that "one thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity and beauty of the biotic community as a whole (by biotic community we mean the complex of all beings living and their habitat). One thing is wrong when it shows the opposite tendency ". Leopold's concept is holistic , since Nature is understood as a whole, having its own life and value.
If we feel that we use terms such as soul , dignity , rights , and moral domains for elements of Nature , we must not think that we are speaking in an analogical or poetic sense, or that we are dealing with daring combinations. As well as more respect, we could have a more complete spiritual enrichment in Nature.
"The spirit of the tree, of the mountain, of the river" are not hazardous analogies, but reflect the soul of the world, which was well recognized by those human cultures that spent most of their time on magic and the sacred.
Furthermore, by comparison with the concepts of surface ecology, we recall that respecting the natural non-human only to the extent that it is similar to us is a very poor conception of respect, which should instead be based on a philosophy that recognizes the rights of non-human as entities that are worthy of it.
Even respecting the Amazon forest because "belongs to the Indians" is already a concept of surface ecology and is very simplistic, because it reiterates that - for the West - Nature is worth something as it belongs to someone. Probably the statement would rather amaze local native cultures, for which it is clear that they are "to belong" to the forest, as a larger whole. The forest must exist intact because it has an ethical right, as it has a value in itself.
The famous response of the Indian chief Seattle to the President of the United States (1854)
How can you buy or sell the sky?
the heat of the earth?
The idea for us is strange.
If we do not have the freshness of the air,
the glitter of water,
how can we buy them?
Every part of this land is sacred to my people.
Each pine needle that shines, every sandy beach,
every vapor in the dark forests,
every insect clearing and buzzing
it is sacred in the memory and in the experience of my people.
The sap that flows through the trees
brings the memories of men ...
We are part of the earth and it is part of us.
Our fragrant flowers are our sisters;
the deer, the horse, the big eagle,
these are our brothers.
The rocky peaks, the sap of the meadows,
the warm body of the horse, and the man:
everything belongs to the same family ...
The rivers are our brothers, and they quench our thirst.
The rivers carry our canoes and feed our children.
If we were to sell our land,
you should remember and teach your children
that the rivers are our brothers, and yours;
and you should from now on give the rivers kindness
that you should give to every brother ...
there is no peaceful place in the cities of the white man.
There is no place
to hear the unfolding of the leaves in spring,
or the rustling of an insect's wings.
But maybe there is, because I am a savage and I do not understand.
Only the noise seems an insult to hearing.
And what it is to live
if a man can not hear the whimper of a caprimulgo
or the conversations of the frogs around a pond at night?
I am an Indian and I do not understand.
The Indian prefers the soft sound of the wind
that vibrates on the surface of the pond,
and the smell of the wind, clean from a midday rain,
or perfumed by the smell of pine.
The air is precious for the Indian,
for all things have the same breath;
the animal, the tree, the man,
share the same breath together.
The white man does not seem to notice the air he breathes.
Like a dying man,
for many days, it is insensitive to the stench.
But if we were to sell our land,
you should remember that the air is precious to us,
that the air shares its spirit with every life it supports.
The wind that was given to our grandfather at his first breath
he also welcomed his last breath.
And if we sold our land,
you should keep it apart in a sacred place,
as a place where even the white man can go
to feel the wind softened by the flowers of the meadow.
Under these conditions we will consider your offer
to buy our land.
If we decide to accept, I would put a condition:
that the white man must treat the animals of this land
like his brothers ...
What is the man without the animals?
If all the animals went away,
man would die for the great solitude of the spirit.
Because anything happens to animals,
it soon happens to man.
All things are connected.
You could teach your children
That the earth beneath their feet is the ashes of our grandparents.
In order for them to respect the earth,
tell your children
that the earth is rich in the lives of our friends.
Teach your children
what we have taught our own,
that the earth is our mother.
Whatever happens to the earth, it happens to the children of the earth.
If men spit on the earth, they spit on themselves.
We know this: the earth does not belong to man;
man belongs to the earth.
This we know.
All things are connected
like the blood that unites a family.
All things are connected.
Whatever happens to the earth, it happens to the children of the earth.
Man has not woven the fabric of life:
he is simply a thread of it.
Whatever he does to the fabric, he does it to himself ...
We can be brothers, after all. We'll see.
There is one thing we know,
and that the white man will one day discover:
our God is the same.
You can think now that your "He" like you
you wish to own our land; but it is not possible.
He is the God of man and His compassion is the same
both for the redskin and for the white man.
This land is precious to him,
and to damage the earth is to despise its Creator.
Even the white man will pass.
But in your descent you will shine brightly,
inflamed by the power of God who brought you to this earth
and for some special purpose
he has given you dominion over this earth and over the red man.
This destiny is a mystery to us,
because we do not understand when the buffaloes
they are completely slaughtered,
wild horses are domesticated,
the secret corners of the forest are burdened
with the smell of many men
and the view of the hills in bloom
ruined by the wires of the telegraph.
Where is the grove? He has gone.
Where's the eagle? She's gone.
The end of life is the beginning of survival. (10)
Some examples
To recall the difference between surface ecology and deep ecology we take up, for example, the problem of forests:
- the surface ecology wants to save the forests because without them humanity can not live and the Earth's atmosphere remains altered;
- the deep ecology wants to save the forests, as well as for the previous reason, because they are sacred , they are a mind : the forest is above all a spiritual entity.
Some Amazonian cultures had the cosmic tree, around which the universe was organized, both physical and metaphysical.
Today, westernized humanity is increasingly closed in itself: anthropocentrism can no longer see, outside man, other than objects. Once upon a time, nature had a meaning that everyone perceived in his intimate, in his unconscious. Lost this perception, man destroys nature and thereby condemns himself.
Naturally, deep ecology thoughts are also produced in our culture, such as those written by the incomparable Ceronetti pen:
There are heroes, heroes will continue to be there, someone who goes to cover himself with sores to pour sand on the Chernobyl reactor, or the impressive Gulf firefighters who in a year managed to turn off the wells thrown by Saddam to the attack of biosphere, or the Chico Mendès killed by the branches of condemned forests that turn into killer guns, or those of Greenpeace that defy radiation, hatred and beatings to document the environmental crimes of the governments: but all these heroes are children of disasters, their number will increase only in proportion to disasters, a heroic vocation calls only from pain and fire ...
The others are authors or accomplices of the disasters, we are a few billion on this scale, and we have all left to do, indeed we are still somehow all active earth-mother exterminators, Cybele's deicides, even if we gobble up consumption that are nails planted in the flesh of life ... It is enough to hint at reducing them because they are frightened by panic: Bags with a heart attack, mad crowds, the empty wall of blind protests.
... The ethical and mental devastations produced by dollars-machines-medicine in the obscure human substantia , are much more to consider than any stagnation of an economy that carries in itself, in its fatal idolatry of percentage and expansion, the whole genius , virgin, of destruction. (11)
However, we remember that deep ecology - as a philosophy of life - was not born in the Seventies from the ideas of Arne Naess or some minority movement of today: three thousand years in India, and even longer in many animist cultures, ideas that were different from those that shaped Western civilization had spread through the collective mind, as demonstrated by these ancient Indian texts: "Every soul must be respected and soul means every order, every vitality that the substance can take: the wind is a soul that imprints itself in the air, the river a soul that takes the water, the torch a soul in the fire, all this must not be disturbed ". In one of the sutras one praises those who do not hurt the wind because they show they know the pain of living things and it is added that to harm the earth is like striking and mutilating a living being.
Even in our classical world there have been rumors in this sense, like Pythagoras, but the mainstream of the West has led to the current anthropocentric and materialistic mentality, has brought today's industrial civilization, and with it pollution, deforestation , the population explosion, undernourishment, drug addiction and crime.
Our society is unable, for numerous reasons, to solve these problems.
The first reason depends on our fragmented knowledge in water-based disciplines and compartments and the reductionist methodology of official science, both factors that contribute to making us see our problems isolated from each other.
Another reason is to consider problems in light of the very brief experience of our industrial civilization, a small fraction of the overall human experience on our planet.
But perhaps the main reason is that we should face the unacceptable conclusion that our problems are inevitable concomitant factors of what we are accustomed to call "progress", and that therefore can only be resolved by reversing this type of development: "putting progress on opposition".
Therefore, our political-economic system must be transformed and, in order to apply real solutions, it is then necessary to identify the main characteristics of the traditional societies of the past which proved capable, for thousands of years, of avoiding the terrible problems that now we are facing.
Postulating an ideal society for which there are no precedents in human experience, as many of our political theorists have done, is very similar to postulating an alternative biology without reference to the biological structures of the kind that have so far proved to be vital.
We do not want to sterile try to repeat the past, but to identify the indispensable characteristics of stable societies able to solve current problems we must draw inspiration from the traditional societies of the past.
From a living being far from us
When a bee finds a source of nectar, it returns to the beehive and communicates its discovery to the other bees by explaining where the food source is located, through the so-called "dance", ie forming a figure composed of a circle in flight. its diameter. In this dance:
- the angle formed by the diameter traveled with the direction of the sun is a function of the direction of the flowers;
- the value of the radius of the circumference is proportional to the distance of the flowers.
In other words, the bee gives its companions the position of the flowers in polar coordinates. After this communication, the other bees are able, on their own, to easily find the flowers and therefore the nectar.
Any consideration on the meaning of this fact remains open: that is, if bees are able to "measure" distances and angles, also in relation to our concept of measurement. Probably this observation, given also its geometric aspects, would have made Pythagoras happy.
-------------
Note
(8) Fritjof Capra - The turning point - Ed. Feltrinelli, 1984.
(9) From an answer by Dr. Milford Wolpoff reported in the article The Search for Modern Humans by J. Putman - National Geographic , October 1988.
(10) This is the speech given by the Indian Chief Seath, better known as Chief Seattle, during the tribal assembly of 1854, in preparation of treaties between the federal government and the Indian tribes of Oregon and the state of Washington, where federal authorities promised a reserve, revenues and services in exchange for land transfers. Chief Seattle always spoke in his native Duvamish language, and Dr. Smith, who took note of his speech, insisted very much that his English was inadequate to render the beauty of Seattle's thought and imagination in translation. In fact, every language is able to fully express only the vision of the world of culture that produced it.
The Seattle speech is reported in many publications about ecology or native populations. This translation has been published in the periodical Paramita n. 42, April-June 1992, with the title This land is sacred .
(11) Guido Ceronetti - Clinton, so you will not save the Terra Madre , published in the Corriere della Sera of November 23, 1992.
On the concept of the value
in itself of nature
The natural noumenon
"A philosopher has defined this imponderable essence as the noumenon of material things. It is in opposition to the phenomenon, which is ponderable and predictable, even in the motion of the most distant stars " (Aldo Leopold, 1949-1997). The knowledge of a phenomenon is purely empirical, that is the fruit of the sensitive mediation of the subject. This acquisition, however, can not be elevated to a universal concept, since it is quite arbitrary to generalize a strictly individual experience. A personal experience, then, also presents limits to itself, because it is the result of a constantly changing empirical "moment".
The "intrinsic or intrinsic value" of a phenomenon (noumenon), a value devoid of subjective experiences and mediations, takes on a lasting, universal and real character. The "value in itself" is something superior, something undefinable perhaps not knowable, which transcends the subject in order to become the essence of the object: "the definite Tao is not the eternal Tao" (Lao Tse). Thus, a profound universal and "noble" concept appears in the mind.
Only at a later stage will we be able to "interpret" the noumenal transforming it into a "phenomenon", that is, an object of the senses. Thus the contraposition between "things in themselves" and "things with respect to us" is born. This dualism is a fundamental concept, as we shall see, also for the protection and conservation of nature. The dualistic vision of the natural world was imposed to a large extent in the West thanks to a negative religious influence (eg Christianity placed the dominant man on one side and the nature subjugated by the other), and was proper, among other things, the Greek philosophy that placed man, a thinking and sensitive subject, outside an objectified and subaltern nature. Only in Eastern thought will it be possible to discern, at least in part, a vital philosophy that is not anthropocentric and therefore missing dualism. In the West the self is exalted to the detriment of everything, in the East everything is exalted to the detriment of the self. "The control of nature is a phrase full of presumption, born in a period of biology and philosophy that we could define the Neanderthal Age, when it was still believed that nature existed for the exclusive advantage of man" (Carson, 1963). The philosophy of life of most American Indians is another vivid example of globality and the absolute absence of dualism. "It is a culture of respect for nature, for all the forms in which it manifests itself; a vision of the world as a whole, continuous exchange and mutual dependence; a conception of life as an incessant participation in creation " (Kaiser, 1992). Still quoting Kaiser, it is emphasized that "dualism divides man from nature, thus separating him from himself, as he too is nature ... ... A dualistic conception of man's relationship with his neighbor implies that The individual feels first of all separated from the other, opposed to him ... The dualistic thought of divider sees the man as opposed to nature, for which man would be called to dominate over nature, submitting it to his own will. Nature has no ethical relevance and man therefore has no moral responsibility towards him .... In this respect, traditional Indian thought revolves around the concepts of a great cosmic family and solidarity with everything .... ".
However, we need to highlight the difference between the concept of duality. Kaiser (1992) writes in this regard: "In our reflection it is necessary to clearly distinguish between 'duality' and dualism. The confusion between these two concepts, which we can detect very often, prevents, in fact, a clear differentiation between the Western dualism and the way of thinking, in terms of balance, typical of Asian cultures and American Indians.
The idea of balancing, of balance, of compensation, which distinguishes the Indian interpretation of the world, is based entirely on the concept of 'duality'. We have mentioned the duality between man and woman, but the whole reality is ordered on the basis of that concept: day-night; summer Winter; earth-sky; repulsion attraction; love Hate; joy-sadness .......
In the idea of equilibrium it is fundamental to consider duality not as being formed by opposite realities, of different value, dominated by discord, but by realities of equal value, existing in a complementary relationship and therefore integrating with each other. The true engine of the world is therefore the desire for oppositions to reunite and reconcile. Moreover, it is important not to intensify or prolong indefinitely the divisions and dissonances within the dualities, because otherwise they become dualisms. The dualism, in fact, is a sign of a duality understood antagonistically and not in a complementary way ........
Modern physics, therefore, interprets certain contradictions no longer as mutually exclusive realities, but as different aspects of a single reality ". J. Muir wrote: "....... It has been said that the world was created for man. It is a supposition completely contradicted by the facts. Many are astonished when in the universe of God find something, alive or dead, which is not edible or is not, as they say, useful for man. Not content to take everything from nature, they also claim the divine space as if they were the only creatures for which this unfathomable empire was designed ...
It is much more likely that nature has created animals and plants for their own happiness rather than for the happiness of only one of its elements. Why should man consider himself more important than an infinitely small entity that makes up the great unity of creation? ... .. ".
It is therefore recalled that the interpenetration of opposites, even in diversity, always generates unity within the dialectic of nature provided that the vision of the world is unifying and centripetal.
The "intrinsic or intrinsic value" of nature (natural noumenon) is the highest expression of thought. To affirm therefore that the natural substance (in the general sense of the term) must be preserved and respected for its value in itself, without our own mediation or intuition, is the highest conceptual elevation of conservation that can be formulated. Every action must always be an end in itself without attributing to it a positive or negative value in relation to the possible consequences it generates.
On the contrary, in the common mental speculation of knowledge, we refer "always" to concepts "with respect to us". In fact, interventions are stimulated only if they bring material or spiritual "gains" or in any case utilitarian. Translating, we will have: we protect a centuries-old forest so that in the present and future generations man can enjoy it materially and spiritually.
Here, however, is a superior concept: "Nature must be preserved and respected for its value in itself, not for our material or spiritual interest".
A natural phenomenon has its greatest value in itself, and manifests itself independently of knowledge and sensitive mediation. It is essential to understand that a "place" has something in itself that we can not and must not try to interpret. Only in this way will we succeed in giving the natural world the right value that belongs to it. At one time the human spirit had in itself, in the unconscious, this concept, as a wild wolf or a forest bear possesses it, but the traumatic detachment from nature has deprived it. Every being has its own "vision" of life and unknowingly posits itself (especially as an individual) to the "center" of reality. But this centrality is only apparent, useful for the needs of the survival of the moment. On the other hand, man transforms that centrality into a total subordination of all external reality from him, making only the universal and absolute rights of his own species prevail. All with the maximum of awareness.
When "studying" a natural phenomenon it is impossible to know it without being influenced by the personal speculations of those who carry out this investigation. The claim of Western science to understand aseptically the "objects" of nature without considering the contribution of the subject, is a pure Cartesian illusion. J. Wheeler, physicist at Princeton University reminds us that "there is no law except the law that there is no law".
If, as we have seen, man was in the past a full member of the wilderness of the world, he progressively became the only subject, he came out of the stage of nature, he falsified the truth, and he conditioned to his underhands interests almost all the elements of nature.
Faced with this deep dialectic so articulate and rich in variables, the need arises, within the same human thought, to reverse the state of things, mental and material, to recondition man to a "balanced and just" dimension. This "right" dimension was proper, as mentioned, in the wild peoples or in those who lived in each case in "essence" with nature.
If man remained in connection with the wild world, as an indistinct element in the ordered and unpredictable natural chaos, he did not raise any problem of destruction and intrusiveness and, consequently, of protection, respect or conservation of nature. But his rebellion against natural truth led him to extinguish inside if the sense of original harmony and purity, turning him into a voracious being blinded by his own affirmation and his own self-centeredness. Here, then, that the essential becomes superfluous and the vacuo becomes essential. The total detachment from nature takes place, the overwhelming of things happens and the annihilation of the external world by oneself. Man then considers himself the center of everything and the only yardstick of things. " Nature may have destined the fertile land also for other purposes than for the nourishment of human beings". (J. Muir).
Conservationist thought, seen in its entirety, has often ignored the concept of "noumenon" in proposing a new mental approach to nature, reiterating instead once again the centrality of man as the ultimate goal of protection (anthropocentric ethics). Only ecocentric ethics have introduced this new paradigm in the form of both non-utilitarian and transpersonal intrinsic value (deep ecology). On the other hand, what is recognized in the "concept of wilderness" is very important, in which much importance is given to the preservation of a territory for its value in itself and not utilitarian, spreading these principles profitably, taking fundamental steps towards a new and real conservation philosophy.
The superficial ecology, exclusively anthropocentric, is clearly inclined towards a utilitarian evaluation of nature (nature remains an instrument, a resource at the service of man - Naess, 1994). Deep ecology, on the other hand, tends to attribute an intrinsic value to the things of nature (living and not), universalizing the sense of identification.
Going beyond the intrinsic value of nature means losing oneself in conservative speculations that move away from the assumption of this value and are distorted into a subjective and egocentric profit. The next step, but already contained in the noumenon, is to reconnect with the natural one by crossing and dispersing the dualistic weltanschauung of life. We must dimension ourselves above the parts and the subjective mind. This does not mean that the personal ego must be overwhelmed, but on the contrary it must practice a real subjective revolution to merge into the infinite sea of the impersonal.
"It would be a grave injustice to dismiss utopian thought as pure fantasy, imaginary and unrealizable; relegating it to the defined utopian literature means underestimating its wide diffusion at many levels in all cultures. In whatever way it is expressed, utopian thinking is essentially a critique of the defects and limits of society and the expression of something better " (P. Sears, 1965 in Devall and Sessions 1989).
It is not possible to ignore the wilderness and, I add, even more from its value in itself. Those who understand the intrinsic value of things will have a totalizing vision of life that will be new and profound (in the work it will be honest, in friendship it will be sincere, in love it will be loyal, in the breath it will be deep, the next will be kind, and so Street).
Aldo Leopold rightly asserted that environmental problems are fundamentally philosophical, in which the solution of a new relationship with nature must be sought (Hargrove, 1990).
"We have tried to relate to the world around us only through the left side of our mind, and we are clearly failing. If we intend to reestablish a livable relationship, it will be necessary to recognize the wisdom of nature, aware that the relationship with the earth and the natural world required the whole being " (Dolores LaChapelle in Devall & Sessions, 1989).
John Muir said: "I only went out for a walk but in the end I decided to stay out until sunset: because I realized that going out was, in fact, going inside".
"I declare to understand
what's better
what to say the best.
And always leave the best unspoken. (W. Whitman, A Song on the Rolling Earth)
The Ecosofy T by Arne Naess
by Mariella Guarraci
(Guarraci M., 2004. Thesis "La Deep Ecology as a background for environmental education” Unversity of Milan-Bicocca. Milan)
The introduction by the Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess of the expression "Deep Ecology" expresses the awareness that the simple fight against pollution and waste of resources is useful but limited, as it is not supported and supported by an overview that conceives Man as part of that organic whole that is the Environment. According to Naess, in order to overcome environmental crises, Man must be able to rediscover his position in Nature that reductionism and mechanism
they have lost and in order for this to happen it is necessary that "every adult person assumes the responsibility of elaborating his own answer to the current problems of the environment according to a global perspective". Each subject is therefore called to become aware of ecological ideas and to develop his own proposal, his personal Ecosophy, or an individual code of values that orientates his choices:
"An echosophy is nothing more than a global philosophical vision inspired by the conditions of life in the ecosphere. It should therefore constitute the philosophical basis that allows an individual to inform his action of the principles of profound Ecology. "
The Ecosophy of Arne Naess, which he defined Ecosofia T, where T stands for Tvergastein, the mountain refuge in Norway where it was elaborated, proposes to redirect our civilization by acting from within the political system, seizing what is positive and changing what is not. In fact, Ecosofia T does not align itself with any classical ideology and does not spare criticism from the Christian religion and the Western economy. The biospheric egalitarianism affirmed by the philosophy T does not however represent an extremist perspective: it does not deny the great capacities of homo sapiens but "proposes to use them to develop an attitude of universal responsibility that the other species can neither understand nor share".
The philosophical rules are clear: Man must limit the killing of other living beings, he must not inflict them useless suffering and must never use them only as means. Man must cultivate a new holistic concept where all living beings are considered part of Nature, remembering that:
"Distancing ourselves from Nature and from what is natural means distancing ourselves from what is a constitutive element of the same ego. In this way we demolish our identity, what the individual is, and therefore the sense of identity and dignity. Some environmental factors, for example the mother, the father, the family, the first friends, have a role ". [....]
Naess writes: "if a mouse was placed in absolute emptiness it would no longer be a mouse. The organisms presuppose a "central environment in the development of the ego, and the same can be said of the home and the environment that surrounds it. Ecological and psychological research have highlighted the relationships that our self establishes, in the course of its development, with an infinite wealth and variety of natural phenomena, especially with organic life, but also with inorganic nature. [...] The grown up child, the naturalist in a philosophical sense, extends his positive feelings to all of Nature based on the intuition that everything is interconnected. "
Every living being has an intrinsic value and has the right to life, to the unfolding of one's own potentialities, therefore Man has the right to realize himself, but in doing so he must take into account the achievements of others. Naess clarifies that: "The equality of the right to realize one's own potentialities, affirmed in principle, is not a practical norm which imposes on us an identical conduct towards all forms of life. Rather it suggests, as a guiding criterion, to limit the killing of other beings, and more generally to eliminate the obstacles to their realization. "
For example, Naess rejects the statement: "I kill you because I'm worth more" but not: "I kill you because I'm hungry". It is as if the second statement contained an implicit request of excuse: "I'm sorry, but I have to kill you because I'm hungry." This does not imply a classification of the living according to their value but somehow justifies the fact that it acts differently towards different living beings.
This also leads us to get used to distinguishing mere desires from real needs and satisfying them with the least impact on Nature.
One of the aspects that can greatly influence the change in mentality promoted by deep Ecology is represented by the ability to identify with other living beings. Identification depends on the environment, culture and economic conditions in which we live and is at the basis of the perception of Nature as a complex unit. Ecosophic perspective tends to develop such deep identification processes "that the boundaries of one's self are no longer adequately indicated by the personal ego or the organism. Then one feels deeply part of the totality of Life. [...] This also implies a transition from an I-him attitude to one of the I-you type. "
On the contrary, the inability to identify leads to indifference, leads to relegate objects or events away on a background of no importance and consequently not to intervene until a problem will not affect us directly, perhaps be too late. Naess writes: "The more we understand the bond that unites us to other beings, the more we identify with them, the more we will move carefully. In this way we will also become capable of enjoying the well-being of others and of suffering when a disgrace hits them. We seek the best for ourselves, but through the expansion of the self what is best for us is better for others. The distinction between what is ours and what is not survive only in grammar, not in feelings. "
Once again Education is called into question to promote empathy, the expansion of one's own self, the perception of interdependencies on which life is based and the identification with Nature. This does not imply the renunciation of the modern man to his own cultural heritage but the recovery and enhancement of his tendency, or better, of his need defined as life in the open air.
In Norway, to express this concept we use the word friluftsliv which indicates "a sort of positive state of mind and body in contact with Nature that brings us closer to some of the many aspects of the identification of Self-realization in Nature that we have lost. "
Promoting friluftsliv means increasing healthy entertainment that recalls the occupations of pre-industrial man and allows you to spend more time in contact with nature. Thanks to these activities it is possible to promote respect for nature and to educate oneself in fighting waste, making the most of available resources, recognizing the beauty and value of diversity, developing intuitive and identifying thinking, experimenting the interconnections between and with all that there surrounds, criticize the human interventions of greater environmental impact after having personally experienced the aggressiveness towards the landscape. Spending more time immersed in Nature also allows us to discern the concrete needs from the superfluous ones and to begin to consider the quality of life rather than looking only at the quantity of what it can offer. Only by living all this concretely, on one's own skin, one can develop one's own Ecosophy, internalize the principles of profound Ecology and modify one's lifestyle, not to follow yet another new-age proposal but because one understands its value.
It will not be easy to reach this result because it often expects the situation to reach critical levels before intervening for improvement. It can be very useful to get in touch with political and economic institutions, NGOs, but above all with teachers and mass communication specialists who can convey the new ecological values and push each person to support a less myopic lifestyle that favors the whole ecosphere of which it is a part.
SURFACE ECOLOGY
of Guido Dalla Casa
preconditions
In this chapter I will briefly describe the type of "ecology" usually referred to and which is accepted by a still small but rapidly growing number of people. I will use for this purpose the language that is most frequently used by the media when dealing with the ecological problem.
According to this ecology, in which the distinction between "man" and "the environment" is maintained, the Earth must be kept clean and pleasant because it is "the only one we have", it is "our home", it is a planet done for us. It is necessary to "defend the environment" so that humanity can live better: the changes must be made "on a human scale".
In essence, the global conceptions of the West are never undermined, the dominant paradigm remains the same. Both the ecology born from the problem of the "limits of development". Both the one that tries to keep the environment "beautiful" and habitable the Earth do it above all for the wellbeing of man, whose central and particular position is not in the least shaken.
Even the idea of preserving the Earth in a good state for future generations gives value to Nature only as a function of our species: anthropocentrism is not questioned.
The limits of development
The kind of ecological thinking I will mention now was born in the early seventies with the publication of the famous report of the Club of Rome "The limits of development", a title in which the setting of the study is already evident: development must be stopped slowly because it has physical, objective limits. So we can not help but stop it: we must stop for the man, even if with great displeasure.
It does not affect any principle of the West, indeed the world is considered an extraordinarily complex mechanical system: the mechanistic conception is not in the least questioned. The push to global balance is a physical necessity, the Earth must be respected because otherwise it will not allow the life of man.
The relationship was set by simplifying the world system with five dimensions: natural resources, human population, food, pollution and industrial production. The types of interaction between these quantities on a world scale were then outlined and future trends were studied, extrapolating the trends that occurred since the beginning of the industrial era.
As known, the result of the study was that the system would collapse around the years 2020-2030, of course if the trends and interactions, ie the way of life , had not changed . Around 2030, when the five diagrams of the study "go crazy", the Earth will have intolerable levels of degradation: but this fact was not taken into account as a disaster "in itself".
To those who no longer care about that relationship because nothing has happened so far, even though the previous trend of the quantities in question has been continued, it is worth remembering that there is still a gap of thirty or forty years before something macroscopic should be noticed. On the contrary, the indexes examined are proceeding according to the output curves then from the computer.
The scientist Paul Ehrlich has proposed a parable in this regard which seems to me very informative. Suppose, writes Ehrlich, to find us to get on a plane and see that there is a person who is quietly snapping the rivets, which are a special kind of nails that hold the sheets of the wing together. Naturally, we are alarmed to cry out to the man to stop: but he replies to be calm because it is not the first time he does it (he sells them to a company) and nothing has ever happened; indeed he is about to leave on the same flight, there is nothing to worry about. Obviously, the man does not realize that he will come to remove the bolt that marks the maximum resistance threshold of the private wing of the bolts, and at that point the catastrophe will happen. The same thing happens for our planet: we continue with the greatest unconsciousness to eliminate one species after another, and apparently nothing happens in the global ecosystem. But at some point it will jump everything.
Recall also the comparison of Bateson with the frog boiled in a pot with cold water: if you slowly increase the water temperature, the poor frog will not be able to notice when it is time for her to jump out and end up boiled.
The relationship of the Club of Rome had basically three big advantages:
- to introduce the problem with a scientific-mathematical language, which is usually quite accepted by official circles, even if only as a method;
- to highlight the idea of exponential growth, that is to invite to meditation on what the phenomena that have a similar trend over time mean;
- to draw attention to the gravity of the demographic problem: if the current explosion of the world population does not stop, every other measure becomes useless; today humanity increases by one million individuals every four days .
In this regard it is good to remember that the most overpopulated area of the world - even if it does not grow any more - is Europe, with high density and with very high impact, given the unsustainable level of per capita consumption of its inhabitants.
Exponential growth
I think it useful to recall with a couple of examples what the exponential trend means, which is the way of proceeding of industrial civilization.
The first example is an anecdote:
An Indian Maragià, to pay a debt of gratitude to one of his wise subjects, promised to satisfy his desire.
The sage asked for a certain quantity of wheat: what is obtained by putting a grain on the first square of the board, two grains on the second, then four, eight, sixteen, and so on doubling. The maragià was amazed by the modesty of that request and ordered that a chessboard and a sack of wheat be brought. The person in charge of depositing the beans soon became aware, already in the second row of boxes, that trouble was being prepared and that the bag would not have been enough, even if the first row had gone away with very modest quantities of wheat.
To have the total number of grains, it is enough to multiply two by itself sixty-four times; try and you'll have fun: with the calculator on the market you'll do very soon, but the number will be out soon from the digits viewer. The resulting number on the last box on the board has about twenty zeros and corresponds to the world wheat crop for two thousand years! According to the anecdote, the maragià was in the alternative of not keeping his word or cutting off the old wise man's head. (2)
Another classic example can better illustrate the type of rapidity over time of the phenomena that progress with the "doubling" trend, which is equivalent to increasing the already achieved value by a constant annual percentage.
Suppose that an exponentially growing microorganism with daily doubling "kills" the surface of a lake and takes sixty days to do it all out. If a group of experts, noting the multiplication of the microorganism, went to visit the lake on the 56th day, ie four days after the total death, would see only one sixteenth of the lake already "dead" and all the rest nice quiet: probably if it would only propose some mild corrective and hurl itself against the "alarmists" who considered urgent a remedy.
It is perhaps instructive to follow the trend of this phenomenon (the values are rounded):
If the microorganism has a surface of one square micron (3) and the total surface of the lake is one square Km, one has:
- initially the area covered by the microorganism is one square micron;
- after 20 days the microbe has infected a square millimeter of surface, ie after one third of the total time the phenomenon is not yet perceptible;
- after 40 days, ie two thirds of the total time, the surface covered is one square meter, that is, the phenomenon can only be detected with great difficulty; however no one would give importance to the thing;
- after 56 days, as we have said, a sixteenth of the total is covered, that is, the phenomenon is visible but for many "not yet worrying".
After four more days it's all over.
In light of this exponential trend of the phenomenon "industrial civilization", it seems perfectly logical that for a couple of centuries the true destructive nature of this civilization has not been noticed. In fact, its real effects on Life can not be highlighted if not a very short time before its end: returning to the example of the microorganism in the lake, who could actually notice a polluted square meter if it is spread over a square kilometer surface, ie a million times bigger? Yet at that moment the phenomenon has already "worked" for two thirds of the total time at its disposal.
So the persistence of the current model for two centuries, fact on which the idea of continuation of the ever-growing industrial civilization rests, is instead a further proof of its imminent end: as we have seen, the model can exist without manifesting its true nature for a time almost equal to that of its total existence.
It is useful, however, to remember that the approach to the ecological problem given by the "limits of development" has not been substantially challenged on the scientific level, it has only been ignored by the official world, unable to stop a push that has lasted for two or three centuries. because you can not change the way of life without changing philosophical thought.
At this point one wonders what sense has a cultural model that can not last indefinitely, that is, has in itself the certainty of its own end.
According to the growth priests, "something" will happen that will allow it to always grow. Except that you do not understand what it may be, one wonders why these economists do not immediately bring into the bank a thousand lire and leave it on an account at seven per cent of interest, since - for the exponential phenomenon mentioned above - after about five centuries the sum deposited will become a million billion lire that will make some direct descendant happy, not too far. The beauty is that - according to the same priests, who adore growth as a deity - if one hundred thousand people do the same operation, they all find their million billion after five centuries. Yet only a few more years, and the amount of money of those "bank accounts" exceeds the volume of a sphere that encompasses the entire solar system.
They can not notice this absurdity precisely because growth is considered untouchable, that is, a deity.
It is instructive to report the conclusion of the update of the famous Club of Rome report performed twenty years later:
We have repeated many times that the world is not facing a preordained future, but a choice. The alternative is between models. One states that this finite world has, for all practical purposes, no limits. Choosing this model will take us further beyond the limits and, we believe, to collapse.
Another model states that the limits are real and close, that there is not enough time, and that human beings can not be moderate, responsible or supportive. This model is such as to confirm itself: if the world chooses to believe it, it will make it look right, and again the result will be collapse.
A third model states that the limits are real and close, that there is exactly the time it takes but there is no time to waste. There are exactly the energy, the materials, the money, the environmental elasticity and the human virtue that are sufficient to complete the revolution towards a better world.
The latter model could be wrong. But all the testimonies we could consider, from world data to global computer models, indicate that it could be corrected. There is no way to make sure, if not by putting it to the test. (4)
It is however evident that the third model involves a profound and radical modification of the current values of Western culture, that is a very different life system.
The natural parks
One of the policies of surface ecology is to keep some natural areas of the planet isolated, saving them from the invasion of so-called progress. This practice, while not undermining the foundations that cause the ecological drama and sometimes leaving the suspicion that any kind of exploitation is allowed outside these areas, is in any case to be supported. In fact it is one of the concrete ways in a short time to save species and ecosystems otherwise destined to extinction: they will be able to recover in the suitable areas of the Planet when the dominant paradigms will be changed.
Often the publicity purpose for the Parks is rather anthropocentric, that is they would be created for the "enjoyment of man", but this is the only way - given the premises of the dominant culture - for such Parks to be accepted.
Let's take a few examples:
A swamp must be saved because it is the lungs in the floods, because it is rich in life and therefore provides us with a good sustenance (taking as long as it does not affect the balance of the ecosystem), because we can recreate it by seeing it, and so on.
The forest must be saved because it gives us oxygen, because we still have so many things to learn about it, because many species can one day give us new agricultural crops, for new medicines and for recreational and knowledge purposes.
Already the reasons to save large areas of desert appear less evident. However, some deserts are needed to study the species that have adapted and why this environment can serve as a gym for our daring, seen as a significant "sporting" value.
Ultimately the central and very special position of the "man" is not questioned.
The ethical question and the problem of "rights"
If we bring the problem into legal terms, in the surface ecology nature must be protected because it is "res communitatis" and it is not "res nullius". It remains however always "res", it is a matter of property, of common heritage , something to be safeguarded, but that can and must be used or enjoyed by someone or everyone. Man is always at the center, he is the reference of everything, living or non-living.
Ecosystems, animals, plants are not moral or legal subjects, but have value only in human function (owners, groups, communities, etc.): the animal or the ecosystem are evidently considered "unconscious" or " non-sentient ". It is not clear just how the border is established, or what is the characteristic that gives the title of "moral subject" or "subject of law". If it were any form of "intellect" or intelligent faculty - apart from the usual difficulty of establishing the "threshold quantity" - one would not understand exactly how precise rights are assigned (as subjects ) to a fistful of cells or to the impaired or severe brain injury, or people in a coma, as long as they are exclusively human .
The biblical and Cartesian derivation of these attitudes is evident: the distinction arises from a metaphysical prejudice, which will be discussed later.
The religious ethic of the West has reserved little attention to non-human beings, excluding them from any moral consideration, or simply humanitarian, and relegating them, as they have no soul, in the sphere of means at the service of man. The rise of the philosophy of technological scientism, which degrades everything to an object, has further worsened the collective attitude.
Instead there is nothing to prevent being a moral subject and endowed with rights not only to an animal, but also to a river, a mountain, a swamp.
Today, however, we know from ethology - but also from common sense - that at least the animals experience pleasure and pain and have preferential interests: in short, there are no significant differences between humans and other animals. Neurobiology studies also do not reveal qualitative differences between human and other animal structures. So there are no plausible reasons for excluding them from ethical considerations.
Moreover, since it is not possible to establish borders between animals and plants, or between individuals and the "surrounding environment" and in any case with the holistic and systemic view we will see, there is no reason to exclude any natural entity from being an ethical and juridical subject.
Also for surface ecology, let's start to see what "environmental ethics" means. It has been defined as the set of principles that regulate the relationship between man and the environment: principles that determine specific duties to man. By natural world we mean "the whole complex of the natural ecosystems of our planet, together with all the animal and vegetable populations that make up the biotic communities of the individual ecosystems". It is therefore clear that when talking about the protection of endangered species, it is also necessary to talk about the conservation of the environment in general; also because unfortunately the threatened species are not few, do not limit themselves to some exotic bird, some big carnivore or to animals with particularly valuable fur or to other sporadic cases of the kind. There is now talk of thousands of animal and plant species that have disappeared over the last few years, and tens of thousands in immediate danger of extinction. One arrives to hypothesize their disappearance in the immediate future at the rate of one per hour. It is difficult to quantify precisely, but it is clear that we are dealing with a phenomenon of dimensions such as to ultimately coincide with the disappearance of the natural world itself.
The illusion of the two systems
Our western world is almost always split in two in all fields, given its premises. Let us take a few examples, pointing to the substantial equality of attitude towards Nature of certain currents of thought that are believed to be "opposite", but actually hide the same basic conceptions.
Both the metaphysical believer-atheist dualism and the economic capitalism-collectivism are not relevant to the effects of the ecological problem. All parties say they "defend nature" and accuse the "opposite" pole of being the cause of evil. Until a few years ago, a slice of the West has flaunted the illusion that the ecological drama was due to profit, despite having materialism and progress even as absolute and metaphysical values.
To bring a practical example, the disastrous environmental situation of the former socialist countries is known: the drying up of Lake Aral and its dramatic consequences, the pollution of Lake Baikal, the crazy plans of planetary alteration programmed for the Siberian rivers.
Western culture holders in the West have exterminated the Amerindians, in the East they have destroyed all Asian and Arctic cultures. The West has shown the same face to the East and West, to Nature as well as to other human cultures.
It is not clear what difference implies - even on a theoretical level - the fact of pursuing "development" to obtain profit or to achieve the expected results in the five-year plan.
In both cases, the primary objective is economic expansion, which inevitably brings with it the destruction of nature. The problem arises from the foundations of industrial civilization and not from the details of the economic system.
For example, it is very simplistic to think that the destruction of the Amazon forest or the Siberian taiga is due to "the multinationals" or the Brazilian or Russian governments. The reality of the phenomena is that it is a continuation of the process by which the West devours the Earth and destroys traditional civilizations for some centuries.
We can not get by giving "blame" to someone.
The cause is the very concept of economic expansion, the pillar on which our current civilization rests.
Even the believer-atheist opposition has no substantial differences, as we will see more extensively in the following chapters.
Every ecologic movement that derives from Marxist, Catholic or Protestant conceptions falls within the category of surface ecology. These positions are daughters of the West, they give great value to man and "history" and have "progress" as their myth.
As a metaphysical background, these conceptions believe that the universal (that is, the "matter" or the "physical world") is a kind of clock that man, the only different being, can and must modify to his advantage.
The fact of believing that there is a Watchmaker (the God of the Old Testament) or that does not exist (materialism) causes differences that are not very relevant. With both positions one behaves towards Nature almost in the same way. On the one hand it is believed that the right-duty to change the world comes from God, on the other from a sort of "selective merit" that has made us, in essence, the only "spirit" holders; but the effects are practically the same.
Both positions are inspired by the philosophical conceptions of the seventeenth-century French thinker René Descartes, commonly known as Descartes, as well as the exasperated idea of man's dominion over Nature, typical of the English philosopher Bacon, just to give some examples .
In the imagination of the West, the Universe is a huge, complicated machine that can be dismantled, with the option of the Great Engineer.
Almost all the ecological movements existing today, being children of Western culture and its conception of the world, are inspired by the principles mentioned here: after all, if not, they would probably have a smaller numerical sequence.
This position is quite similar to the idea of an organism seen as the "environment" of nerve cells or of any organ considered as central (man): this organ, or group of cells, would have the right to modify the body, keeping it alive, to take advantage of it, that is, to achieve its balanced expansion and development.
Since surface ecology is part of the general thinking of the West, the idea that the logical aspiration of every individual and every community is "affirmation" or "success" is not questioned. Basically, everything can continue as before, installing filters and purifiers and saving some island of nature around the world.
From the surface ecology comes the illusion of "sustainable development", a term that sounds like "climb downhill" or "dry rain", having in itself a contradiction of terms.
The only clear conclusion but that is not said because it is intolerable to Western civilization (not wanting to change its premises) is that development is not sustainable, it is an impossible phenomenon on Earth, it is incompatible with the global biological system.
Cradling yourself in the illusion that we are about to discover the path of sustainable development can be dangerous. On the other hand, it is perfectly legitimate to speak of "sustainable society", meaning itself as a system in dynamic equilibrium, ie without any permanent material growth.
Finally, even this thought, of Amerindian origin, is part of the surface ecology:
When the last tree has been knocked down, the last poisoned river and the last fish caught, you will find that you can not eat the money deposited in your Banks. (5)
Some notes from the imaginary
If we read some fictional or cinematic anticipation, we notice a greater degree of anguish in the stories set in a world imagined as extrapolation of current trends compared to those in which the world has collapsed that has arrested the phenomena of today, and therefore finds itself in the "Day after" of a traumatic event.
In the former there are expanses of deserts instead of forests, the heat is suffocating, water is rare and hoarded by the rich, the species are few, there is resignation and there is "mandatory" consumption.
In the latter you can count on the rebirth of a changed world, there is at least hope. Life can recover, even if it takes a long time.
Even in the imagination, the optimists are those who foresee the end of industrial civilization, or a radical change of the paradigms of thought and therefore of the ways of living.
Finally, a note from the anthropologist:
Perhaps we must seek in nature, around us, the explanation of the destiny of the West and also the forebodings for our future.
The Lemmings are small rodents North Europe and Asia similar to our voles. In certain periods they leave the Scandinavian Alps in large groups, as guided by a mysterious flute player, and head towards the North Sea or the Gulf of Bothnia. Along this journey, which is their sense of history, they suffer the attacks of carnivores or predatory birds that destroy them by the thousands. In spite of everything, they continue on their way and, having reached their destination, they throw themselves into the sea and drown them.
The locusts also have a similar sense of history. Many species, including migratory locust , live in nature without committing damage: individuals are lonely and scattered. At a certain moment, for a reason still unknown, these species are swarming; the young grasshoppers that are born and grow in thick populations have different color and shape: they are larger and lighter in color, often of a beautiful green.
The naturalists have made it a different species: the gregarious locust . They gather in large groups and, when they are adults, they all fly together, forming the clouds of grasshoppers that Mediterranean farmers fear very much; they advance in huge leaps, in the same inexorable direction for many days. They can devastate every vegetation in a few hours, or fall on a steppe to rot in heaps in the sun or rush to clouds in the sea.
What could lemmings say if they could write the story of one of their migrations? "We are marching towards a happy tomorrow, our highly structured nation grows from hour to hour, and despite various attacks, we are progressing in the same direction, preserving our organization which, alone, allows the individual to march towards that progress that we already see , all blue, at the foot of the mountains ".
The locusts would sing a song of triumph: "We proceed forward. The universe will be able to nourish us for a century, since we are heading towards the "planetization" of our species ".
History makes sense for locusts, for lemmings and for Western civilization: it results in a collective suicide, before the "planetization" of a species. However, every individual sees in this last moment a march towards a better situation. The more the lemmings move away from the starting point, the naturalists say, the more excited they are; nothing can stop them; in front of an obstacle they hiss and grind their teeth for anger.
We too, far from our origins, deeply feel that nothing must hinder our march towards what we call Progress.
In fact, we men of the West do nothing but run towards the sea, towards death, in tight rows. With each war, the vortex in which we are gripped sinks more and more, increasing our material progress, diminishing our last spiritual values, annihilating humanity to the heart of man.
Pride makes us see in this fall the desired fulfillment of our earthly existence. Like the Prince of this World, the West attracts all humanity to itself, promising material goods and knowledge of techniques but chaining it forever, replacing every thought with eternal desire, to better drag it with it.
The scene of temptation is renewed every time the West meets a traditional civilization. Every time men become aware of their own nudity, of their own material underdevelopment. With their flanks bound with cotonine, they must work to the limit of their strength and, when the sweat of the forehead is no longer enough, they must give the balance of their soul and all the harmony of the world. Then the West drags a new damn into its fall, while the doors of a paradise, lost once more, are closed.
If the Western civilization disappeared, humanity would not be affected, since it has not been in solidarity with it for a long time: an empire will have ended up existing, adding to its ruins those of its own pride. Our monuments will be enigmas for the archaeologists of the future, because it will seem strange that men have made constructions for the sole purpose of massively amassing the materials, without trying to lock them, with the key of their thought, the numbers of the universe.
The peoples who will replace us will perhaps speak of divine punishment, without imagining that we have been the judges and the executioners of ourselves, writing each of the letters of our condemnation with the consequences of each of our acts. (6)
----------------
Note
(2) -The reported anecdote is found, with some variant details, in many texts of mathematics and population dynamics (see those of P. and A. Ehrlich) as an informative example of exponential trend.
(3) thousandth of a millimeter
(4) D. and D. Meadows - Beyond the limits of development - Ed. Il Saggiatore, 1993.
(5) This expression of an Amerindian native was published in the magazine "Il Panda" of the Italian WWF and is also reported in a periodical "Verdi News".
(6) Jean Servier - Man and the Invisible - Ed. Rusconi, 1973
Ethics of the earth
"We were eating on a rocky ledge, at whose feet a turbulent stream bent to one side. We saw what we thought was a deer wading, submerged up to the chest in the white water foam. When he climbed the bank on our side and shook his tail we realized our mistake: he was a wolf. Another half-dozen, evidently already grown up, jumped from the thickets of the willows, gathering to welcome, wagging their tails and arguing playfully. In short, a real bunch of wolves stirred and tumbled in the open just below our boulder.
In those days we had never heard that someone missed the opportunity to kill a wolf. In a moment we were unloading lead on the herd, with more excitement than accuracy .......
We reached the agonizing animal, which was a she-wolf, in time to see a fierce green fire extinguish in her eyes. I realized then, and I never forgot, that there was something new to me in those eyes, something that only she and the mountain knew. At that time he was young and his finger was on my trigger; I thought that less wolves meant more deer, and therefore no wolves were equivalent to hunter's paradise. But when I saw that green fire go out, I felt that neither the she-wolf nor the mountain shared that point of view ......
Perhaps this is what Thoreau's saying means: 'The salvation of the world lies in the wilderness'. Perhaps this is the meaning hidden in the wolf howl, which mountains have known for a long time, but which men rarely perceive " (A. Leopold, 1949-1997).
In contemporary society for a real preservation of natural spaces and to be able to fulfill a sustainable development of the human community it is necessary to put into play many practical acts, but that start from the acquisition of a new mentality that, even if still in shape embryonic, it meanders to some extent in the world. Hence the need to express at best and with the utmost clarity a new ethics of the earth in which, the summation of several aspects, must lead to the rooting of a knowledge that can reveal itself in the reality reality of things. In fact it is not enough to talk about the preservation of nature or of a new way of life that is disjointed only on what should be done, but it is fundamental to bring to light numerous questions that concern above all politics, society and the most profound philosophy. In other words, if a holistic vision of the whole is not rooted in the mind of mankind, every discourse that is vehemently stressed to affirm the right path, finds no concrete basis for its implementation. "What does philosophy have to do with ecological problems? Is it not better to speak chemistry, biology, geography, engineering or sociology and politology? The incombere of the ecological catastrophe provokes reactions of resignation or of cynical hedonism and finds its roots in the fragmentation of knowledge and its techniques which is also at the base of the current philosophical crisis. The task of philosophy then appears to ask how man has come to threaten the entire planet and what sense, in this perspective, the traditional idea of progress. But not only: philosophy must identify new values and categories to restore the relationship between man and nature in order to train human beings capable of facing the crisis. Ecology is, literally, the doctrine of the house. But beyond the material abode, the Earth, it is necessary to rebuild the spiritual abode (and with it a new idea of politics) that will guarantee the survival of the planetary house " (Hosle, 1992).
At this point it seems fundamental to remember the concepts, more faces mentioned in this work, that expressed Aldo Leopold (symbolically his awareness started from the day that he saw that "green fire" of the eyes of the wolf disappear ). In fact in his "Ethics of the Earth" contained in his masterpiece "A Sand County Almanc" (1949, 1997), a book that represents a milestone for the conservationist mentality, Leopold goes beyond anthropocentrism and elaborates the "ethics of the earth" "; all ethics are based on a single premise: that the individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts ... once you recognize this it is difficult to deny the rights to the various parts ... the man being a member of the biotic community of the earth can not deny its rights to this. A decision is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends to the opposite (Pagano, 2001). With this simple and acute reasoning Leopold is considered the most important source of modern biocentrism and holistic ethics. Pagano (2001) always writes: "... .. nature was not just an object that man could dispose of at will. Leopold understood that remaining anchored to the daily banality, the thought becomes unable to perceive the grandeur of nature ....... No, until then, had thought of an ethic that operated at the level of species, habitats and even ecosystem processes. In that brief reasoning Leopold argues that human ethics imposes limits on the individual man as part of a community of interdependent parts: human society. But, by broadening the reasoning, if the human species recognizes its role as an integral part of ecological communities it must also automatically recognize the rights of nature. The awareness of being 'fellow travelers' of other natural beings implies that nature has its own value independent of what the human being gives it. Leopold writes in this regard: 'In short, an earthly ethic changes the role of Homo sapiens as the conqueror of the earth to a simple member and citizen of his community' ".
But as we mentioned earlier, the affirmation of a new ethic of the earth must confront itself, in order to be really metabolized, with numerous social, political and philosophical events. "The problem is no longer if environmental problems are better solved through ethical action or political action, but if these problems can be resolved through a complementary action at both levels.
For this dual approach to solving environmental problems to work, as Leopold himself saw clearly, the democratic state must educate citizens about the environmental values that are necessary for both ethical and political action ... ... The objective the teaching of values should not be indoctrination, but clarification ... .. " (Hargrove, 1990).
The concept of clarification is very important because it raises the question on a fundamental point: a biocentric and holistic land ethic must not be taught as something born from a philosophical and metaphysical attitude detached from reality, but simply as something that is already in being, since the formation of the planet earth, something that only in the course of millennia the path of man has lost it from its dimension and that now does not see it anymore or at most it perceives it very faintly. In other words, one must not say something invented by a new vision of life, but rather "clarify" that non-anthropocentric precepts are already in place in the reality of mother earth, both biotic and abiotic. Here then is the appeal for the new ethics of the earth (it must be said new because if it was once present, walking, as we said, we have completely lost), you reappropriate your being and return triumphant in the vision of the whole by the mankind.
The task of this clarification is not at all simple, even if we are talking about something that already exists, because contemporary man has thrown himself headlong towards precepts that see him more and more at the center of things with the claim that every element is his exclusive property and uses it to his free but senseless pleasure. "There may be countless scales of values, but from what has been mentioned it is clear that the first value should be to allow the life of the Biosphere, on which we depend: the survival of the Earth is essential.
The ethics of the Earth is not just a philosophical position, it is above all a necessity to keep alive and in health the organism to which we belong, together with other species, ecosystems, the atmosphere, the sea, the rivers, the mountains " . (Guido Dalla Casa).
A schematic summary of the basic principles of a real ethics of the earth are similar to those presented in the chapter on deep ecology , but for greater clarity and completeness it is good to re-examine them with further additions and clarifications (from Devall & Sessions, 1989, modified):
1. The well-being and prosperity of human and non-human life on Earth have value for themselves (in other words: they have an intrinsic or inherent value). These values are independent of the usefulness that the non-human world can have for man.
2. The richness and diversity of life forms contribute to the realization of these values and are also values in themselves.
3. Men have no right to impoverish this richness and diversity unless they have to meet vital needs .
4. The prosperity of human life and cultures is compatible with a substantial diminution of the human population: the prosperity of non-human life requires this diminution.
5. The current interference of man in the non-human world is excessive and the situation is getting progressively worse.
6. Consequently, collective choices must be changed. These choices influence fundamental ideological, technological and economic structures. The state of things that will result will be profoundly different from the current one.
7. The ideological change consists mainly in the appreciation of the quality of life as an intrinsic value rather than in adhering to an ever higher standard of living. The difference between what is qualitatively large and what is quantitatively will have to be clear.
8. Anthropocentric religious cultures must radically change their vision and spread the ecocentric principle of the earth.
9. The forces that must promote a holistic view of the whole must operate with synergy and involve a multitude of sectors: sociology, politics, economics, philosophy, science, etc.
10. The concept of the value of life must not be referred to in the dissertations only in the human sphere, but must include every form of living being.
11. In the current diffusion of globalization it is necessary to universalize holistic and ecocentric concepts of value and not just aspects of economic and liberalistic utility. It is also necessary to spread at the world level precepts of sobriety, thrift and simplification of lifestyle.
12. The fundamental parameters of a state should not be measured only from the economic point of view (so-called unlimited growth, development, GDP, etc.), but above all from the environmental, social quality and the absolute preservation of natural spaces.
13. We must think that the necessary changes must start from the individual and not only from the whole society, otherwise with the excuse that in general nothing changes, even the individual does not work in any field. It is recollected that the multitude is made up of the sum of many individual units.
14. Always remember to protect and maximize biodiversity on earth.
15. Those who share the previous points are obliged, directly or indirectly, to attempt to implement the necessary changes.
The ethics of the earth must therefore be celebrated not according to relativistic priciples and pigeonholed in dogmatic archetypes punctuated by unilateral and short-sighted visions, but we need to put in place a wide range of models that lead with extreme clarity to that clarification that we could also translate with the term " awareness " . It is fundamental to make the citizens of the world aware to bring them back, albeit by degrees, to those ethical and practical values that were once inherent in the vision of everyday life. Join forces, multiply efforts, but every action must firmly endure the affirmation of a holistic ethics of the earth. Perhaps the task and the intent may seem arduous and almost utopian, but at least one attempt must be made before the world degenerates into the catastrophe that is already in place and is one step away from being completed!
"When we talk about ecology and the protection of nature, dealing with 'visions of the world' seems more abstract, or less practical, than giving advice on waste disposal or conservation of forests, but it's only because we talk about 'visions of the world 'has effects to a much longer duration. However, these are aspects that touch behavior and attitudes much more in depth, compared to the most immediate practical suggestions of petty ecology " (Dalla Casa, 1996).
WA-SHA-QUON-ASIN once said: "This is not the voice of Gray Owl speaking, but the voice of a powerful and ever-increasing army: the defenders of wildlife, whose voices must be heard. Let your ears be open " (Dickson, 1999). And then, as already mentioned in this book, to conclude, one of his bellissma as eloquent statement: "You are tired of these years of civilization. I come, and what do I offer you? A single green leaf ".
The ethics of the earth
of Guido Dalla Casa
preconditions
Today we know quite well what man is: he is an animal, he is a part of the whole of natural cycles, he feeds, develops, reproduces and dies like other mammals. Even his behavior is qualitatively traceable to that of other similar animals. The difference in genetic information compared to a chimpanzee is just over one percent.
The perception of the belonging of our species to Nature should have been welcomed with great serenity; it was like getting rid of a useless weight. Instead it was not so, or maybe not yet, at least in Western culture. In current language, in ethics, in law, man is still considered as opposed to the idea of an animal. Incidentally, the foregoing does not necessarily mean that man is merely an animal.
In Western culture, and therefore now all over the world, even today our species is not in fact considered a part of the Biosphere, but as an external element with respect to which every value is measured. So much so that the expression "the environment" often implies "the human environment", which remains the only reference for all ethical considerations. Even the so-called environmentalists usually speak of "keeping our home clean", preserving the "heritage of all", delivering the Earth in good condition to future generations. The constant reference, considered obvious, is man. But today we know that man is not in the position of "inhabitant of a house", but it is like a group of cells of an organism, on which it depends totally. In fact, the global ecosystem is an organism and not "the environment of man": this position of our species has yet to be understood by Western philosophical currents, as well as by all institutions.
The "external" position of man, exported all over the world on the wave of the tumultuous expansion of the West, is the background of thought that has caused the big trouble in which we find ourselves. Considering man above or outside the ecosystem has also caused the dramatic increase in the human population and the appalling growth in consumption that has characterized the last two centuries.
The functioning of the Biosphere
To use the language of systems theory , a living being is a system that remains in a stationary situation far from thermodynamic equilibrium. In other words, it lives as long as a flow of energy continually passes through it without altering its general conditions, if the small oscillations around standard values are ignored. The living being is a homeostatic system , that is, it is able to maintain itself in the vital conditions by self-correcting the accidental variations that are not too great through interactions between all its subsystems, components and energy flows.
The Biosphere as a whole behaves like a living system, even if in general over longer times. It should be noted that this discourse is independent of considerations, of a metaphysical nature, whether it is a living being ( Gaia ), whether it is the seat of mental phenomena and - in this case - to what extent it is conscious .
Even an ecosystem, for example a fairly large and unaltered portion of equatorial rainforest, behaves like a stationary system far from equilibrium, that is, as a living being .
When one of these systems loses its capacity for homeostasis for too drastic external intervention, one has the death of the living being, or at least the end of the system as such. The timing and the gravity of the interventions able to provoke phenomena of this type are naturally very different depending on the system involved.
Western culture, considering man outside the Biosphere, has made possible the aggression to Nature that began a couple of centuries, that is, when we gave the technical power to do it. Because of the functioning of this cultural model that is invading the whole Earth, the overall homeostatic capacities of the planet are no longer able to bring it back to stationary conditions. Moreover, many ecosystems are destroyed and can not be replaced with other "artificial" ones, because the latter often depend on permanent external interventions to be kept in vital conditions. As an example, we can not delude ourselves that reforestation brings the original forest back to life: it is better than nothing, but it can not replace the richness of life and spirituality of a natural forest.
In reality, the Earth is stationary only if we consider times of the order of decades, or centuries, it is no longer if we consider times of the order of millions of years: the problem lies in the fact that the changes caused by industrial civilization in natural cycles they have speeds ten-hundred thousand times larger than normal, which allow life to adapt gradually to new situations. Using a non-rigorous language, in nature it is as if one passed from one stationary situation to another, without "dangerous" transients. However, to the effects of the considerations outlined above, it is as if the Earth were living in a truly stationary situation.
Today we find ourselves during a "fast" transition: the current procedure can not last long. So it is likely that many parameters that now characterize the global system can not be maintained if the Earth returns to a vital situation. In particular, it is quite evident that the current human population on the planet is excessive to allow the Biosphere to function, with an average level of consumption per capita equal to the current one.
Economic system and human population
The economic system, that is, the process of producing-selling-consuming , can be traced back to a single variable, money. The economic subsystem can not function in a complex and stationary system far from equilibrium, like the Biosphere, which depends on a large number of variables. In essence, the economic process prevents the homeostasis of the Biosphere: the overall system ceases to be stationary. In a living this corresponds to the death of the organism. If we then consider that the current economic system to maintain itself must be growing , a fortiori it is clear that it is incompatible with the functioning of the larger system to which it belongs.
An overall growing economy can only be a transitory, a pathological phenomenon in the Biosphere, which necessarily leads to a "catastrophe" point. This is an element of optimism: the real pessimism is to foresee the continuation of current trends, which lead to a degraded world, to the disappearance of biodiversity, to psychopathies and criminality, to the end of the variety and beauty of the world.
Man never avoids catastrophes, but heals them : let's hope it is true.
It is surprising to note that there is very little research on a problem such as the maximum number of humans that the Earth can bear: for example, in the study reported in the book Assault on the planet Pignatti and Trezza ( Bollati Boringhieri , 2000) we talk about a population eligible for less than two billion individuals, according to the values of a research carried out at Cornell University. In one of the projections hypothesized in the famous ratio The limits of development , a steady state situation was reached only by stabilizing the world population around 1975, which corresponded to a number of human beings of just under four billion, with an average level of consumption less than the current one. Six billion humans can stay on the planet only for very limited times, because they live and consume "devouring" the Earth.
Beyond numerical considerations, it is however quite evident that, if we want to increase consumption per capita, it is necessary to decrease the density of the human population.
It may be a task of science to assess if a product can be achieved and in what quantity without endangering the vital functioning of the Earth. As an example, it is likely that, if we want to build and circulate private cars with an internal combustion engine, the world population must be much less than one billion people, assuming a car per family.
Competition and selection
One of the basic concepts of our society is the idea that competition and selection are a sort of "spring of progress", indeed they are even the way of life's evolution. When, in the mid-nineteenth century, the idea of biological evolution appeared, the struggle for life and survival of the fittest were put in great evidence, as almost exclusive factors of evolution. Instead the main novelty was the belonging of our species to Nature, with all the consequences that this entails. The idea of survival of the fittest as a factor of "progress" was not a biological finding, but a need for the nascent industrial civilization. Recent studies by Lynn Margulis have shown that biological evolution has been largely the result of cooperation and symbiosis between single-celled organisms during at least a billion years.
This does not mean that competition in nature does not exist: it is a factor among many.
The sacredness of the Earth
Along with the operation of having pulled out of the Biosphere, placing itself "above" it, Western man has taken the soul out of the world . But today, even without leaving our culture, some thinkers have expanded the concept of mind to make it independent of the support of a central nervous system: the mind would simply be the result of a certain complexity ( Gregory Bateson ). Even the Jungian psychiatrist James Hillmann often insists on the idea of "Soul of the world". From different ways the mind reappears in Nature, even if for now it is a matter of little diffusion, always limiting itself to Western culture.
Recall that, in addition to the philosophies of more or less isolated spirits, there are religions, which have a much greater influence on the multitudes.
One of the main tasks of religions could be to provide a vision of the world in which to frame the phenomena and to give moral prescriptions that do not concern some immediate or short-term problem or just human issues, but which preserve the health of the Earth, as well in itself: this task can not be entrusted either to politics or to "practical" institutions.
Religions, rather than thinking about what "the truth" is, could spread feelings of empathy and love towards all sentient beings, that is, towards all natural entities.
In this regard, the philosophical-religious traditions that have been most concerned about the good of the natural complex at an indefinite time have been some traditions of oriental origin (Buddhism, Jainism, Taoism) and some animist cultures, especially those native to the American continent. Often the perception that these were "ecological" prescriptions was not very obvious, at least to Europeans.
I mentioned some western thinkers beforehand, to which I will add the biochemist and philosopher Rupert Sheldrake, who writes:
What changes if we consider nature alive rather than inanimate? First, we put into crisis the humanist hypotheses on which modern civilization is based. Secondly, we establish a different relationship with the natural world and acquire a different perspective of human nature. Third, a new sacralization of nature becomes possible. ( The rebirth of Nature , Ed. Corbaccio , 1993).
I have limited myself to the most recent writings: they are isolated cases, which have not had much follow-up, but which nevertheless exist.
If nothing else, they are able to emphasize that, in order for the sense of the sacred to be present , it is not absolutely necessary to postulate the existence of a personal God who is external to the world and who deals exclusively with humans, as in the original Middle Eastern traditions. and spread in Western culture.
With regard to these religious foundations of the West (also of the secular part), a positive change in the attitude towards the natural world would have been recognized if the Indian-Buddhist, and not Judaic, matrix of Christ's teaching was recognized .
Conclusions
There may be countless scales of values, but from what has been mentioned it is evident that the first value should be to allow the life of the Biosphere, on which we depend: the survival of the Earth is essential.
The ethics of the Earth is not only a philosophical position, it is above all a necessity to keep alive and in health the organism to which we belong, together with other species, ecosystems, the atmosphere, the sea, the rivers, the mountains.
If instead of systemic logic we want to hear the voice of the heart or of the soul, here is an expression of a native culture of the American continent (ethnìa Wintu , which was located in the north-west of the current United States):
When we Indians kill, the meat we eat it all. When we extract the roots we make small holes: when we build houses we make small holes in the ground. We do not cut down trees: we only use already dead wood. But this other race of man is plowing the land, cutting down the trees, killing all the animals. The tree says, "Do not do it. You hurt me. Do not hurt me". But the white man breaks it down and cuts it into pieces. How can the Spirit of the Earth love this man? Wherever he touched, the Earth was hurt.
(article published in the March 2003 issue of the ALDAI Review)
Holistic view of the world
of Guido Della Casa
When we talk about ecology and the protection of nature, dealing with "worldviews" seems like a more abstract, or less practical, than giving advice on waste disposal or forest conservation, but it's only because we talk about "visions of the world" world "has effects to a much longer duration. However, these are aspects that touch behavior and attitudes much more in depth, compared to the most immediate practical suggestions of petty ecology.
preconditions
Let us summarize some foundation of current knowledge incompatible with the Jewish-Christian cultural background and with Descartes dualism:
- Neither the Earth, nor the Sun, nor anything else are at the center of something: the stars are all equally grains in the sea of Infinity. There is no center of any kind.
- Humanity is an animal species appearing on one of the many planets only three million years ago, against the three or four billion years of life on Earth and the fifteen or twenty billion years since the presumed birth of the Universe, assuming that the Everything is not something that has always been cyclically pulsed. So the alleged "King of Creation" would arrive a little late, while his so-called "kingdom" was waiting for him with little impatience.
Moreover, it takes a good presumption to think of "improving" what took four billion years to become what it is. Humanity is part of everything in all of Nature. The vital phenomena are the same in all species.
- Western culture is only two or three thousand years old, industrial civilization is two hundred years old: these are completely insignificant times. Even the concept of progress has a very short life, no more than two or three centuries; obviously we can live even without this fixed idea.
The division between prehistory and history is only a mental scheme of our culture, which serves to nurture a certain vision of the world. There is no reason, nor any scale of privileged values, to consider a culture better or worse than another. Note then that it is used to call "history" what has happened in the last five thousand years to Western civilization and the entire life of the Earth, ie four billion years and five thousand human cultures, is liquidated with the only "prehistory" label.
- Essential mental functioning, behavior, are essentially similar in all animal species close to us. Most of these are non-conscious phenomena.
- Quantum physics has demonstrated the intrinsic impossibility of describing material or energetic phenomena without considering observation; this means that, without the mind, matter-energy is meaningless, it is in no way describable, it is "devoid of reality", it is only a kind of wave of probability. Newton's mechanistic physics remains only the practical function, even if in our basic schools there is no trace of the profound change that has taken place.
From this picture a very ancient and widespread conception is born: animism. A form of "mind" must be everywhere, it is inherent in the universal, if we want to avoid the paradox of the "observer" that determines the so-called reality. The distinction between spirit and matter falls completely. The Great Spirit and the spirit of the tree, of the Earth, of the river, of the bison return to the memory.
There is another legend to be debunked, that of the so-called neutrality of science, or the independence of science from metaphysical conceptions. The official science often resorts to real intellectual acrobatics while not leaving the Cartesian paradigm, which it considers "obvious" and "acquired". Thus it finds itself in way without exit, and sometimes it is forced to deny or not to consider the facts not framed in that conceptual scheme, in order not to question the premises: and then it must make whole categories of phenomena of macroscopic interference disappear, or non-distinction, between spirit and matter, with the excuse that they would not be "repeatable".
The serious difficulties of physics come from the desperate insistence in wanting to frame modern knowledge in the Cartesian paradigm.
Yet even today, to appear "modern", many people love to call themselves "Cartesian" or "rational", not knowing how to defend the thought of the nineteenth century. The ideas of the French philosopher are accepted by the great majority of people simply because what we breathe from birth appears obvious to us, which means that it does not appear to us at all. But the primacy of the rational on the emotional and on the intuitive is only a prejudice of today's western culture.
The opposites
Western culture sees everything split in two: this is already a source of anxiety; not only, but he considers the two parts "opposite" and he lives them in a schizophrenic way, he does not consider them two indivisible poles, two sides of the same coin, two aspects of the same thing.
He thinks that a "pole" is better and he wants to make the other pole disappear.
Some scientists are even desperately searching for the magnetic "monopole", that is, they want to "discover" a north pole without the south pole, which has been impossible until now. But perhaps even the monopoly will be a creation of the mind. Even in magnetism it seems that someone considers the north pole "a little more beautiful" than the south pole.
If we want to use the terminology of Taoism, the West wants a Yang-only universe: the Yin must be abolished; as if this made sense. However, in this way only anguish is caused. The West wants the serene without the rain, the one-way time and not the cyclic one, it wants the competition, the supremacy, the affirmation of the ego, the progress towards the future like a semirect. He wants life without death, Being without the Nothing, activity without passivity, doing without meditating, growth without diminishing.
Journalists of the economic world do not even mention the decrease, they want to exorcise it by calling it "bending", which is another thing. As if it were possible to have the mountains without the valleys.
This view of the world as a complementarity of Yin and Yang and not as a pursuit of a single pole is basically the philosophy for which it was very difficult for technological progress and industrial civilization to be born a thousand years before in the West.
As for death, let's see how it came.
Two or three billion years ago, the Earth was populated with microorganisms that reproduced dividing into two: so they did not die.
There was a genetic heritage available that could be renewed only very slowly through some mutation. It was very difficult to create new organisms.
To allow the emergence of variety, beauty and spirituality in life you had to have many new forms and organisms: then mix everything in a much quicker and more creative way.
So Nature - which you can also call God - invented sex and death.
That is why, since then, death has become useful and necessary to allow Life. Death is just the other side of life.
Today the images born of the computer prevail, which some greet as non-mechanical, as holistic. But even if they introduce non-mechanical ideas of information and relationship, they are based - on an elementary level - on a binary logic, still on a SI-NO or full-empty dualism, then on a contrast. They also perpetuate the Cartesian division, renamed hardware and software.
A vision of this kind can hardly be a starting point for merging or integrating the so-called two cultures, or an approach to integrate opposites.
Quantum physics, on the other hand, admits a logic "YES and at the same time NO", "empty and at the same time full", and can accept non-quantitative and non-mechanical positions. With the universal indeterminacy one can integrate opposites by seeing them as complementary and co-present. This is not a trinary logic YES-NO-I DO NOT but of an indeterminate multiple possibility. Even distinctions as real-imaginary, discovery-invention, and so on, lose meaning. With the new approach we could emerge from the tangle of innumerable particles that are gradually "discovered": otherwise we will end up finding everything we are looking for, in order to find it in a certain way, that is, we can invent-discover who knows how many others " particles "in an endless sequence. By now all these "entities" have a mental content barely concealed by mathematical language.
With a possible non-Cartesian conceptual refoundation, there would no longer be just a "physics" in the materialistic or prequantistic sense, but something more, making the distinction between physics and metaphysics, between "material" and "spiritual" knowledge even more evanescent. . Above all, in this sense, the new physics can be the bridge to connect the so-called "two cultures" and lead to a progressive disappearance of their distinction.
Visions of the world
Among the many "visions of the world" present in humanity is absurd that there is the "true" or "right" because this would be an inexplicable asymmetry.
Therefore the idea of "truth" is a characteristic that derives from the Cartesian view of the "objective" or "real" world that "is" in a certain way.
The visions of the world are all equivalent and real as such and as manifested in some system of thought. There can not be the "true" or "right" one of the others. Otherwise, how could so many different visions occur and also continuously vary in time?
Even religions (essential components of the world view) are all equally true or untrue. They constitute our relationship with the Invisible.
We have already mentioned the concept of truth. The questions are very stimulating, so-called "definitive" answers only bring trouble. It is not a matter of asking oneself "Will not the other be right?" Because this presupposes that there is a "reason". Nor is it a matter of "always being in doubt" because this presupposes something certain and real on which to doubt, it means that one is in doubt about some "truth".
The concept of doubt presupposes that of truth. It is different to abolish the true-false antithesis, considering the two terms as complementary and co-present. Thus the distinction between "the facts" and "the opinions" is illusory, because what are called "objective facts" are only the opinions of a human cultural model: in our world the opinions of Western culture are called real facts. In every culture a truth is formed, which however is as valid as any other.
However, the concept of "absolute truth" and the consequent need to "discover it" can be assimilated to a cage, to an oppression.
The universal appears as a spirit or a subject, depending on what is sought. As the physicist finds particles or waves depending on what he is looking for, so materialist cultures find matter, animist cultures find spirits.
Any dispute over what is "right" interpretation is meaningless: it is this dualism, created by us, which gives rise to the problem, otherwise non-existent.
Only in the absence of the concept of truth can one see something absolute, or non-differentiated. Truth is changeable and elusive, while variability is universal and incessant.
Descartes condemned us to the truth, but already four centuries ago Montaigne had written: The concept of certainty is the most solemn stupidity invented by the human being.
Moreover, these are not even news, if you think of ancient statements, such as:
- "The Tao that can be explained is not the true Tao" (Lao-Tse);
- "What I have to teach can not be taught" (Buddha);
- Finally, to Pilate's question: "What is the truth?", Christ answered with silence.
With regard to the integration of opposites such as "one who acts" and "the matter on which one acts", note that the same European languages prevent us from thinking of a process that occurs spontaneously, that has in itself its reason d'etre.
We always think of "someone" acting, something "external" that causes events. We are not psychically equipped to conceive immanence; likewise we translate the term Taoist wu-wei, which means "spontaneous action according to the nature of things", as non-action.
Every verb must have a pronoun by subject, an agent: so we are used to thinking that something is not in its place if there is not someone or something that assigns it to that place, if there is not a manager. The idea of a process that happens totally by itself almost frightens us: it seems to us that there is no authority. The idea of the God of the Old Testament and Cartesian dualism reappear everywhere.
Stability and movement
The ancient metaphysical divergence between Heraclitus and Parmenides, that is, the contrast between becoming and being, is also a matter of complementary visions. Apparently, with the perennial and unpredictable flow, with the becoming and the laws of chaos, the dispute seems "resolved" in favor of Heraclitus, after 2500 years. The universe appears an incessant flow if we keep time as an autonomous variable.
By adopting a four-dimensional approach, that is, by understanding time as a variable interconnected with spatial ones, we find ourselves in a different framework, which appears "immobile". In a Minkowsky universe - the mathematicians would say - the world seems parmenide, "immutable".
But this is not about right or wrong vision.
The dilemma is insoluble because it is inherently non-existent. These are complementary modalities that attract each other, not opposing positions.
In one of the fragments of the same Heraclitus, it is written that the incessant change presupposes a motionless background without which movement could not be appreciated.
Conclusions
Let's try to sketch some conclusions.
There is a reductionist approach aimed at studying the primary elementary causes of a phenomenon, which always assumes decomposable into simpler parts, and there is a holistic approach, which starts from the global properties of a system, which can not be reduced to the whole of its elements.
The physicist constantly refers to the elementary particles, the DNA biologist, the sociologist to the individual, hoping to reduce the complex to the simple, and this is done for ecosystems.
But the recent notion of complexity is different. Everything is worth more than the sum of the parts, because there are mutual correlations. Not only that, the way of choosing the components (which individually have no autonomous reality) is arbitrary, because it presupposes a preconceived conceptual framework, a prejudice.
Reductionism arises from the dominant paradigm of the West, that is, from the idea that it is possible to break down anything, or event, into separate parts.
The reductionist approach has been that followed above all in the last centuries and that has brought to the vision of the world and to the current way of life of the people of Western culture, or that have absorbed the values of this culture. The holistic approach is difficult for those born with the fundamentals of the first and is just beginning to manifest itself today in individual form or little more.
So for now we can also consider ourselves free to imagine, or to hope. The passage necessary to implement and make habitual a new way of thinking is very difficult, even for those who were intellectually convinced. Each one can imagine in his own way the consequences that may derive from a possible statement on a general scale of the holistic approach.
As an exercise, let's try to imagine a world in which:
- opposites are only complementary aspects of the same thing;
- death is simply the other side of life: Nature is made of both as inseparable aspects of the same phenomenon;
- there is nothing to fight, nothing to prove, no competition to win or lose, there is no need for rankings or records. The very concepts of victory, defeat and challenge are useless;
- there is nothing to conquer, manipulate, alter;
- the concepts of reason and wrong, merit and guilt, are only dangerous superstructures of the mind, which excite violence and extinguish the smile;
- there is no distinction between spirit and matter, between humanity and nature, between God and the world. The mind is widespread, universal, indivisible. We are not anything special or central.
Since the idea of "objective reality" has disappeared, the concepts of truth and certainty become useless: with everything in continuous dynamism, the concept of truth tends to coincide with that of Nature and therefore, in a pantheistic vision, with the idea of divinity.
It is good to clarify that this is not a static vision, a world in which the absence of the concept of "progress" involves an unchanging way of life, always equal to itself, or "waiting". In a sense, it can be compared to a river: it seems similar to itself, but instead flows, maybe even quickly.
In the torrent there are never two moments in which the same water passes, which is continuously moving. The stones are there in the middle: they are not attacked or split, but left where they are. The water bypasses them, passes equally and descends towards the plain and the sea.
It is not a matter of "not doing", but of acting according to the natural course of things, according to Nature. Thus one can continue to swing a pendulum by hitting it rhythmically, as long as the blows are synchronous with its frequency.
Moreover, today in our world there is an obsessive invasion of terms such as struggle, battle, supremacy, competition, race, challenge, victory, defeat and the like: just read a newspaper to realize how many facts are interpreted with this scheme.
In the new vision, we try instead to favor the cooperative and universalizing aspect towards the competitive and self-assertive one, today exalted in an abnormal way by Western culture; with other language, it is about recovering the "feminine" aspect of the world ... ...
There is no need for "battles", but above all we need to understand, accept and smile. The "struggle for peace" is an ambiguous expression, because peace is a condition of non-struggle: it is an attitude. It is about making it universal. I repeat, this does not mean "doing nothing" or "letting go": the most useful action is perhaps that of spreading ideas, that is to oppose preconceived current ideas, perhaps with a smile. To actively contribute to making the idea of non-struggle universal is in any case an action.
The world is not something to be conquered, but it is the whole of which we are a part. If we then have to try to "grow" something, let's try to improve our perceptual qualities to achieve a better harmony with the vital rhythm of the Cosmos. It is not that in a world of this kind there is "nothing to do" or "nothing to think about": you can admire the flowers and the trees, watch the moon and the stars, watch the birds fly and feel in tune with them , and above all to think, to participate in the universal symbiosis.
If we abandon the mania of success and enjoy the pleasure of non-competition we will reborn the taste for life.
In the conception that sees mind and matter as the only indivisible expression of Nature, we are certainly quite far from the idea of "brute matter" moved by something "external", from the idea of a world made for us and manipulated to our advantage (! ) and liking. The reality of today, due to the affirmation of a particular way of thinking in a human culture, the Western one, shows that the disasters caused by our species to the Global Equilibrium are of infinitely greater severity than those eventually caused by other living beings, but it is not just ethical considerations, because if the cultural premises do not change, the already enormous disasters will become irreversible. Even if Nature manages to restore a balance (as it does with other species, but on a much smaller scale), it will result in a much "poorer" situation of Life and Mind.
The fact of not considering ourselves "special beings" or "in a central position" should not induce pessimism; on the contrary, it is a reason for happy serenity.
Instead of the God-Person distinct from the world and judge of human actions, we find the immanent God-Nature in all things, and therefore also in ourselves, that we participate in it. Divinity observes itself even through the eyes of a marmot, or an ant, or the fascinating and mysterious sensitivity of a tree.
Overcoming anthropocentrism
"Man is an outdated philosophical phenomenon. The universe is far too vast for man alone to dwell there " (HD Thoreau). It is sad to have to admit it, but the impact that man exerts on the territory is in dramatic contrast with the needs of the natural economy. It would be desirable to arrive at a drastic reduction in population pressure, but such an auspice is unfortunately colored by mad utopia. "To drastically reduce the demographic pressure: a great act of altruism towards nature" ; this is the precept that each of us should learn by heart, but we know well that the invocation has little chance of being heard. It is useless to discuss the reduction of consumption, the reversal of trends or the control of pollution: these are just words that go away with the wind. Reality is a raw aut-aut, or man or nature is reduced. He is the man who must adapt to the needs of nature and not vice versa. Nature must be saved and respected for its value in itself, not for our interest, material, ethical or spiritual. The binomial between man and nature must definitively free itself from the conflict that has distinguished it over the millennia, and must emanate from the inveterate anthropocentric vision of the universe, to finally give rise to the re-establishment of a harmonious and unitary relationship between man and nature and to reaffirm the value in itself of things. Aldo Leopold wrote (1949 in Devall & Sessions, 1989) ".... we are only traveling companions of all the other creatures in the odyssey of evolution .... Acquiring an ecological awareness changes the role of homo sapiens from conqueror to a simple member and citizen of the community-land. This implies respect for one's companions and also for the community as such ".
We are all guilty: those who write more than others . With our current needs even the most peaceful life is destructive to nature.
As long as humanity perseveres in the current pattern of development, wild animals will see their living space reduced day after day to make room for the "lord man" king of creation.
J. Passmore (1986) writes: "... I think it's true that men need a new genuinely non-anthropocentric metaphysics ..... The elaboration of the new metaphysics seems to me to be the most important task of today philosophy ..... the rise of new moral attitudes towards nature is therefore connected to the emergence of a new philosophy of nature seen in its total and all-encompassing globality. This is the only adequate basis for effective ecological sensitivity ". The Devall & Sessions discourse completes well when they say: "The dominant ideology is the system of values, opinions, customs and norms that form the frame of reference for a community, for example a nation ..... We rarely hold debates on general assumptions of the conception of the world. There are excuses for the various problems, while the different positions are not openly addressed. Those who questioned the basic theses of the dominant ideology are often accused of heresy . The new heretics of the 21st century are precisely those who question the certainties of the dominant anthropocentric ideologies. In the introduction to his excellent work Dalla Casa (1996) he writes that: "the ecological problem arises from the attitude of the dominant culture, from the basic thought of industrial civilization, from its collective unconscious. It is a philosophical problem, much more than a practical and technical problem. If the vision of the world is not profoundly modified, only transient results are obtained, as well as the effects of time displacement, although very useful, of insoluble problems. In order to change a vision of the world, that is a culture, we usually require times of the order of a couple of centuries. But Mother Earth will not be saved without such an overturning, ie without the end of industrial civilization, which is the current expression of Western culture and the practical application of materialism. Instead, once the Western worldview has disappeared or changed profoundly, the ecological problem will no longer exist ........
....... One of the objections that is moved to deep ecology is that it would not involve concrete actions: it is good to underline again that cultural changes do not seem to be concrete just because they take place over a long period of time. But they are much deeper and more radical ".
Giuseppe Acerbi, an Italian explorer of the eighteenth century, after the experience of a long journey in the great northern Finland he wrote (in Francescato, 1988): ".... He will not go there to admire the works of the civilized man; but rather to contemplate the nature, the order, the harmony prevailing in all the productions of creation, the immutable bond of the chain of things ... with what design these aurora borealis are placed in the economy of nature, those shows yes brilliant of the air ...; qué lakes, qué rivers, those cataracts ... as long as he believes that he is the king of created things and will abandon himself to the presumptuous idea that all the things placed on this globe exist for nothing else but for him. ...
it is a truth proven by daily experience, both for individuals and for whole societies, that their happiness diminishes in proportion to their distance from nature ".
Only the total disappearance of anthropocentrism will save life on planet earth! Any other compromise will be doomed to fail. For the sake of clarity it is good to refer to the term "anthropocentrism", as Hargrove writes (1990): "There is also much confusion provoked by the two conflicting meanings of the term anthropocentrism used in environmental ethics. As we have already noted, the word is often used to mean 'utilitarian', but also, just as often, 'human' or 'conceived in terms of human awareness'. Non-anthropocentrists, on the one hand, often require the recognition, or discovery, of non-anthropocentric value, so that natural things are no longer treated in a purely utilitarian way. The anthropocentrists, on the other hand, who do not want to treat all natural things utilitarianally and define the term in the second sense, respond that even if we attribute non-anthropocentric value to animals and natural objects, the values will always be anthropocentric or 'human', as they are always values created by men who value ". We believe that this is true only if we forget the "value in itself of things", independent and autonomous value that disregards human perception.
Writes From the House (1996): "... It is not possible to think of saving the world from ecological catastrophe without analyzing the concept of development and without remembering that this concept is the product of a single human culture at a given moment in its history: Nature is destroyed by the demon of doing that devours the West and its eagerness to change the world.
The West, prey to the demons of having and doing, has forgotten the living, knowing and being ... ".
The native peoples, as repeatedly expressed in this work, are an enlightened example of environmental integration and ecocentric spiritual development, far from anthropocentric concepts. JD Hugues (1983 in Devall & Sessions, 1989) writes: "(...) The cultural patterns of American Indians, based on careful hunting and agriculture and in accordance with the spiritual perceptions of nature, have effectively preserved the life on earth and the earth itself (...). The Indian conception of the universe and of nature must be seriously examined as a valid way of relating to the world and not as a superstitious, primitive and non-evolved vision .... Perhaps the main intuition that can be drawn from the Indian legacy is the great respect for the earth and life (...). It is important for us to learn from nature how the first American Indians did, keeping our ears on the ground, and regaining our perspective by often experimenting with direct contact with the non-artificial world, with animals and wild spaces ... In the traditional vision of the Indians, the people, an interdependent social group, live in harmony with nature (...) ".
The anthropocentric error
of Guido Dalla Casa
preconditions
The movements that are inspired by deeper environmental ideas than the usual means of communication and environmental associations (resources, waste, cleaning, pollution, parks, etc.) are fortunately multiplying. As examples: Deep Ecology, Happy Decrease, Ecopsychology, Bioregionalism, the study of native cultures, the critique of civilization, spirituality outside of organized religions, and others.
Some of these movements can not completely free themselves from a background of thought that for Western civilization is more than a thousand years old: anthropocentrism. Everything is referred to man as the sole depository of values. In my opinion, if we do not get rid of this basic idea, ecological action is bound to fail.
Of the above mentioned movements, Deep Ecology has ecocentrism as its foundation: the abandonment of the anthropocentric idea is its fundamental premise. Of the others, someone does not deal specifically with the problem or does not show full awareness of the negative aspect of anthropocentrism.
According to the critique of civilization, the humanity of gatherers-hunters was spontaneously seen in an interconnected network of living beings, with room for other sentient beings equal to the human. As regards ecopsychology, the ecological unconscious includes humanity and places it within the community of the living.
These two movements are therefore aware of the need for profound criticism of current anthropocentrism.
If we refer to institutions, official documents or political instances, anthropocentrism is always present, but it is considered obvious.
As an example, let's take a look at the text of the European Commission The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity, which is also a document with the best intentions. Language is strictly economic. Some examples: "our stock of natural capital", "natural capital of the earth", "expand our concept of capital to include human, social and natural capital". The concept of capital is repeated several times, even that of "natural" capital!
The ever present idea is the location of humans outside the world of Nature: this is absurdity from all points of view. The human being appears as a foreign element, above all: it is the aim and the end user of all services.
Even in documents with pro-ecological intentions, it is called "heritage of humanity", not just for something like the pyramids of Egypt or a work of art, but for the Dolomites or the Grand Canyon of Colorado, which are there for hundreds of millions of years, while our species is only two or three million years old! Even keeping the world in good shape "for future generations" is a strongly anthropocentric expression.
Science
It is now known to science, since the days of Lamarck, that is, for a couple of centuries, that man is an animal species in all respects, also easily classifiable: Mammals Class, Order Primates. Our species fully participates in the life of the ecosystem complex, our cellular and physiological functions are the same as the other mammals, even the behavior does not have particular qualitative exceptionality. The other animals, especially Mammals and Birds, suffer, love, reason, take care of their children, have a structured social life, transmit culture.
So two centuries have passed in vain.
The genetic differences between a human and a bonobo chimpanzee are in the order of 1%. However, the "official" reductionist-mechanistic-materialist-Cartesian science forgets its own knowledge: in order not to have to speak of respect for Life and to avoid the consequences on ethics, it has replaced the previous "divine right" with a kind of "merit" selective "and has not only legitimized and continued the work of exploitation of the natural world and extermination of the living, but also justified" experiments "that entail terrible suffering to many sentient beings.
Recently a book by a Dutch scientist has been published in Italian (R.Corbey - Metaphysics of the Apes - Bollati Boringhieri, 2008), in which, in addition to other considerations, we research what the characteristics that divide the human from the animal can be . In the recent past this boundary has always had to be moved, as new discoveries and new studies accumulated, but finally the attempt to maintain a division anyway failed: the border does not exist. The other animals play, suffer, love, have deep emotions, keep a behavior that is completely comparable to the human one. Anthropocentrism is devoid of any scientific-philosophical basis.
The other animals certainly communicate with each other. If the criterion of division was writing, we should relegate "on the other side" almost all human cultures, in which knowledge is transmitted orally: but orality and writing are only different modes of transmission, there is no "progress" from one to another. Otherwise we would be forced to describe the "history" within the usual paradigm that leads to the West and then to industrial civilization as the summit of "progress", something that has now been overcome by all points of view.
I remember very well having read, some thirty years ago, that a scientist had carried out an in vitro fertilization experiment that involved two gametes, one of which was human and the other was chimpanzees. In one of the attempts, fertilization was successful and an in vitro embryo had developed in a very initial phase. I have no guarantee of the truth of the fact, but it would not seem so strange to me. However, Western civilization could not bear such news: so it is no longer heard of it. It was more evidence of our complete belonging to Nature, even if it was needed.
All this in the face of the scientific method, of enlightenment and of reason.
Recent studies
The following excerpts are given in the article "Minds of their Own" by Virginia Morell, published in the National Geographic March 2008 issue. The article is a summary of the results of thirty years of studies on the mind, behavior and learning abilities of many non-human sentient beings by Irene Pepperberg and other scientists. Pepperberg started her project in 1977: a parrot named Alex was brought to the laboratory with the intention of teaching him English. But let's read a few pieces of the article:
"Alex counted, recognized colors, shapes and sizes, had an elementary notion of the concept of zero".
"Chimpanzees, bonobos and gorillas are able to learn sign language and use symbols to communicate with us. The Bonobo Kanzi brings with him a blackboard full of symbols that allows him to "talk" to the researchers, and he has invented, to express himself, new symbolic combinations ".
"Azy (an orangutan) has a rich inner life. In addition to communicating his thoughts with the symbols of a keyboard, Azy also shows a "theory of the mind" (that is, includes the point of view of another), and makes logical choices that demonstrate considerable mental flexibility ".
"Today, a large number of studies indicate that intelligence is a flexible gift, and its roots in the animal world are extensive and profound".
"We are not the only ones who know how to invent, to plan our actions, to have an image of ourselves; and not even the only ones to lie and deceive ".
"Intelligence is a tree with a thousand ramifications: it does not have a single trunk that only points in our direction".
"Equipped with a big brain and agile tentacles, the octopuses can block their burrows with rocks, and they have fun shooting water at targets such as plastic bottles or researchers."
"Kanzi, a bonobo, as a child, learned to communicate spontaneously observing the scientists who trained his mother. At 27, this bonobo "speaks" thanks to more than 360 keyboard symbols, and understands the meaning of thousands of words spoken aloud. Kanzi can formulate sentences, execute new instructions, and make stone tools, changing technique according to the hardness of the material. Create tools like those of the first humans ".
"The jays can reason: knowing they are thieves, they move food supplies if another jay looks at them; they plan future meals, and in making provisions they take into account future needs rather than hunger of the moment. "
"Dolphins have excellent memories, creative flair and linguistic skills; they are versatile, both from a cognitive and behavioral point of view. They have a great generalist brain, just like us. They change their world to make new things possible. "
It is also evident that we reason on the averages: the most intelligent of the bonobos has (or is) more mind-psyche-spirit of the less gifted of humans.
Another excellent article by Mary Roach (Almost Human: National Geographic, April 2008), reports sentences like "It is impossible to spend some time with the chimpanzees and not be struck by the observation of how similar they are to us): there are interesting considerations on the different cultures of chimpanzees, even in a limited area, depending on the habitat in which they live.
Again from National Geographic, October 2010, here is a statement by Jane Goodall: "You can not live together with any animal with a brain developed without realizing that every animal has a personality).
If we then venture to study the mind of a termite nest or the behavior of collective beings, we become even more aware of the absurdity of the current mechanistic conceptions.
The environment
When it comes to problems related to ecology, it is very often used the word environment, a misleading term, because it conveys the idea that it is an inert entity, "not living".
It is used to call "environment" a complex of:
- over twenty million species of sentient beings;
- all ecosystems that, according to recent scientific-philosophical theories, can also be considered sentient beings;
- substances in continuous exchange and movement;
- relations between all the elements and the entities within the complex.
The term derives from the idea of the environment of man, that is, impregnated by the very strong anthropocentrism of Western culture. Man remains the only point of reference. Basically it is used to call "environment" a total living-sentient organism, as if it were a "outline" of some of its cells (our species).
The Earth is not "our environment" or "our home", but it is the organism of which we are a part: we are its own tissue, we are like a type of cells integrated into a biological organism, and that depend totally on the its possibility of homeostasis, that is, the ability of the planet to self-regenerate while remaining in stationary conditions.
Religious traditions born in the Middle East
Carried back from the Catholic version of the Bible published by Marietti in 1970:
God said: "Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, on the cattle, on all the beasts of the earth and on all the reptiles that crawl upon the earth" ( Genesis, 1/26).
... and God said to them: "Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, on the cattle and on all the beasts that crawl on the earth". (Genesis, 1/28).
God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them: "Be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth. The fear of you and the terror of you both in all the beasts of the earth and in all cattle and in all the birds of the air. As for what crawls on the ground and all the fish of the sea, they are put in your power ". (Genesis, 9 / 1-2).
Here there is not the idea of "custody" entrusted to the good administrator, who would already be a strongly anthropocentric position, there is much worse.
Perhaps some institution would still have us believe that a pithecanthropist, or an australopithecus, woke up one morning and realized that he had something that he did not have before (the "soul"), or that a baby of these living beings was suddenly born " human". And the Neanderthal, who lived with the Sapiens in Europe for tens of thousands of years, "had" or "had not" the soul? I hope no more similar amenities are told, not even for children! Perhaps it is easier to think that all these sentient beings have always been immersed in the Soul of the world, to use an expression of the Jungian psychiatrist James Hillmann.
But there were some different ideas in some human cultures, as evidenced by these thoughts, taken from ancient Indian texts:
"Every soul must be respected and soul means every order, every vitality that the substance can take: the wind is a soul that imprints itself in the air, the river a soul that takes the water, the torch a soul in the fire, all this must not be disturbed ".
In one of the sutras one praises those who do not hurt the wind because they show they know the pain of living things and it is added that to harm the earth is like striking and mutilating a living being.
The intrinsic value of Nature
Authorities, governments, "the people who matter" all have the same god: the development, the indefinite increase of material goods, which involves aggression to the rest of Nature, considered in our service and without any value "in itself ". All in human function, as an obvious thing! Until we get rid of this background, every action in the long run will be useless.
Also to say that Nature (or a natural entity) is "patrimony of all" or constitutes a resource implies a strongly anthropocentric conception; as well as saying that we want to save a "natural environment" in order to transmit it "to future generations". They are all expressions that consider the centrality of man as obvious.
According to a type of thought worthy of every consideration even if very rare in the West, values do not exist only in man, but also in other animals and plants. The most natural starting point for finding values is to look for them in other animals, which certainly have emotions and feelings, as well as the ability to suffer.
For a wolf, the moose has an instrumental value, as a prey that supports the life and well-being of the wolf. The wolf himself can consider the members of his pack as beings with an intrinsic value, and he does not treat them only as instruments. Other beings create values regardless of what human beings think of them.
There are also the values of plants. All organisms have their own "mind": human beings can both promote and damage this quality, which however remains independent of man. Whether a house plant grows luxuriant or not can depend on humans, but its well-being or malaise is a quality of the plant. The problem arises from the affirmation of the lack of identity in plants, an affirmation without any foundation.
We must then ask ourselves whether systems, or "collective beings", can have values that are not attributable to individuals. Tradition links values to individuals and therefore does not understand that a mountain can have an intrinsic value. We must also ask ourselves whether Nature as a whole can be a subject with a mind, and whether a mountain or a river can experience. Current research on consciousness and artificial intelligence could shed new light on these problems.
The writings and considerations of the Finnish scholar Leena Vilkka, professor of philosophy at the University of Helsinki, are very interesting on the topics mentioned above.
We are the Earth
We are immersed in the Soul of the World or, if you prefer, in the collective Unconscious, in the ecological Unconscious, the Mind of the Earth: we are the Earth! This is one of the approaches above all of ecopsychology. We are the most "conscious" part of the Earth, there is no man-nature detachment. The repression of the ecological unconscious is the root of the evil inherent in industrial society. Rediscovering access to the ecological unconscious means rediscovering the path to the psychophysical health of the individual, of society and of the ecosystem.
It is necessary to emancipate the ecology from a simple branch of biology from which it was born to a science of relationships and of the whole.
We are an integral part of the world in which we live as much as the rivers and trees, interwoven with the same intricate flow of matter-energy and mind.
Is religious feeling a human prerogative?
I leave the floor to Jane Goodall, who has spent 40 years among the chimpanzees:
Deep in the Gombe forest there is a spectacular waterfall. Sometimes, while the chimpanzees come closer and the roar of the falling water becomes more intense, their pace hurries, the hairs stand on end with excitement. When they reach the watercourse they put in place magnificent scenes, standing up, swaying rhythmically from one foot to the other, beating their paws in the low water and running, collecting and throwing large stones. Sometimes they climb up on the lianas that dangle from above and make the swing in the spray of the falling water. This "waterfall dance" can take ten or fifteen minutes, after which a chimp may sit on a rock, with the eyes following the path of the water. What is this water? Keep coming, keep going away, but there is always.
Probably the chimpanzees feel an emotion similar to a marvel or a reverent respect. If they have spoken language, if they can discuss the emotions that trigger these magnificent scenes, it means that they have a "primitive" animistic religion.
The waterfall has always been the most spiritual place in Gombe, and we now know that it was considered a sacred place by the people who once lived there, a place where the medicine-men performed ceremonies once a year. I wonder if they have ever observed, as rapt, the wild chimpanzee dances. - Jane Goodall
Conclusions
If we do not emerge from anthropocentrism, so rooted in Western culture and the underlying philosophy of Judeo-Christian-Islamic thought, all attempts to reintegrate into the natural world are bound to fail: it will be very difficult to get the end of the myth of growth and the salvation of the Earth by continuing to think that everything is done for man. If we insist on that basic idea, it will be the total Ecosystem to provide for a downsizing of our species, probably with an unpleasant transient.
We must pursue the welfare of the ecosystem, because if we continue in the illusion of the so-called well-being of man without taking into account the totality we behave like pathological cells of an organism.
The ideological vision that makes us believe unique and unmistakable among all the other living beings on the planet, is only a delirium of greatness.
Manifesto for the Earth
Ted Mosquin & J. Stan Rowe
A contribution to the dissemination of the message
preconditions
Many artistic and philosophical movements have published their own Manifesto, in which they were exposed truths that for the authors were as evident as the five fingers of the hand. This Manifesto also presents truths that are self-evident, so obvious to us as the five parts of the wonderful world that surrounds us - earth, air, water, fire / sunlight and organisms - and in which we live and move: from it we feed the our existence. The Manifesto is centered on the Earth: the central value is focused by shifting it from humanity to the Ecosphere that includes it - that network of organic / inorganic / symbiotic processes and structures that make up the Planet Earth.
The Ecosphere is the matrix that envelops all organisms and gives them Life, it is intimately interconnected with them in the history of evolution from the beginning of time. The organisms are formed by air, water and sediments, which in turn carry the formations and organic traces. The composition of the water of the sea is kept stable by the organisms, which also maintain an atmosphere in a stationary situation that would otherwise be of unlikely composition. Plants and animals have shaped the limestone rocks whose sediments form our bones. The false divisions we have made between living and non-living, biotic and abiotic, organic and inorganic, have put the stability and evolutionary potential of the Ecosphere at risk.
The experiment of humanity, ten thousand years old, of adopting a way of life at the expense of Nature and culminating in economic globalization, is failing. The reason before this failure is that we put the importance of our species above everything else. We have mistakenly considered the Earth, its ecosystems and the myriad of its organic / inorganic parts only as our resources, which are valuable only when we serve our needs and desires. A courageous change in attitudes and activities is urgently needed. There are legions of diagnosis and prescriptions to restore the relationship between humanity and the Earth, and here we want to emphasize that, perhaps visionary, which seems essential to the success of all the others. A new vision of the world based on the planetary Ecosphere shows us the way.
Conviction declaration
Each seeks a meaning in life, and to lean on convictions that take various forms. Many turn to faiths that ignore or take away all importance from this world and do not realize in the profound sense that we are generated by the Earth and sustained by it throughout our lives. In today's dominant industrial culture, the Earth-as-community is not a perception that is self-evident. Few people pause daily to consider with a sense of wonder the enveloping matrix from which we came and towards which we will all eventually return. Because we are a product of the Earth, the harmony of its lands, seas, sky and its innumerable beautiful organisms brings rich meanings rarely understood.
We are convinced that, until it is recognized that the Ecosphere is the indispensable common ground of all human activities, people will continue to put their immediate interest first. Without an ecocentric perspective that firmly maintains values and goals in a reality far greater than that of our own species, the resolution of political, economic and religious conflicts will be impossible. As long as the narrow focus on human communities is not expanded to include the ecosystems of the Earth - the local and regional situations in which we live - programs for sustainable and healthy ways of living are doomed to fail.
A confident attachment to the Ecosphere, an aesthetic empathy with the surrounding Nature, a feeling of reverent wonder for the miracle of the Living Earth and its mysterious harmonies, is a largely unrecognized human heritage today. If they are again emotionally recognized, our connections with the natural world will begin to fill the void that has formed by living in the industrialized world. Important ecological purposes will re-emerge that civilization and urbanization have hidden. The aim is to restore the diversity and beauty of the Earth, with our species still present as a cooperative, responsible and ethical component.
BASIC PRINCIPLES
1 - The Ecosphere is the Center of Value for Humanity.
2 - The Creativity and Productivity of Earth's Ecosystems depend on their Integrity
3 - The Earth-centered world view is confirmed by Natural History
4 - An Ecocentric Ethics is based on the awareness of our place in nature
5 - A Vision of the Ecocentric world gives value to the Diversity of Ecosystems and Cultures
6 - An Ecocentric Ethics supports Social Justice.
PRINCIPLES OF ACTION
7 - Defend and Preserve the Creative Potential of the Earth
8 - Reduce the size of the human population
9 - Reduce the Human Consumption of Parts of the Earth
10 - Promote an Ecocentric Way of Governance
11 - Spreading this Message
Why this Manifesto?
This Manifesto is centered on the Earth. In particular it is ecocentric, which means centered on the complex, rather than biocentric, which means centered on organisms. Its purpose is to extend and deepen the understanding of the Ecosphere and of the primary values of Planet Earth, which gives and sustains life. The Manifesto consists of six Basic Principles that establish its fundamental reason, plus five Principles of Action that derive from it and highlight the duties of humanity towards the Earth and the geographic ecosystems that the Earth understands. The Manifesto is offered as a guide to ethical thinking, behavior and social policy.
During the last century there has been some improvement in scientific, philosophical and religious attitudes towards non-human nature. We appreciate the efforts of those whose sensitivity to a rapidly degrading Earth has expanded their outward vision to recognize the intrinsic value of land, oceans, animals, plants and other creatures. However, due to the lack of a common ecocentric philosophy, much of this goodwill has spread in a hundred different directions. It has been neutralized and rendered ineffective by a single, profound, given-for-sure cultural creed that assigns the first absolute value to Homo sapiens sapiens and then, sequentially, to the other organisms based on their type of relationship to the former.
The recent profound knowledge that the Earth, the Ecosphere, is something of supreme value is derived from cosmological studies, from the Gaia hypothesis, from photos of the Earth from space and especially from the understanding of ecology. The central ecological reality for organisms - about 25 million species - is that they are all Sons of the Earth. No one would exist without the planet Earth. What we call Life, which constitutes a mystery and a miracle, is inseparable from the evolutionary history of the Earth, its composition and its processes. Therefore the ethical priority must move from humanity to the Earth, which includes it. The Manifesto is a trace of what we consider an essential step towards a sustainable relationship between the Earth and humans.
BASIC PRINCIPLES
Principle 1. The Ecosphere is the Center of Value for Humanity.
The Ecosphere, the globe of the Earth, is the source that generates the creativity of evolution. From the inorganic / organic ecosystems of the planet the organisms have been generated: in the beginning the bacterial cells and finally those complex systems of cells that are human beings. Therefore, dynamic ecosystems, which are expressed in a complex and interconnected way in all parts of the Ecosphere, have greater value and importance than the species they contain.
The reality and the value of the ecological and external essence of each person have had very little attention compared to the philosophical thought dedicated to the inner essence of humanity, an individualistic focus that has diverted attention from ecological needs and has neglected the vital importance of the Ecosphere. Extended to society as an interest only for the well-being of the people, this homocentrism (anthropocentrism) is a doctrine of egocentrism-of-species that leads to the destruction of the natural world. Biocentrism that extends empathy and understanding beyond the human race to include other organisms is an ethical advancement, but its purpose is limited. He can not appreciate the importance of global ecological "surroundings". Without attention focused on the priority of the Earth-as-context, biocentrism risks becoming easily a chauvinistic homocentrism, because who among all animals is commonly considered the best and the wisest? Ecocentrism, emphasizing the Ecosphere as the primary system that gives life rather than a simple support for life, provides the model to which humanity must recall itself as a guide for the future.
We humans are conscious expressions of the generative forces of the Ecosphere, our individual "livability" is experienced as inseparable from the heated-sun-air, from the water, from the earth and from the food that the other organisms supply us. Like all the other living beings generated by the Earth, we have been "tuned in", through a long evolution, with its resonances, its rhythmic cycles, its seasons. Language, thought, insights - all come directly or metaphorically from our physical being on Earth. Beyond conscious experience, each person incorporates an intelligence, an innate wisdom of the body that, without any conscious participation, makes it suitable to participate as a symbiotic part of terrestrial ecosystems. The understanding of the ecological reality that humans are Sons of the Earth moves the center of values from the homocentric to the ecocentric, from Homo sapiens to Planet Earth.
Principle 2. Creativity and Productivity of Earth's Ecosystems Depend on Integrity
"Integrity" refers to totality, completeness, and the ability to function fully. The model is given by the ecosystems of Nature that receive energy from the Sun when they are not damaged; as examples, a productive section of the continental marine shelf or a temperate rain forest in the time before exploitation, when humans were above all collectors. Although these times are beyond memory, the ecosystems of that period (as far as we know today) still provide us with the only sustainability models for agriculture, forestry and fishing. The current serious problems in all three of these industrialized activities show us the effects of the deterioration of integrity; in particular, loss of productivity and aesthetic appeal in parallel with the progressive disruption of the vital functions of ecosystems.
Evolutionary creativity and continuous productivity of the Earth and its regional ecosystems require the continuity of their basic structures and ecological processes. This internal integrity depends on the preservation of the communities with their innumerable forms of developmental cooperation and interdependence. Integrity depends on intricate food chains and energy flows, from land not degraded by erosion and from cycles of essential elements such as nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus. Furthermore, the natural compositions of air, sediment and water are essential for the processes and functions of Nature. The pollution of these three elements, together with the extraction and exploitation of organic and inorganic constituents, weakens the integrity of the ecosystems and the normal functioning of the Ecosphere, which is the source of the evolving Life.
Principle 3. The Earth-centered world view is confirmed by Natural History
Natural History is the history of the Earth. Cosmologists and geologists describe the beginning of the Earth more than four billion years ago, the appearance of small sea creatures in the first sediments, the emergence of terrestrial animals from the sea, the Age of Dinosaurs, evolution, through influences reciprocal, insects, plants with flowers and mammals from which, in geologically recent times, the Primates and then humanity came. We share the genetic material and a common origin with all the other creatures that are part of the Earth's ecosystems. This knowledge we place puts humanity in the natural context.
The history of the Earth that takes place through the aeons shows us our coevolution with myriads of fellow organisms through the agreement, and not only through competition. All examples of organic coexistence reveal the important roles of mutualism, cooperation and symbiosis in the great symphony of the Earth.
The myths of the various cultures and the stories that shape our attitudes and values want to tell us where we come from, who we are, and where we are going in the future. These stories were unrealistically homocentric and / or otherworldly. Instead, the evidence-based, outward-looking development of the natural history of humanity - made of star dust, endowed with great vitality and sustained by the natural processes of the Ecosphere - is not only credible but also more marvelous of traditional myths centered only on the human. Since they show humanity-in-context as an organic component of the planetary globe, the ecocentric histories also reveal a functional purpose and an ethical purpose; more precisely, with the human part at the service of the greatest totality of the Earth.
Principle 4. An Ecocentric Ethics is based on the Awareness of our Place in Nature.
Ethics concerns those actions and non-egoic attitudes that come from profound values; that is, from the sense of what is really important. A deep appreciation of the Earth results in an ethical behavior towards it. The veneration for the Earth is easily born with outdoor childhood experiences and, in adulthood, is strengthened by "living in one's own place", so that the forms of earth and water, plants and animals become familiar as close acquaintances. The vision of the ecological world and the ethics that find its first values in the Ecosphere derive their strength from living in the natural and semi-natural world, in a rural context rather than in an urban context. The awareness of our condition in this world is a source of wonder, of religious admiration and of a determined intention to restore, conserve and protect the ancient beauties of the Ecosphere and those natural ways that have stood the test of time for very long periods.
Planet Earth and its various ecosystems with their essential elements - air, earth, water and the organic world - surround and nourish each individual and each community, cyclically giving life and recovering the gift. An awareness of oneself as an ecological being, fed by water and other organisms, and like an animal immersed in the air that lives in the productive interface and warmed by the sun where the atmosphere meets the earth, gives us a sense of connection and reverence for the abundance and vitality of sustaining Nature.
Principle 5. A Vision of the Ecocentric World appreciates the Diversity of Ecosystems and Cultures
The major revelation of the centered-on-Earth perspective is the surprising variety and richness of ecosystems and their organic / inorganic parts. The surface of the Earth presents a diversity, of considerable aesthetic appeal, of arctic, temperate and tropical ecosystems. Within this global mosaic the very diverse varieties of plants, animals and humans are dependent on the varied mix of land forms, soils, waters and local climates. In this way biodiversity, the diversity of organisms, depends on the maintenance of eco-diversity, the diversity of ecosystems. Cultural diversity - a form of biodiversity - is the historical result of humans who have adapted their activities, their thoughts and their language to specific geographical ecosystems. Therefore, anything that degrades or destroys ecosystems is a danger and a misfortune both biological and cultural. A vision of the ecocentric world gives value to the diversity of the Earth in all its forms, both non-human and human.
Each human culture of the past has developed a unique language that has aesthetic and ethical roots in the visions, sounds, smells, tastes and ways of feeling of that particular part of the Earth in which it flourished. This cultural diversity based on the ecosystem was vital, as it made sustainable ways of living develop in different parts of the Earth. Today the ecological language of the aboriginal peoples, and the cultural diversity they represent, are in grave danger like tropical forest species, and for the same reasons: the world is going to be homogenized, ecosystems are going to be simplified, diversity is in decline, the variety is being lost. An ecocentric ethic is opposed to today's economic globalization that ignores the ecological wisdom embodied in different cultures, and destroys them for a short-term profit.
Principle 6.-An Ecocentric Ethics Supports Social Justice.
Many of the injustices of human society come from inequality. They constitute a subset of the greatest injustices and iniquities performed by humans on ecosystems and their species. With its extended concept of community, ecocentrism emphasizes the importance of all the interactive components of the Earth, including many whose functions are largely unknown. In this way the intrinsic value of all the parts of the ecosystem, organic and inorganic, is affirmed, without prohibiting its careful and careful use. "Diversity with Equality" is an ecological law based on the functioning of Nature which provides an ethical guide for human society.
Social ecologists rightly criticize the hierarchical organization in cultures, which constitutes discrimination against those who have no power, especially towards women and children, who are disadvantaged. The argument that the road to sustainable living will be prevented until the cultural model reduces the tensions resulting from social injustice and gender inequality, is certainly correct at least to a certain extent. What is not taken into consideration is that the current rapid degradation of the Earth's ecosystems increases tensions between humans while it precludes the possibility of sustainable living and prevents the eradication of poverty. Issues of social justice, however important, can not be satisfied until the destruction of ecosystems is stopped, putting an end to homocentric philosophies and activities.
PRINCIPLES OF ACTION
Principle 7.- Defend and Preserve the Creative Potential of the Earth
The creative powers of the Ecosphere are expressed through its resilient geographical ecosystems. Therefore, as a main priority, the ecocentric philosophy requires the conservation and restoration of natural ecosystems and their component species. Apart from the remote possibility of collisions with comets and asteroids, capable of almost destroying the planet, the evolutionary inventiveness of the Earth will continue for millions of years: it is only prevented where humans have destroyed entire ecosystems exterminating species or poisoning sediments, water and air. Continued and dangerous extinctions remove threads from the plot of life, diminishing the beauty of the Earth and the possibility that unique ecosystems emerge in future with related organisms, perhaps of greater sensitivity and intelligence than human ones.
"The first rule of the set is to save all the pieces." (Aldo Leopold - Almanac of a Simple World, 1997). Actions that endanger the stability and good health of the Ecosphere and its ecosystems must be identified and publicly condemned. Among the most destructive of human activities are militarism and its enormous expenditure, the extraction of toxic materials, the production of biological poisons in all forms, the industrial way of conducting agriculture, fishing and the exploitation of forests. . If they are not arrested, such lethal technologies, justified as necessary to protect specific human populations but actually serve the profit of large commercial companies and to satisfy human desires for possession rather than needs, will lead to ever greater ecological and social disasters.
Principle 8. Reducing the Dimension of Human Population
A primary cause of the destruction of ecosystems and the extinction of species is the explosion of the human population which already today largely exceeds any ecologically sustainable level. The total world population, today of 6.5 billion, rises dramatically and inexorably by 75 million units a year. Every human is an ecological "consumer" on a planet whose ability to keep all his creatures is quantitatively limited. In all corners of the Earth, human numerical pressure continues to undermine the integrity and ability to generate terrestrial, marine and freshwater ecosystems. Our human monoculture is overwhelming and destroying Nature's polyculture. Nation by nation, it is necessary to decrease the human population by reducing the number of conceptions.
The ecocentric ethics that values the Earth and its evolving systems, above the species, condemns the social acceptance of an unlimited human fruitfulness. The current need to reduce the number of humans is greater in rich countries where the per capita use of energy and the resources of the Earth is greater. A reasonable goal is to reduce the existing population levels before the use of fossil fuels is widespread; that is, a billion units or less. This will happen either with the implementation of intelligent policies or inevitably with epidemics, hunger, war.
Principle 9.- Reduce the Human Consumption of Parts of the Earth.
The main threat to the diversity, beauty and stability of the Ecosphere is the ever-increasing appropriation of the planet's goods for exclusively human uses. This appropriation and excessive use, often justified by the increase in population, steal the livelihoods of other organisms. The omocentric and egocentric vision that gives humans a right over all the components of the ecosystem - air, earth, water, organisms - is morally condemnable. Unlike plants, we humans are "heterotrophic" (eaters of others) and we must kill to feed, dress and cover ourselves, but this does not give us permission to rob and exterminate. The accelerated consumption of vital parts of the Earth is a sure recipe for the destruction of eco-diversity and biodiversity. Rich nations armed with powerful technology are the main cause of trouble: they would be able to reduce consumption and share goods with nations whose level of living is the lowest. However, no nation is innocent.
We must renounce the mercantile ideology of perpetual growth, as well as the perverse industrial and economic policies based on it. The thesis of the Limits of Development is to be followed. A rational step towards the end of economic expansion of exploitation is the suppression of public subsidies to those industries that pollute water, land or air and / or destroy organisms and soils. A philosophy of symbiosis, of life in accordance with the position of member of the communities of the Earth, will ensure the restoration of ecosystems capable of evolutionary production. For sustainable economies, guidelines are qualitative, not quantitative. "It preserves the health, beauty and stability of earth, water and air, and productivity will be the natural consequence." (EF Schumacher - Piccolo is beautiful).
Principle 10.- Promote an Ecocentric Governance Mode
The homocentric conceptions of government that encourage the super-exploitation and destruction of the Earth's ecosystems must be replaced by those that privilege the survival and integrity of the Ecosphere and its components. It is necessary that there be valid defenders of the vital structures and functions of the Ecosphere in the positions of influential members of the governing structures. These "ecopolitics", with good knowledge of the Earth's processes and human ecology, will give voice to those who do not. In the current centers of power, "who speaks for the wolf?" And "who speaks for the temperate rainforest?". These questions have a more than metaphorical meaning; they reveal the need to legally safeguard the many non-human essential components of the Ecosphere.
It is necessary to enact a body of environmental laws that gives legal value to the structures and vital functions of the Ecosphere. Nation by nation, ecologically responsible persons must be elected or appointed in governmental structures. Appropriate advocates-custodians will be the defenders of ecosystems and their fundamental processes when they are threatened. Issues will be examined on the basis of conservation of ecosystem integrity, not of pursuing economic gain. As time passes, as practical consequences of the ecocentric philosophy, new visions and doctrines will be highlighted in the law, in politics and in administration, and will result in ways of governing ecocentric. Implementation will necessarily take place slowly and step by step over the long term, as people experience the practical ways to represent themselves and ensure the well-being of the essential non-human parts of the Earth and its ecosystems.
Principle 11. - Disseminate the Message
Those who agree with the principles listed have a duty to disseminate them through education and guidance. The most urgent initial task is to make everyone aware of their functional dependence on the Earth's ecosystems, as well as their links with all other species. It follows a shift of importance from homocentrism to ecocentrism, and this leads to an external ethical regulator for human actions. This shift tells us what we must do to preserve the uninterrupted evolutionary potential of a marvelous Ecosphere. This reveals the need to participate in the activities of the wise community of the Earth, where each plays a personal role in supporting the splendid reality that surrounds it.
This Ecocentric Manifesto is not anti-human, yet rejects chauvinistic homocentrism. Promoting the search for permanent values - a culture of condescension and symbiosis with this unique Living Planet - makes a unifying vision develop. The opposite perspective, which looks inwards without the understanding of the outside, is always a danger, as the religions, the sects and the humanistic ideologies, in constant conflict between them, clearly demonstrate. The diffusion of the ecological message, which emphasizes the external reality shared by humanity, opens up a new and promising way towards international understanding, cooperation, stability and peace.
Nature conservation
"When you have polluted the last river, caught the last fish, cut the last tree, you will understand, only then, that you will not be able to eat your money" (Cree Indian prophecy).
The matter that concerns the conservation of nature can be defined as a true philosophical science that has close links with ecology. However, it should be noted that, although such a link appears intrinsic, it would be erroneous to consider the preservation of nature as a requirement that is exhausted in the pure scientific sphere, since it has a far wider connotation that ranges from ethical, spiritual, social and political implications. . On the other hand such a clarification also benefits the ecology in itself, which, already operating in such a vast sphere, can not bear other superimpositions.
Ecological science undoubtedly offers the basis for the conservation of the environment, but this will then have to follow its own path that is fraught with obstacles that are often difficult to overcome. In fact, the protection of nature, inevitably entering into conflict with human activities that disturb the balance of the ecosystem, often finds an all-encompassing and tenacious opposition, as only the one connected to economic interests knows how to be.
Environmental degradation has reached such a high level that at times the mind of the naturalist is overwhelmed to such an extent that it is no longer able to appeal to mental rigor, without which it can not set the guidelines for solving problems. It happens instead that the naturalist has the opportunity to take his steps in areas, increasingly rare, not yet hurt by degradation, and then the incessant spiritual dialogue of nature fascinates him, now with the appearance of the soft lights of the undergrowth , now with the glow of large expanses of ice, now with the clear stand out of immaculate peaks, now with the red beech in autumn.
"An uninterrupted forest stretches from all sides of the hut where I write, flowing before us, into a sombre, undulating stream, toward the north, up to the Arctic Ocean. No railroad crossbar, to burn and destroy, no colonizer ruins it with fire and ax. From every eminence, you can contemplate innumerable leagues of Forest, which will never feed the hungry jaws of commerce.
This is a different place, it's another day.
Nowhere does the sight of the stumps and the noble fallen peaks offend the eye or sadden the spirit; nor the strange, wild, unimaginable beauty of these Nordic sunsets is disfigured by rows and rows of skeletal and horrendous trees ......... Back to the origins? Maybe yes; but they brought us luck.
All dreams have become true, and even more. Disappearance is the nagging fear of a vandalism. Wild life in all its many varieties, animals considered timid and elusive, pass us now almost at hand, and sometimes they stop at the hut, and observe. And birds, and small and large beasts, and small and large creatures, have gathered around here, and frequent the place, and fly and swim or walk by their nature.
Piomba la Morte, as it must also sometimes, and life rises in its place. Nature lives and proceeds and flows all around in its harmonious and methodical order.
The scars of the ancient fires slowly disappear; tall trees become even bigger. The cities of beavers re-flock. The cycle continues .... ". WA-SHA-QUON-ASIN (Gray Owl, 1940 )
At this point a question is pressing: can civilization have a future? The answer seems to be negative, because man is now a prisoner of a development model that leads to irreparable environmental imbalances and is, moreover, the protagonist of a frightening demographic explosion that has almost made him reach the maximum biotic potential that can be drawn to nature from the human species. Added to this is that a large part of the population of the planet leads a standard of living that involves the use of a huge amount of energy as well as the consumption of precious metals that start at the total exhaustion.
In truth, human interventions on the territory are devastating and do not spare any element of the natural environment: water, air, flora, fauna, the structure of the so-called inert matter, etc. Man exploits nature in a thousand ways, almost always for the vulgar and useless accumulation of wealth and power. What once, in the small and the episodic, could be sustainable (eg sport hunting, the withdrawal of non-renewable resources, fishing, the emission of relatively polluting substances, etc.), also because many activities were adequately filtered and degraded by natural systems (for example, the self-purification of rivers or small seas), now, with technological means, with the excessive use of "things" and with the drama of overpopulation, many human activities are no longer each of them has a strong impact on the economy of nature. If one or two people pick up a flower in a meadow, the lawn is not affected at all, but if that operation is carried out by thousands of people the lawn will lose all the flowers it has. This must make us reflect on the continuous claims that the contemporary man constantly flocked also in reference to the activities of the past times. It should also be remembered that even in the past, systematic and capillary phenomena, even if exercised with reduced means and by a less demanding population, have produced deleterious results for nature (think of the massive deforestation of Great Britain, the extinction of the wolf in the alpine arch, the disappearance of the Maia population or that of the Easter island). Another example is offered to us by the phenomenon of mass tourism. To favor today's tourist visits of natural places means to completely alter those territories. For example, the last places inhabited by brown bears in Italian territory (Abruzzo and Trentino), should be jealously protected from the pernicious mass presence of people, otherwise in a very short time the plantigrade will remain a distant memory of the native fauna.
Faced with such degradation, the defense of the environment must become a primary and global objective. "The vision of the man 'lord of creation', in full right to destroy or alter everything, is hard to die. Certain cultures, more than others, have even expressed a profound hostility towards anything natural: this explains why in some industrialized countries the degradation and alteration of the environment are greater than in others " (Storer et al., 1984).
But we must nevertheless consider that environmental problems are so complex that hypothesizing their solution within a single country means consuming oneself in an unrealistic effort, since the degradation is, so to speak, ecumenical and does not really stop before the customs barriers. In fact it is necessary to observe that the degradation is not uniformly distributed on the planet, as it presents a distribution that we could define as "leopard spot"; it would be a fallacious hope, however, to try to reconstitute the general ecological balance by means of measures that treat the "spots" on a case-by-case basis, since it is necessary that the negative influence exerted by human activities on environmental equilibrium is drastically reduced everywhere. "Men must find the solution to current problems in a universal context" (Dorst, 1990).
It is then necessary to clear away the field of naturalistic studies or of common thought from a preliminary ruling that is of such importance that it assumes the value of a contradiction in terms, since this is precisely the claim of those who insist on considering the environmental problem solely as a function of 'man. Man is a part, a piece of the ecosystem, is not the navel of nature, so it falls into a grave error who subordinates the protection of the environment to the primacy of man, falls into serious error who says, for example, "If the destruction of the forests continues, the damage will affect the man" ... "if you continue to poison the fields the man will also be poisoned". In short, there is the risk that our inveterate anthropocentrism, everything and always for man, will reoccur in our speeches. It is necessary to overturn such a conception to place the global interests of life at the center of everything and not on Earth (ecocentrism). The rule must tend to save an age-old forest not for man, but for the forest itself; in the end the man will also take advantage (spiritually and materially), but it will be a reflection, not the purpose of that rescue. We must reverse the thought of safeguarding a "wild valley" in order to then experience emotions and deep sensations in front of that uncontaminated natural scenery. The "wild valley" must be kept as such for itself, for its free being, then if our spirit will benefit from it will be only a possible positive consequence and not the spring that has driven us to work for the maintenance of that pristine status. I went to the end of the earth, I went to the end of the water, I went to the end of the sky, I went to the end of the mountains, I did not find anyone who was not my friend. (Song for the God of the Little War, Navajo - in AA. VV., 1995). The value in itself of things independently of us and of everything is the highest thought that the human mind can conceive. It is also possible to justify anthropocentrism as an "instinct" of the human species for effective self-preservation. After all, each species is a bit "self-centered" towards itself in order to survive in nature. But in other living beings, egocentrism generally leads to an undoubted advantage for the species and an even greater advantage for the whole nature. Human egocentrism, on the other hand, leads to destruction and death both in man himself and in the whole natural world. Among other things, the attitudes of the other living are not premeditated and aware of the consequences, while man is fully aware of their abuses, their own pride and their destructions and prevarications. A beautiful difference between the two forms of egocentrism! Santayana writes (1944): "A Californian who I recently had the pleasure of knowing told me that if philosophers lived among its mountains, their systems would be different from the systems that the European tradition of good manners handed down to us. since the days of Socrates, because these systems were selfish; directly or indirectly they were anthropocentric, and inspired by the fatuous notion that man or human reason, or the human distinction between good and evil, is the center and pivot of the universe. This is what the mountains and forests should make you ashamed of asserting. " With this speech presented in Berkeley in 1911, Santayana was one of the few Western philosophers to launch a significant attack on anthropocentrism and the egocentric vision of Christianity. In fact, "it represented a historical turning point in the development of contemporary investigation on an alternative world view and non-subjectivist, anthropocentric and essentially materialistic environmental ethics.
In his speech, Santayana stated that acquiring ecological awareness through deep and spiritual contact with nature would help us to abandon the ballast of our human chauvinism " (Devall & Sessions, 1989). The aspects of such a sizeable mingling of roles are focused with great clarity by Franco Zunino (founder of the Italian Association for Wilderness) when he says that ".... Man must respect nature for its value in itself, and he must know how to pull back as soon as his presence affects you negatively, not find quibbles and temporary remedies to justify the necessity or, worse, the 'right' of his presence. Pavan (1988) then writes: "... we are going through a phase of confusion of man, his moral values, his rights and duties, his role and perspectives; we are in a phase of discovery of the mistakes we have made and are doing, but we still have the power to correct ourselves. "
We must ask ourselves: are we really able to correct ourselves? There are many doubts, too many. Our destructive actions are manifold and almost never fully understand the implications connected to the interventions that disturb the natural equilibrium: if, for example, the killing of a bear by a poacher constitutes a dramatic wound to the environment, a disturbance even greater is inherent in those acts that, in changing the environment in itself, determine, with time, the disappearance of all bears in the territory. Thoreau writes "If we want to protect wild animals we must guarantee them a forest in which they can live and to which they can resort".
These considerations on brown bears lead us to reflect again on the interconnection of environmental problems. In nature there are no vital phenomena which exhaust in themselves the reason for being; all the phenomena are chained together, a bit like the single musical scans of a symphony. Having kept this principle in mind, it is quite intuitive that in such a natural concert the territorial structure exerts an impact that overpowers the other factors, to the likeness of what happens with the "leitmotif" of a musical text. The example on which we have just entertained, hypothesizing the disappearance of the brown bear following the subversion of its "habitat", finds a comparison, leading to comparison another example, in the disappearance of the sea eagle from some areas of its range even after the destruction of its "habitat" represented by the marine coasts that the anthropic activity has profoundly modified and polluted. It should also be noted that the conservation of a territory (valley, cave, sea coast, etc.) must always be equal to the conservation of an animal or plant species even if a given environment is of minimal size (destroy a territory because small it is like killing the last bears of the Trentino, considering their survival useless as they are too few now). Indeed, often, the safeguard of "places" is an even more important act. The last wild areas are of great importance as integral or unitary and rare complexes as such; conserving them we will also safeguard their "capitals" of animal and plant species, we will safeguard the landscape, the environment, the whole structure: all this in a single act of action. Animals and plants are in fact only a part of a territory, albeit salient and inalienable. "A flower without a garden is condemned to death even if it finds survival in the limited space of a vase thanks to artificial seeding" (F. Zunino).
Pavan (1967) writes: "Nature is made up of innumerable factors linked to each other by ends, actions and reactions that constitute a dynamic equilibrium in continuous displacement: man throws himself headlong into actions of disturbance, of alterations, and it causes profound modifications and breakdowns of equilibrium of which it is rarely concerned with predicting evolution and destiny ........ The historical development of humanity, taken as a whole, has taken place in a very disharmonic way and so continues , maintaining many imbalances, sometimes aggravating them and creating new ones. "
In nature each species plays its part in a dialectical process that tends to achieve a state of equilibrium; this is obviously not perennial, and has in itself the ability to settle on the parameters that will gradually present themselves. It should be noted that every single biological specificity, when it enters into the dialectical process that will then determine the equilibrium point of the ecosystem, assumes its own unitary structure. In theory, man should also participate in the dialectical process with equal rights with other species, both animal and vegetable, but this does not actually happen because man, due to his intellectual development is, among other things, able to modify and change the structure of the so-called inert matter by means of gigantic works, such as - for example - dams that block rivers, thousands of kilometers of highways, the drying up of lakes, the construction of new cities; to this it is added that, thanks to its sophisticated technology, man has the possibility of exterminating, in a short period of time, any other living form. On these problems Galiano & Marchino (1990) entertain, who note "... the great 'sin' of Western man is to have become detached from nature, from its environment. For him the sun, the moon, the stars, the flowers, the plants, the animals, are no longer either 'sisters' or 'brothers'. From cosmocentrism it has moved to theocentrism and ended up in anthropocentrism. The "perverse" consequence was clear: if man is the center of everything, then he becomes despot, he can impose his laws without hesitation, he can exert violence on nature and oppression on the brothers. But the expropriated and manipulated nature manifests all the boomerang effects of such an intervention ". With these considerations G. Galiano and M. Marchino icically focus on the dimension of today's man who seems to be dramatically suited to self-destruction.
According to Rousseau, progress represents something external to man, something that does not touch what is most intimate in our being, that is, the natural instinct (Geymonat, 1971). If the thinker in Geneva seems to fall into the paradox when he proclaims the superiority of primitive life compared to that achieved by the so-called "civil" peoples, it is true that one of the most significant aspects of modern man's crisis is precisely his detachment from nature. And it was a particularly cruel detachment that occurred in the years that mark the beginning of the industrial revolution, when the looting of the environment assumed a destructive capacity until then unimaginable. "Humanity is a cancer in the universe of life" (David Foreman). Western man is in fact a real "cancer" in the organism of nature and, like the malignant cells, brings only death and destruction. "The preservation of the environment lacks its objective because it is incompatible with the concept of land that has been handed down to us from the time of Abraham: we rape the earth because we consider it an article that belongs to us. Only when we see it as a common home, to which we belong, can we begin to serve it with love and respect " (Leopold, 1949-1997).
The need to treat the environmental question mainly from an ethical / philosophical point of view, is based on the fact that in the West all philosophical speculation has been practically deprived, from its origins to the present day, of substantive arguments on the subject (the examples are few: J. Muir, A. Leopold, HD Thoreau, etc.). Indeed, Hargrove (1990) writes: "Despite the many monumental results of philosophy, it has never succeeded, throughout the West, in providing a basis for environmental thinking. This failure involves all the major branches: metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, social and political philosophy, philosophy of science and, of course, aesthetics ......
Environmental ethics is an opportunity for philosophy to correct its greatest error, the rejection of the natural world which is experienced concretely in real life ......
We hope that conservationists and conservationists of the nature of the beginning of the next century will have better philosophical theories to make a choice ... ".
The lack of this philosophical basis has certainly determined all the substantial negative attitudes that man has developed in his vision of the world (anthropocentrism, dualism, etc.). Proof of this are the dull religious speculative and prevaricating speculations of the West or the rigid mechanization of Cartesian rationalism. A. Leopold wrote (1949-1997): "There is still no ethic that considers the relationship of man with the earth, and with the animals and plants that grow on it. Just like the slaves of Ulysses, the earth is still considered a property. The relationship with the land is still strictly economic and provides rights but not duties .....
In short, a land ethic changes the role of Homo sapiens as a conqueror of the earth to a simple member and citizen of his community. It implies respect for the other members and for the community itself, as such ".
The Capra discourse is very well integrated when he writes (1997): "All living beings are members of ecological communities linked to one another in a network of interdependent relations. When this deep ecological perception becomes part of our everyday awareness, a radically new ethical system emerges.
Today the need for such a profound ecological ethic is urgent, especially in science, given that much of what scientists do is not used to promote life or to preserve it, but to destroy it. With physicists who design armament systems that threaten to cancel life on the planet, with chemists that contaminate the world environment, with biologists who put new and unknown types of microorganisms into circulation without being able to predict their consequences, with the psychological and other scientists who torture animals in the name of scientific progress, with all these activities that continue, it seems urgent to introduce in the science of the norms of 'eco-ethics' ".
Vittorio Hosle in his interesting work "Philosophy of the ecological crisis" (1992) highlights the importance that ethical / philosophical thought assumes for a new collective responsibility towards nature. "Ecological catastrophes are the disaster that looms over us in a future not farther; despite all the collective efforts to remove this perspective, despite all the strategies developed to reassure and reassure us, in the meantime this conviction has consolidated in the conscience of most people and constitutes the gloomy background of the meaning of life for the young generation of the developed countries . On the one hand, the practice of cultivating this feeling has something repugnant about it, since it is all too easy for it to lead to resignation and apathy, or even worse, which leads the masses to frantic hedonism and intellectuals. a morbid cynicism that resigns itself to what seems inevitable and that only wants to put the last drops from the chalice of the world, before sending it to pieces. On the other hand, however, this danger can not serve to justify the removal and therefore the undaunted, mad suicide race towards the abyss: this applies to each of us, and above all to philosophy. This fact is badly reconciled with the removals. because philosophy deals with the truth, and precisely not with this or that single moment of it, but with the truth that conceals the totality of being ...... Philosophy can not remain indifferent to its destiny. None of the great philosophers has escaped the emergencies of their time ......; therefore, in the moment in which not only the destiny of one's own people is at stake, but also that of humanity and much of inanimate nature, being indifferent means betraying the cause of philosophy ...
How did man come to threaten his planet in the way we are experiencing today? Is the idea of progress still meaningful in the face of this situation? ......... It is not enough to recognize the danger in which we find ourselves, in the middle of a frozen lake, the ice creaks under our feet; you have to look for loopholes to escape the danger. And even if all around us are enveloped by fog, philosophy can still hope to see the beach of salvation thanks to the light that radiates; it may perhaps indicate the direction in which it is necessary to proceed ..... ".
Kaiser (1992) brings into focus the extremely negative aspects of the dualistic vision of life in four fundamental relations (Self-I, You-I, I-world, I-God). In fact, he writes: "(I-Self) Dualism divides man from nature, thus separating him from himself, because he too is nature. The result of this split, the experience of a profound contradiction, of an inner laceration, is the feeling of not being one with oneself, of not living in harmony with one's own person - (I-You) A dualistic conception of the relationship of man with his neighbor implies that the individual feels first of all separate from the other, opposed to him. Polarizing tendencies in political and social life are an eloquent example of this (I-world). Dualistic divisive thinking sees man as opposed to nature, being substantially different from it. Here, too, only one step separates us from the consequences of imperialism, for which man would be called to dominate nature, submitting it to his own will - (I-God) In the relationship between man and the divine, dualism leads to the concept of a personal and transcendent (and therefore theistic) God, distinctly separated from man and the world. God is 'totally other', not comparable with any earthly thing. Consequence of this dualistic conception of God is the desecration of the world ... which is at the base of cosmic imperialism ... ".
G. Snyder writes (1992): "American society (like all companies) has its own system of assumptions about reality that are taken for granted. It continues to nurture a largely uncritical faith in the concept of progress. It is attached to the idea that there can be immaculate scientific objectivity. And, more importantly, it works on the basis of the illusion that each of us is a kind of 'solitary knower', a pure uprooted intelligence, without numerous layers of local contexts: the illusion that there is a 'self' and the 'world'".
A philosophy of conservation must therefore be inspired by a profound unitary vision of life, where the divisive particularisms give way to universality and impersonal: "The examination of the parts never leads to an understanding of the whole" (Fukuoka, 2001). Only in this way can the value in itself of things be gradually acquired by collective thought, lending, in the initial phase, to the most sensitive and profound people who, having understood this idea, commit themselves to spreading it.
"There is only hope of rejecting the tyrannical ambition of civilization to conquer every place on earth. This hope is the organization of the people most sensitive to the values of the spirit, so that they fight for the free continuity of the wild nature " (Robert Marshall).
"By doing nothing, there is nothing that is not done" (Lao-Tze).
"Nature must be respected and safeguarded for its value in itself. He is the man who has to adapt to his needs and not vice versa. If it is possible, we must make sure that the wild world lives in its free continuity and its pride, that freedom and the pride that man, a prisoner and slave of his own conventions, perhaps unconsciously envies "
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APPENDIX
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Towards a Deep Ecology
of Guido Dalla Casa
Introduction
The most current idea that is evoked in public opinion when it comes to "green" or "green" action, is that this essentially consists in keeping watch for the "natural progress of humanity" to happen without pollutions and without modifying too much the environment, which is considered beautiful and therefore "to be saved". In essence, what is called environmental action is the "protection of the environment": do not pollute, keep the landscape clean, install filters and purifiers and store here and there some islands of nature where to go for recreational purposes, the "Parks".
The thought component mentioned above is quite present today in the public opinion and its maximum diffusion is certainly useful.
In the notes that follow I will propose some deeper questions, while considering the above mentioned actions to be fully valid, trying to highlight something that many have never thought of only because the conceptions that are breathed from birth appear obvious and therefore do not appear at all: they constitute the basis of the model in which we live, ie industrial civilization, current expression of Western culture.
Let's ask then some questions:
- Why was the ecological drama born in Western culture?
- Why do we consider Western civilization and its myths as "true"?
- What are development and well-being?
- Is the concept of progress universal and obvious?
- What position does our species have in the Universe?
- What do other human cultures think?
Since the destruction of natural balances is the work of industrial civilization and its tumultuous expansion, to achieve some global and permanent improvement in this field it is necessary:
- undermine the conceptions that made it born;
- questioning his vision of the world.
1 - Surface ecology
In this chapter I will briefly describe the kind of "ecology" usually referred to and which is accepted by a rapidly growing number of people. I will use for this purpose the language that is most frequently used by the media when dealing with the ecological problem.
According to this ecology, in which the distinction between "man" and "the environment" is maintained, the Earth must be kept clean and pleasant because it is "the only one we have", it is "our home", it is a planet done for us. It is necessary to "defend the environment" so that humanity can live better: the changes must be made "on a human scale".
For example, a swamp must be saved because it acts as a lung in the floods, because it is rich in life and therefore provides us with a good livelihood (taking as long as it does not affect the balance of the ecosystem), because we can recreate it by seeing it, and etc.
The forest must be saved because it gives us oxygen, because we still have so many things to learn about it, because many species can one day give us new agricultural crops, for new medicines and for recreational or knowledge purposes.
Already the reasons to save large areas of desert appear less evident. However, some deserts are needed to study the species that have adapted and why this environment can serve as a gym for our daring, seen as a significant "sporting" value.
Ultimately the central and very special position of the "man" is not questioned.
Every ecologic movement that derives from Marxist, Catholic or Protestant conceptions falls within the category of surface ecology. These positions are daughters of the West, they give great value to man and "history" and have "progress" as their myth.
As a metaphysical background, these conceptions believe that the universal (that is, the "matter" or the "physical world") is a kind of clock that man, the only different being, can and must modify to his advantage.
The fact of believing that there is a Watchmaker (the God of the Old Testament) or that does not exist (materialism) causes differences that are not very relevant. With both positions one behaves towards Nature almost in the same way. On the one hand it is believed that the right-duty to change the world comes from God, on the other from a sort of "selective merit" that has made us, in essence, the only "spirit" holders; but the effects are practically the same.
Both positions are inspired by the philosophical conceptions of the seventeenth-century French thinker René Descartes, commonly known as Descartes.
In essence, in this vision of the world, nature must be protected because it is "res communitatis" and is not "res nullius". However, it remains always "res", it is a question of "ownership", of common heritage, something to be safeguarded, but which must be "used".
Almost all the ecological movements existing today, being children of Western culture and its conception of the world, are inspired by the principles mentioned here: after all, if not, they would probably have a smaller numerical sequence.
This position is quite similar to the idea of an organism seen as the "environment" of nerve cells or of any organ considered as central (man): this organ, or group of cells, would have the right to modify the body, keeping it alive, to take advantage of it, that is, to achieve its balanced expansion and development.
Since this conception fits into the general thinking of the West, the idea that the logical aspiration of every individual and every community is "affirmation" or "success" is not questioned. Basically, everything can continue as before, installing filters and purifiers and saving some island of nature around the world.
2 - Deep ecology
In this chapter I will try, as far as possible, to get out of the general conceptions of our culture: I will therefore use verbal expressions a bit different from the current ones. We must not underestimate the subtle power of the word in transmitting and perpetuating concepts.
This chapter, however, is an extension of the previous one, with which it is not antithetical, because the motivations mentioned there remain valid. More will be added, which are framed in a different vision of the world, in which the ecological attitudes assume a metaphysical connotation, which goes far beyond simple considerations of utility, opportunity and aesthetics.
Based on this approach, it is evident that our species is not particularly privileged. Living beings and ecosystems, like all elements of the Cosmos, have a value in themselves. All of Nature has an intrinsic and unitary value, just as it has a value in itself every component, formed in a billions of years process. The human species is one of these components, one of the branches of the tree of Life.
So instead of talking about "environment" as if Nature were a stage for human actions, we will use expressions like "the Living Complex":
- "environmental impact" will become "alteration made to the Complex of the Living";
- the "environmental advocates" will become "people worried about the health, harmony and psycho-physical balance of the Complesso dei Viventi".
The natural world is not "the heritage of all", but it is much more: it is billions of years before our species. If one really wants to speak of belonging, it is humanity that belongs to Nature and not vice versa.
Instead of ambition, success, personal affirmation (or group or species), knowledge, mental serenity, ego attenuation and perception will be considered values: ultimately a sort of identification with the Universal Mind, of tune with the cosmic vital rhythm.
In this context, the western-biblical idea of the human position appears more or less like a curious delirium of greatness.
While in the ecology of the surface the Earth must be respected because it is of all present and future generations, in the deep ecology the human species is neither depositary nor owner of anything. This idea recalls Red Cloud's response to European invaders who wanted to buy the best part of Lakota territory: "The earth is of the Great Spirit; you can not sell or buy ". It is a pity not to know the Amerindian languages, because probably the real meaning was "the earth is the Great Spirit". Naturally the whites occupied those lands with violence.
Even the idea of "progress" implies a certain cultural conception and a certain vision of history that are not shared by all of humanity. Much of human culture is experienced in Nature without worrying about progress and history. Even if nothing is static, everything is dynamic and fluctuating, this does not mean that the concepts of progress and regression are necessary: the improvement or the deterioration refer only to parameters and values of a particular model and have no universal meaning.
The term "development" actually means the degree of overwhelming our species over other species and industrial civilization over other human cultures.
There is no privileged model in deep ecology. The global balance and the variety and complexity of living species, ecosystems and cultures are values "in themselves". The terms "growth" and "decrease" are complementary, in dynamic equilibrium, without positive or negative connotations.
Consequently, the concepts of resources and waste are not necessary: they presuppose the idea that processes or modifications are carried out that take something fixed - the resources - and download something else - the waste, which means non-functioning. cyclical, incompatible with the stationary condition.
With these premises the so-called "production" is - ultimately - a waste production. The same term "civilization" is useless and dangerous, because it implies a merit judgment based on a particular scale of values, considered obvious.
In fact, "Civil" today means "conforming to the principles of the West" and nothing more. There is no reason to consider Western civilization as the best of the Yanomami, Papua, Eskimos, Dogon, or a thousand other cultures on Earth. In the same way in deep ecology it makes no sense to speak of "useful", "harmful" or "harmless" species, since anything in Nature has its justification in itself and in the Complex it belongs to. It does not have to serve someone or something.
Basically in the deep ecology the concept of "environment" is overcome to make room for the perception of being part of a much wider psychophysical Entity, that is of Nature, which manifests itself in the greatest variety and harmony, in the greatest dynamic balance of species ; it is a self-correcting system with Mind.
3 - Some aspects of the ecological crisis
The ecological drama was born in industrial civilization and invaded the world following the tumultuous expansion of this model. The myth of industrialization arose in Western culture only two or three centuries ago.
The fundamental practical discoveries to "start" the technology were already known in Chinese culture for several centuries. But in China they did not give birth to the process of industrialization, which was imported only in very recent times, returning from the West. Evidently the background of Chinese thought - largely inspired by the philosophies of Tao and Buddhism - could not direct those knowledge on the path then followed in Europe: the motivations were therefore essentially cultural. The official explanation that the Europeans were "ahead" is just a turn of words. Even the Indian culture three thousand years ago had probably more refined concepts than the European one in the fifteenth century: in India at that time there was certainly no lack of ability to make certain discoveries, but there was the precise perception that it was impossible and inappropriate to follow a certain path.
On the contrary, the inspirational foundation of Western or Jewish-Christian culture is the Old Testament, and here one of the causes of our attitude towards Nature must be sought. But there have been other successive evolutions, above all the extension in the general thought of the philosophy of Descartes and of Newton's physics, precisely in the centuries that immediately preceded the birth of industrial civilization.
There will be some mention of the influence of these ideas which, grafted on the conceptions of the Old Testament, have provoked the current massive aggression against Nature. It will then be noted that these are ideas consolidated and concretized in the nineteenth century but not really "modern": there is always a notable inertia between the nascent thought and the mass conceptions, those that determine the collective orientation and action. .
All our culture is permeated by the antithesis, by the contrast with nature: life is seen as "struggle against the forces of nature". In other philosophies this would mean "struggle against the organism to which we belong", which is meaningless and causes neurosis and conflict. Not for nothing where the "environment" is more degraded, there is also more human crisis, with high rates of crime, psychopathy, suicides. The division between "man" and "the environment" is artificial and fictitious.
If the cancer cells could express themselves, they would probably have an idea of "development" very similar to that of industrial civilization, which invades, making them uniform, the other species and other human cultures, with a similar trend to that of tumors that progress to expenses of the other cells of the organism, whose behavior is based not on permanent growth, but on dynamic equilibrium.
There are many examples of petty life that highlight the collective unconscious of the current industrial civilization.
Many people, if they move away from the cities, are especially concerned with things such as vipers and landslides, but they are quietly put on the highway. We do not need too many statistics to realize that the car is thousands of times more dangerous than any natural event: not enough sixty thousand deaths per year and one million injured in road accidents, only in Europe, to perceive this fact.
How many would enter the Amazon forest? Yet it is clear that it is much more dangerous to go through some neighborhood of New York or Sao Paulo at night. Our unconscious conceptions, that is cultural, push us to fear natural events much more than those due to machines or our like, against any numerical evidence.
This is a technological, non-scientific civilization: the desire to know, but to manipulate, does not prevail.
Moreover, everything that touches the foundations of our culture can not even be studied: it is simply denied or set aside and left without investigation of any kind. For example, any study on the possibility of "reincarnation" or "rebirth", or anyway on psychic phenomena in the vicinity of death, or on interference or spirit-matter identity is in fact rejected a priori by the official world.
The so-called "movements for life" consider it obvious to be concerned only with human life, but they are not concerned at all with the torture inflicted on many forms of life and the state of health of the Complex of the Living.
In our culture happen the most hallucinatory genetic manipulations on all living species, with the creation of hybrids and strange beings: very few worry about it. Instead, at the only distant hint of giving birth to a chimpanzee-man (apart from its impossibility), there was the disdainful revolt of official scientists. Any manipulation of that kind is an absurdity. But at least the chimpanzee-man, if left free in some surviving forest or savannah of this poor planet, would have reminded us that we are of the same, identical nature of other living beings.
The basics of Western culture on this subject are extremely fragile. Beings like the Australopithecus or the Homo erectus have become extinct for a few hundred thousand years, an insignificant time in the overall scale of Life. The fact that these hominids are extinct is completely contingent. If they were alive, our culture, depending on the opinion of some institution, would take one of the following attitudes:
- consider hunting these beings as a sport;
- close the hominids in the cages of the zoos;
- restore slavery;
- consider the killing of a hominid as a voluntary homicide punishable by life imprisonment.
It is perhaps because of this that there is always a subtle "fear" of finding some Yeti alive on the slopes of the Himalayas. All to continue to oppose "man" to "animal": so we lose sight of the spirituality of life.
But even if we limit ourselves to the species now living, we can see that: the more our knowledge about primate behavior increases, the more the differences between human and non-human primates diminish. For example, the difference in genetic information between our species and the chimpanzee is one or two percent.
From an expert's article:
Our closest relatives are chimpanzees. The genetic difference is only about one percent. We are more closely similar to chimpanzees than two frogs are likely to meet each other.
(The search for Modern Humans, National Geographic, October 1988)
In other words, the Judeo-Christian culture has not yet managed to conceive an ethics of life and remains anchored to a morality that is exclusively concerned with the human species.
It may be useful to note that the conceptions born from the Genesis were then developed above all in geographical areas where the other species of monkeys were very scarce or absent, so the most immediate finding of the existence of beings very similar to us was missing. In particular, the other great Primates were absent, such as gorillas, orangutans and chimpanzees, which would have made evident the lack of discontinuity between us and all the other species.
For example, the simplest reason for a largely vegetarian diet should be to compare the diet of the other Primal Mammals, that is, of the other monkeys, whose body is very similar to ours.
One last example:
All of Life is marked by the eternal cycles of Nature. Our culture has detached itself from it and follows its own periods, such as the weekly rhythm of work and free time, which comes from the story of Genesis. Instead of operating according to this artificial rhythm and celebrating battles, republics and saints, we could follow the moon phases, celebrate at the beginning or end of the seasons, follow the Sun, the Moon and the stars.
There would be more serenity. And they would be parties that unite humanity, while the current ones divide it: in the battles there are those who win and there are those who lose. Instead the Sun is at the Zenit of Equator for all.
But even in our culture, fanatically linked to "history", there are still traces of Nature, so much so that the major holiday had to be fixed on December 25, because in the depths of the unconscious there is still the distant memory of when At our latitudes, it was a big party, realizing that the night had stopped advancing on the day and the light had begun its ascent. It took just three or four days after the winter solstice to be certain.
Here is how some native American cultures poetically marked the quasi-monthly rhythm:
- the moon when the ducks come back and hide (February);
- the moon when the grass appears (April);
- the moon when the red lilies bloom (June);
- the moon when the deers lose their horns (August);
- the moon of colored trees (October)
and so on.
At this point, it is useful to bring back the thought of a shaman Oglala:
It is the story of all of life that is holy and good to tell and of us that we share with the quadrupeds and the winged of the air and all the green things: because they are all children of the same mother and their father is a only Spirit. Perhaps the sky is not a father and the Earth a mother and are not all living beings with feet, with wings and with roots their children?
(from the book Alce Nero talks about John Neihardt)
In an Amazonian language the term which means the highest level of mind, or "the Great Spirit", also means "everything" in the current language.
Finally, according to the expression of an African culture:
We believe that God is in all things: in the rivers, in the grass, in the bark of the trees, in the clouds and in the mountains.
4 - The myth of the origins
I will speak of "cultures" and "visions of the world", not of religions, trying to avoid opinions on the religious dimension, even if culture and religion are fields that can not be separated.
The attitude of the various cultures towards the rest of Nature, that is, of other species and ecosystems, depends largely on their vision of the world, or their metaphysical conceptions.
If we limit ourselves to the more recent and more widespread cultures, we note that the most serious destruction and degradation of ecosystems come from models that refer to the Jewish-Christian and Muslim lines, that is to those cultures that are inspired, in a more or less less evident, to the Old Testament.
It will be good to clarify right away that with the expression "Jewish-Christian culture" we intend to indicate the tradition that has developed in the last fifteen centuries giving rise to Western civilization, without absolutely validating the idea that this culture was inspired by the teaching of Christ. On the contrary, the teaching of Christ profoundly and radically challenged the conceptions of the Old Testament: the most evident proof is that He was condemned to death precisely for this reason. Having made Jesus' words appear as a kind of continuation of the previous tradition of those Middle-Eastern lands was a particular interpretation of the following centuries.
The teaching of Christ is very similar to the philosophies of Eastern derivation, with which he has in common fundamental ideas, such as acceptance, detachment from the things of the world, universal love, the uselessness of institutions, the extinction of desire. , and so on. Even its outward appearance, which comes from tradition, is very reminiscent of an Indian. In particular, equality among persons (abolition of caste and uselessness of every hierarchy), as well as the abolition of sacrifices, reminiscent of Buddhism. Furthermore, it is evident that the Old Testament is the myth of a particular ethnics (the "chosen people"), while the teaching of Christ is a-ethnic and universal, like that of the Buddha.
Something still transpires of His natural philosophy, such as in the expression: Look how the lilies of the field grow: they do not work and do not spin. Yet I tell you that even Solomon in all his splendor was never dressed like one of them. (Matthew, Chap. 6, 28-29). This is a serene acceptance of Nature and an observation of the absurdity of wanting to "modify" the world. There is an evident contrast between the search for inner serenity preached by Christ and the Buddha and the biblical-Jewish substratum on which Western culture was founded.
Another particular interpretation is the distinction between the "monotheistic" religions, which would be the three of the Middle Eastern strand, and the others defined as "polytheistic". As it turns out, there is no truly "polytheist" thought, even if for non-biblical strands it would be better to speak of "monism" rather than monotheism. On the contrary, the cultures that are inspired by these metaphysics normally know very well the Unity of Everything and the impossibility of separating the phenomena by breaking up the Universal. Rather, even to the effects of practical consequences or attitude, a distinction can be made between the traditions that spread the idea of an external Deity that acts on the world (creating a dualism) and those that consider the Divine immanent to Nature, or anyway they overcome every distinction between immanence and transcendence.
As for the many deities of the so-called polytheists, they are simply the unconscious, archetypal psychic forces, or as they are called.
Reporting Bateson:
If you put God outside and place him before his creation, and you have the idea of having been created in his image, you will naturally and naturally see yourself as outside and against the things that surround you. And at the moment when you will arrog the whole mind, the whole world will appear to you without mind and therefore without the right to moral consideration or ethics. The environment will seem to be exploited to your advantage. Your survival unit will be you and your people or the individuals of your species in antithesis with the environment formed by other social units, other races, other animals and plants.
If this is the opinion you have about your relationship with nature and if you have an advanced technique, the probability you have of surviving will be that of a snowball in hell. You will die because of the toxic by-products of your own hatred or, simply, for the overpopulation and the exaggerated exploitation of resources.
(G. Bateson, Towards an Ecology of the Mind, 1976)
For over a thousand years the conception of Genesis has been consolidated, which wants our species "lady and mistress of Creation", which would even be "made for us"! From today "Grow and multiply" the present obsessive mania of expansion was born, which in a culture with other foundations would appear as a pathological growth in an organism.
Thus, from the ever-repeated biblical idea of "chosen people", from that narrative that clearly favors an ethnic group, the Western concept of "being civilization" has developed, of possessing "truth" and "well-being" and of impose them on all the others, in short, the immense pride of the West was born, which manifests itself in very similar ways in the two parts, so-called "believer" and "atea", in which today it is apparently divided.
We only expected to "possess a technical power" to kick off the destruction of the natural balance.
5 - Descartes and Newton. Materialism. Development.
I do not think that the current way of life of peoples of Western culture was born above all from "practical" decisions: rather it was the affirmation of a way of thinking that caused the emergence of a way of life.
The dominant conceptual framework in European culture until the seventeenth century had all the conditions to start a systematic destruction of nature, but something was still missing: technical power.
The decisive push to get hold of this power came from the spread of the thought of Descartes, Bacon, Locke and some others and from the arrangement of the physical sciences by Newton.
When the conceptions of the French thinker, perhaps even on the wave of some happy mathematical intuitions, have made their way into the minds of the West, here is forming the most expansive and destructive cultural model ever appeared on the Planet: industrial civilization. And with it the ecological drama broke out.
As is well known, in Cartesian thought there is a clear distinction between "spirit" and "matter": man is the only being endowed with spirit. All the rest, living or non-living, is only brute matter, therefore manipulable without consequences and without moral problems. So the physics of Newton could turn to settle the world of matter that became a kind of gigantic machine, governed by strict mechanical laws.
Mechanicism, born in this way, has guided official science until the twentieth century and is the basis of current current thinking of the people of Western culture: from this background came industrial civilization.
As for the thought of Locke, it is sufficient to quote this passage:
To this must be added that those who appropriated their earthly work do not diminish but increase the common provisions of humanity: in fact, the assets suitable for the sustenance of human life which are produced by an acre of land fenced and cultivated are, to say the least, ten times those provided by an acre of land equally rich but left uncultivated and common. So it can truly be said that he who fences a land, and from ten acres, draws more of the means of subsistence than he could draw from a hundred left in the natural state, gives ninety acres to humanity.
(from Jeremy Rifkin, Entropia, 1980)
As we see, no consideration for all the life that is destroyed, nor for the beauty of the world. Furthermore, every form of perception of the global equilibrium and of the complex of relationships that bind all living organisms is lacking.
Unfortunately we went on that road and still today the economic-industrial world thinks it substantially that way. In the opinion of Rifkin:
Rereading Locke today, he gets the unpleasant feeling that he would not be satisfied until he saw every river of Earth barred by dams, every wonder of nature covered with advertising signs and every mountain smashed to produce oil shales.
(Jeremy Rifkin, Entropia, 1980)
From similar ideas are derived the primacy of the economic and the economic vision of life that characterize the industrial civilization.
Even if now someone begins to be wary of these conceptions, in practice they are still fully and enthusiastically followed, with well-known results.
From the Cartesian cultural background the modern concept of development was born, whose characteristics can be summarized as follows:
- Destruction of other species of living beings. The process consists of an invasion by humanity and its machines to the detriment of other living beings;
- Destruction of human cultures. All of humanity is forced to live according to the same pattern and with the same scale of values, which places at the top the indefinite increase of material goods;
- Destruction of the beauty and variety of the world. The natural ecosystems are replaced by a disharmonic and uniform expanse of a few species (humanity, monocultures, livestock), often degenerated and deprived of their dignity and spirituality;
- Introduction of the concepts of resources and waste, resulting from the operation not on closed cycles, such as the Nature complex, but in an "open" way;
- Decreased physical work, usually replaced by other commitments and "voluntary" physical work;
- Replacement of inert matter to living substance, with the construction of machines, plants, roads, instead of forests, swamps, savannahs;
- Increase in average human life, too often not balanced by a corresponding decline in births, obviously necessary for the maintenance of balance.
In a synthetic way, it can be said that when the concept of economic development arrives, the balance of the soul and the harmony of the world disappear.
In reality, the material growth of something is always accompanied by the degradation of something else in space or time. The term "balanced development" is only a contradiction of terms, or is meaningless, being conceptually different from the expression "dynamic equilibrium", which denotes situations in which the economic parameters continuously fluctuate around stable values. After all, the advantages of a stationary economy had already been highlighted by John Stuart Mill in 1858, but such beauty struck only rare isolated spirits, while the West was now launched into the religion of growth.
The term "sustainable development" should be replaced by the term "sustainable system", ie a variable system, but always in equilibrium, or rather stationary.
When you then hear about the contrast between the needs of the economy and those of ecology, do not forget that:
- the so-called "needs of the economy" do not exist, because they depend exclusively on the scale of values of each cultural model. Economics is a human and socially controllable fact: nothing requires that it should be "growing";
- the "needs of ecology" are fundamental physical and biological laws well above those that may be the passions of our species.
Therefore, even beyond moral and aesthetic considerations, it is essential that the economic system be compatible with the functioning of the Complex of the Living for an indefinite time.
It is then useful a brief reflection on the concept of well-being, which is essentially a mental state and not a pile of objects. To obtain something in this sense, a preliminary study of the nature of the mind would be logical, rather than the frantic spiral of the eternal desire imposed by the current model.
As for the future, the most catastrophic hypothesis that can be done is that development continues to the bitter end, because in this case we would arrive at an extremely degraded world. However, the phenomenon could not continue due to the impossibility of the persistence of the vital processes.
As alternatives, the utopias must also be taken into consideration.
We summarize the origins of the concept of development and therefore of the ecological crisis:
- The biblical idea of separation between our species, protagonist, and the world, a stage made for us. With the conception of a "God distinct from the world" it was easy to get rid of the Divinity (materialism-Marxism) and replace the "divine right" with the "selective merit". So nothing has changed: the same hand destroys the Amazon forest and the Siberian taiga.
- Only our species "has the soul". The concept was aggravated by the Cartesian philosophy, according to which there is a clear and incurable distinction between spirit and matter, which do not meet and do not interfere: man would also be "spirit" (as well as body), while the other living beings would be only "matter", that is machines. The French thinker was so convinced of it that he apparently threw a cat out of the window to prove his certainty that he "could not suffer".
Thus humanity, the only one to be also spirit, could do what it wanted of nature, which would have been matter: this idea has exacerbated the pre-existing "divine right". With materialism, the last child of the West, it changes very little: matter against matter, the strongest wins, which at its pleasure can preserve pieces of "original nature" to brighten up life: this is surface ecology.
6 - West - East - Animism
Many ways of thinking, or guiding ideas, widespread in current thinking, are perceived as obvious and natural premises or as tendencies proper to human nature: they are rather often only conceptual frames of Western culture, that is, prejudices.
Because the foundations of deep ecology can make their way into the human soul, it is necessary to criticize the conceptions derived from the biblical account of Genesis and which have become "evident" for Western culture, that is to reverse the attitude of aggression towards Nature and of indifference to the beauty of the world.
It is evident that there are many Westerners with different worldviews, at least at the intellectual and conscious level, but the modes of thought and the unconscious attitude can differ greatly from what follows from the reasoning.
However, I do not intend to talk about individual thought here.
To give a little look outside the West, we quote this passage taken from an inspiring text of Hindu culture:
The rivers, or dear, flow eastwards to the east, westerners to the west. Coming from the celestial ocean, they return to the ocean and become one with the ocean. As soon as they come they do not remember to be this or that other river, just like that, or dear, the living, who have come out of Being, do not know that they come from Being. Whatever they are here on Earth - man, tiger, lion, wolf, boar, worm, butterfly - they continue their existence as Tat. Whatever this subtle essence, the whole Universe is made of it, it is the true reality, it is the Atman. It is you, or Svetaketu.
(Chandogya Upanishad, 10th khanda)
The profound difference in conception with respect to Genesis is clear.
In these metaphysical conceptions the dualistic relationship is missing, nor is it that contrast between man and nature proper to the West. Instead of three distinct levels as God-man-nature (in the materialism remain the last two, but always opposed), we find the God-Nature omnipresent and indistinguishable from the universal.
Very simple then it is the first indication of the Buddhist ethics: "Do not damage any sentient being". With the term "sentient" one can also indicate a species, an ecosystem, or an entity of that type, as having a form of mind.
Only some Eastern philosophies recommend becoming quasi-vegetarians; but in general they ask to respect Life in all its components. On the other hand, the morals of the Judeo-Christian and Muslim traditions, in accordance with the positions expressed in Genesis, deal exclusively with values and relationships within our species, as if everything else was just a stage, or "the environment".
As for the various forms of animism that have been present in humanity a little everywhere, it is quite evident that in these worldviews we are not the only beings endowed with "spirit": a dichotomy of this kind would probably be unthinkable for who lived in contact with the orangutans or the gorillas. But it should also be inconceivable for those who know the nature of the vital phenomena and the unitary picture provided by biological evolution.
However, even among us, we can see that animism is spontaneous in children: it is the cultural conditioning that erase it.
As an example, we can now examine the attitude of some groups of cultures towards hunting:
- In Western-style civilizations there is the phenomenon "kill for fun": often the killing is even considered a "merit" by the hunter. The phenomenon, seriously present, however, involves a minority, even if rather intrusive; the only way to limit it now consists in strict prohibitions. In the West there are those who spend money to kill, which is even the opposite of "getting food" essential to the idea of hunting in many other models.
- In many animist cultures the capture of the prey was seen as the gift of a god, which can be interpreted as "the genius of the species": the capture was lawful only if it was followed by the complete use of all the parts of the gift, to primarily a food and survival purpose. Often the most hunted animal was also considered a totem, had its own sacredness. The possible killing made "for fun" or "without purpose" was an offense to the god: therefore it was experienced as a crime and placed the hunter in the position of those who await the punishment of the god, which we could also call "consequence of the complex guilt ": usually this punishment arrived punctually, through the mysterious paths of the unconscious and the indissoluble bonds between mind and body.
Animist cultures rarely provoked species extinction or the destruction of ecosystems: for many thousands of years the natives of America lived in symbiosis with millions of bison and all the other species in harmonious and dynamic balance; it took only two or three centuries of European civilization to destroy everything.
- In general, the cultures of the East considered the other beings or in a cycle of deaths and rebirths (samsara) or anyway worthy of the greatest benevolence: all the living beings were part of a cosmic equilibrium. This gave rise to morals such as "Do not harm any sentient being". Even here the possibility of having fun killing was experienced as a serious crime.
In the Eastern conceptions the other living species are composed of beings who live our own adventure in different ways, with full right to a free and independent life. Instead, in our world, the so-called "movements for life" consider it obvious to deal only with human life, without even the need to specify it. Of the balance and the state of health of Life, that is, of the Complex of the Living, they do not care at all.
Basically, in order for the "hunting" phenomenon to really end, even though prohibitions are very useful, a new ethical and cultural basis is indispensable.
As for the concept of progress:
- In "Western-type" cultures progress is seen as an indefinite increase in material goods and a decrease in physical labor;
- In "oriental-type" cultures progress consists in increasing perception and mental serenity;
- In the "animist" cultures there is no need for the idea of progress.
7 - Some trends in modern thought
In this brief review I will leave for some centuries ago, that is, from Copernicus. It should be premised that, when we talk about the various authors, we are not referring to their personal vision of the world, but to interpretations born in the light of successive passages and expansions, that is to extensions later, also by fusion with the thought of others. In fact very often the novelties of thought then seem to spread almost in contrast with the conscious intentions of some of their greatest initiators.
As a sign of hope, it can be seen that, precisely in the period in which the mechanistic conceptions born from the Old Testament and the philosophy of Descartes are spreading as "modern" on the wave of the material power of the West, they are subjected to criticism more and more numerous and close by the same Western scholars, to the point of being able to say that, in the light of current knowledge, they are almost unsustainable.
But for a profound change of the basic philosophy of large layers of people, it takes a few centuries, after the first signs of change. Unfortunately, today we do not have even a few decades to avoid that the demographic and economic-industrial expansion leads the world towards the catastrophe for the breaking of every vital equilibrium: the species and the destroyed ecosystems are not reproducible.
According to Fritjof Capra, the metaphysics of an era derives from the physics of the previous era: it is a matter of speeding up the "turning point" as much as possible.
With the Copernican revolution, the center of the Universe passes from the Earth to the Sun: it is the first step to question the relationship between man and nature, of a first shift from the central position, even if it takes centuries to perceive its real extent. However, the spiritual exclusivity of our species is not yet minimally affected.
In the nineteenth century, biological evolution, expressed in complete form above all by the work of Charles Darwin, decisively undermined the idea that humanity was "special", "the fruit of separate creation", something "detached from Nature".
However, when Darwin's thought appeared, one missed an excellent opportunity for a real cultural turning point: instead of highlighting the essential fact, that is the belonging of our species to Nature and therefore the necessity to follow the great cyclic laws, evolution was framed in full in the prevailing mechanicism: it was highlighted above all the idea of "natural selection and survival of the fittest" with all sorts of arbitrary extension.
Evolution could supplant the previous conception much more deeply: but this did not happen, or perhaps not yet. On the contrary, some of the superficial aspects of Darwin's theory have been assimilated immediately and exploited in order to further legitimize the mechanistic view of the world. Its deep implications have never really been explored, at least until very recently.
Furthermore, according to Bateson:
Now we begin to see some of the epistemological errors of Western civilization. In harmony with the climate of thought that predominated in the mid-nineteenth century in England, Darwin formulated a theory of natural selection and evolution in which the survival unit was either the family or the species or the subspecies or something of the kind. But today it is undisputed that this is not the survival unit of the real biological world: the unity of survival is the complex "organism plus environment" (ie it is not a unit that can be delimited). We are learning on our skin that the organism that destroys its environment destroys itself. (Gregory Bateson, Towards an Ecology of the Mind, 1976)
Later we read that the evolutionary survival unit coincides with the mental unit.
But if one chooses the wrong unity, one ends up by contrasting one species with another that surrounds it or the environment in which it lives: man against Nature.
Recalling a moral teaching already mentioned ("Do not damage any sentient being"), it is clear that one can understand this "mental unity" as a "sentient being". Instead of the term mind, perhaps it would be better to use, with Jung, the word psyche to remember clearly that it is not only the conscious part, but above all of "unconscious plus consciousness", in which the former is preponderant. In short, we do not mean the restrictive concept of the current thinking of the modern West. Thus, even with the conceptions of Bateson, an ecosystem, a species, a collectivity of living beings linked by reciprocal relations or multiple symbiosis are endowed with "mind" or "psychism".
For a comparison with the Eastern conceptions, the mental unity coincides with the subject entity of karma: it is not only a matter of the individual in a physical or mechanistic sense. The Living Complexes constitute, with their interrelations, phenomena and mental subjects.
So the invitation to "Do not damage any sentient being" can be understood as a highly ecological prescription and not as a simple invitation to become vegetarians; apart from that naturally also plants and plant and animal complexes are to be understood as "sentient", even if the degree of consciousness of all these entities can be considerably different.
We come to psychoanalysis. After Copernicus and Darwin, the human species is no longer detached from Nature, nor at the center of the Universe; at least so it had to be. But after the revolution of thought initiated by Freud, man is no longer the master of himself. However, the founder of psychoanalysis always spoke only of the human person as an autonomous and defined individual.
Only with the most profound change made especially by Carl Gustav Jung is the beginning of manifesting, even in Western culture, the idea of the collective unconscious, of something that links inwardly the various individualities.
The more we go deeper, the more the psyche expands, the more it becomes collective and generalized, ancestral or "archetypical"; it includes ever larger communities, ever larger animal classifications, all of Life, probably the Universal Totality.
Jung, while using the conceptual categories of the West, had a profound knowledge of Eastern philosophies. We begin to talk about non-causal synchronous phenomena and to consider other dimensions that are not only the rational and conscious sphere. The concept of an autonomous person who acts on the world is increasingly faltering. Whatever we do, we also manipulate ourselves: there is no "external world".
Let's move on to physics. The maximum of mechanicism, derived from the conception of Newton for which the Universe is like a gigantic Clock and all its parts of the "mechanisms" separable into smaller and smaller pieces, was reached at the end of the nineteenth century, when the belief also prevailed. to "get closer and closer to the truth".
Even living beings were considered as extraordinarily complicated "machines".
There were the 92 atoms, especially indivisible balls, which constituted the whole physical reality, in which the "fields" also acted. Space and time were absolute realities and all processes took place in them. Spiritual phenomena were kept completely separate or considered "imaginary" and denied.
Current thinking is still generally based on these positions.
With special relativity (1905), mechanistic or classical physics begins to waver: space and time lose every absolute connotation, matter and energy become the same thing. With general relativity (1916), gravitation becomes "geometry of space-time".
But already in the first years of the twentieth century another still profound conceptual revolution was prepared, the one brought by quantum physics, which was expressed in 1927 with the uncertainty principle formulated by Werner Heisenberg and with subsequent studies on the subject. The so-called Copenhagen interpretation, supported above all by Niels Bohr and confirmed in the following decades, denies the idea of "objective reality" and the possibility of separating, even if only conceptually, the phenomenon from its observation.
In other words, it is impossible to distinguish the spirit from matter. That is, without a "mental" form, one can not speak of anything, except as a phantom wave of probability. With a bold but concise extension, this means that the psychism must be universal. Otherwise, what are the systems with the status of "observer"?
It is symptomatic that the same results on the physical-mathematical plane have been interpreted differently on the philosophical level:
- Einstein, of Jewish cultural formation, was unable to renounce the concept of "external objective reality" and was never completely convinced of quantum physics; in substance, even if at the intellectual level he declared himself in favor of the "God of Spinoza", he could never renounce his "western" position in relation to the physical world;
- Schroedinger, a profound connoisseur of Vedic philosophy, did not accept that the "real" world was unknowable because he believed that the human mind was a reflection, a "hologram" of the Universal Mind, and therefore had to know all the way;
- Bohr, who also knew the Tao, fully accepted the consequences of Heisenberg's physical and mathematical formulations and of Schroedinger himself, renouncing without trauma to the concept of "objective reality" and considering the apparently contradictory aspects (wave-corpuscle type) as complementary and necessary; extended the concept of complementarity to other "opposites".
Even in physics there have been interpretations, by some of the founders themselves, tending to keep the new conceptions in an anthropocentric vision, confirming the tendency to frame new ideas in old patterns, at least for a few decades.
We often hear that quantum physics goes against common sense. But the so-called "common sense" (or "common sense") is simply formed by the conceptual paradigms and frames - that is, by prejudices - of the culture in which we were born and which we have therefore always breathed.
In the opinion of two well-known twentieth-century scientists:
Today there is a very broad concordance of views - which among physicists reaches almost unanimity - on the fact that the current of knowledge is heading towards a non-mechanical reality: the Universe begins to resemble a great Thought rather than a big car.
(J. Jeans and ASEddington)
I am not sure that the individuality we feel as a person, as an individual, is real, that it is not an illusion. It is in any case an idea spread in the East, with the masters of the Upanishads, that it is an illusion that we are not really spiritual individuals, but "part" of the same Entity.
(Erwin Schroedinger, Discussions on modern physics)
Let's move on to biology. In the sixties of the twentieth century, Jacques Monod thus concluded his thought:
The ancient covenant is broken. Man finally knows that he is alone in the indifferent immensity of the Universe, from which he emerged by chance. His duty and destiny are not written anywhere.
(Jacques Monod, chance and necessity)
Here we are at the height of metaphysical anguish, just attenuated by a form of ethics of knowledge. Nothing makes sense.
For this kind of materialism, life is reduced to falling into a Universe not made to welcome it, to cling to a grain of sand until death dissolves us, to strut us for a very short time on a very small theater, knowing full well that what we do or think is condemned to a final check and that everything will perish with our species or our solar system, leaving the Universe as if we had never existed. It is absolutely vain to look for a purpose or a continuity in history: when the Sun, following its stellar evolution, will become a red giant star extending its volume to the orbit of Mars, nothing will remain of anything that has happened on Earth .
But already François Jacob, a colleague of Monod, speaks of "logic of the living".
The living has its own logic, there is a form of immanence.
At the school in Brussels, the group led by Ilya Prigogine, studying the "dissipative structures" or far from equilibrium, as are also the living systems, speaks of a tendency to structure itself, to self-organize itself. Here too there is an inner push, an immanent "desire" to create structures.
In the field of anthropology, we are still trying to overcome, with great difficulty, the nineteenth-century concept of the "civil" European that goes to study the "savages" and to help the "primitives".
It is well known, for example, that Levy-Strauss has not spared criticism of this cultural pride of the West. But with the current of Marcel Griaule and Jean Servier, the framework of equality between human cultural models acquires an even more defined connotation. According to Servier:
No moralist has ever posed the problem of the responsibility of the West in this creation of artificial needs, which we mask under the name of "civilization" or "standard of life", which has the sole purpose of making our factories work.
(Jean Servier, Man and the Invisible, 1967)
There are no "primitives" but only different models: there are no "savages" who spend their days thinking only about getting food and making love, but cultures dedicated above all to the perception of the "invisible", that is spiritual unity with Life and with all Nature. The European conceptions of the last centuries, derived from the Greeks, the Romans and the Jewish world, are only the expression of the pride of the West, following its overwhelming material power, obtained at the price of extreme poverty of cosmic perception and cause of neurosis and anguish.
In essence, the cause of our troubles is the psychophysical detachment from Nature, to which we belong.
And we have not touched the vast field of paranormal phenomena, or of macroscopic indistinguishability between psyche and matter, that is, of those phenomena that official Cartesian science is forced to set aside or deny, in order not to see its premises undermined.
Faced with a phenomenon that calls into question the current conceptual framework, nothing remains but negation, a typical reaction of the psyche to unwelcome news. For example, the observation that thought or emotion affects the development of a plant is "forgotten", or at most interpreted as the intervention of an "external" force that "acts" on the plant itself.
But in reality we are approaching "wild" thinking, in whose symbols the metaphor of an independent science is probably hidden.
In the latest developments in physics, the three fundamental hypotheses of the so-called "local realistic theories" have been questioned, namely:
- the existence of an objective reality, or physical world;
- the possibility of deductions and extrapolations (exact repeatability);
- the impossibility of instantaneous influences at a distance, ie the need for propagation at a speed lower than or equal to that of light.
Any action, or modification, or phenomenon, has instantaneous effects on the whole of the universal. You can not isolate any phenomenon, or separate anything.
With the fall of local realistic theories and the distinction between mind and matter it becomes possible to explore fields of knowledge such as astrology and parapsychology (precognition, clairvoyance, remote actions), with a remarkable rapprochement with magical thought.
8 - Holistic view of the world
When we talk about ecology and the protection of nature, dealing with "worldviews" seems like a more abstract, or less practical, than giving advice on waste disposal or forest conservation, but it's only because we talk about "visions of the world" world "has effects to a much longer duration. However, these are aspects that touch behavior and attitudes much more in depth, compared to the most immediate practical suggestions of petty ecology.
Let us summarize some foundation of current knowledge incompatible with the Jewish-Christian cultural background and with Descartes dualism:
- Neither the Earth, nor the Sun, nor anything else are at the center of something: the stars are all equally grains in the sea of Infinity.
There is no center of any kind.
- Humanity is an animal species appearing on one of the many planets only three million years ago, against the three or four billion years of life on Earth and the fifteen or twenty billion years since the presumed birth of the Universe, assuming that the Everything is not something that has always been cyclically pulsed. So the alleged "King of Creation" would arrive a little late, while his so-called "kingdom" was waiting for him with little impatience.
Moreover, it takes a good presumption to think of "improving" what took four billion years to become what it is. Humanity is part of everything in all of Nature. The vital phenomena are the same in all species.
- Western culture is only two or three thousand years old, industrial civilization is two hundred years old: these are completely insignificant times. Even the concept of progress has a very short life, no more than two or three centuries; obviously we can live even without this fixed idea.
The division between prehistory and history is only a mental scheme of our culture, which serves to nurture a certain vision of the world. There is no reason, nor any scale of privileged values, to consider a culture better or worse than another.
- Mental functioning and behavior are essentially similar in all animal species close to us. Most of these are non-conscious phenomena.
- Quantum physics has demonstrated the intrinsic impossibility of describing material or energetic phenomena without considering observation; this means that, without the mind, matter-energy is meaningless, it is in no way describable, it is "devoid of reality", it is only a kind of wave of probability. Newton's mechanistic physics remains only the practical function, even if in our basic schools there is no trace of the profound change that has taken place.
From this picture a very ancient and widespread conception is born: animism. A form of "mind" must be everywhere, it is inherent in the universal, if we want to avoid the paradox of the "observer" that determines the so-called reality. The distinction between spirit and matter falls completely. The Great Spirit and the spirit of the tree, of the Earth, of the river, of the bison return to the memory.
There is another legend to be debunked, that of the so-called neutrality of science, or the independence of science from metaphysical conceptions. The official science often resorts to real intellectual acrobatics while not leaving the Cartesian paradigm, which it considers "obvious" and "acquired". Thus it finds itself in way without exit, and sometimes it is forced to deny or not to consider the facts not framed in that conceptual scheme, in order not to question the premises: and then it must make whole categories of phenomena of macroscopic interference disappear, or non-distinction, between spirit and matter, with the excuse that they would not be "repeatable".
The serious difficulties of physics come from the desperate insistence in wanting to frame modern knowledge in the Cartesian paradigm.
Yet even today, to appear "modern", many people love to call themselves "Cartesian" or "rational", not knowing how to defend the thought of the nineteenth century. The ideas of the French philosopher are accepted by the great majority of people simply because what we breathe from birth appears obvious to us, which means that it does not appear to us at all. But the primacy of the rational on the emotional and on the intuitive is only a prejudice of today's western culture.
Let's try to sketch some conclusions.
There is a reductionist approach aimed at studying the primary elementary causes of a phenomenon, which always assumes decomposable into simpler parts, and there is a holistic approach, which starts from the global properties of a system, which can not be reduced to the whole of its elements.
The reductionist approach has been that followed above all in the last centuries and that has brought to the vision of the world and to the current way of life of the people of Western culture, or that have absorbed the values of this culture. The holistic approach is difficult for those born with the fundamentals of the first and is just beginning to manifest itself today in individual form or little more.
So for now we can also consider ourselves free to imagine, or to hope. The passage necessary to implement and make habitual a new way of thinking is very difficult, even for those who were intellectually convinced. Each one can imagine in his own way the consequences that may derive from a possible statement on a general scale of the holistic approach.
As an exercise, let's try to imagine a world in which:
- opposites are only complementary aspects of the same thing;
- death is simply the other side of life: Nature is made of both as inseparable aspects of the same phenomenon;
- there is nothing to fight, nothing to prove, no competition to win or lose, there is no need for rankings or records. The very concepts of victory, defeat and challenge are useless;
- there is nothing to conquer, manipulate, alter;
- the concepts of reason and wrong, merit and guilt, are only dangerous superstructures of the mind, which excite violence and extinguish the smile;
- there is no distinction between spirit and matter, between humanity and nature, between God and the world. The mind is widespread, universal, indivisible. We are not anything special or central.
Since the idea of "objective reality" has disappeared, the concepts of truth and certainty become useless: with everything in continuous dynamism, the concept of truth tends to coincide with that of Nature and therefore, in a pantheistic vision, with the idea of divinity.
It is good to clarify that this is not a static vision, a world in which the absence of the concept of "progress" involves an unchanging way of life, always equal to itself, or "waiting". In a sense, it can be compared to a river: it seems similar to itself, but instead flows, maybe even quickly.
In the torrent there are never two moments in which the same water passes, which is continuously moving. The stones are there in the middle: they are not attacked or split, but left where they are. The water bypasses them, passes equally and descends towards the plain and the sea.
It is not a matter of "not doing", but of acting according to the natural course of things, according to Nature. Thus one can continue to swing a pendulum by hitting it rhythmically, as long as the blows are synchronous with its frequency.
Moreover, today in our world there is an obsessive invasion of terms such as struggle, battle, supremacy, competition, race, challenge, victory, defeat and the like: just read a newspaper to realize how many facts are interpreted with this scheme.
In the new vision, we try instead to favor the cooperative and universalizing aspect towards the competitive and self-assertive one, today exalted in an abnormal way by Western culture; with another language, it is about recovering the "feminine" aspect of the world.
We also try to let loose some animal "symbol", let's stop to exalt those who imitate the eagle, the lion, the tiger for their symbolic aggression. The world is full of rodents, not eagles that, poor things, are about to die out due to the mad human expansion. To curb the prevailing craze a little, it is time to praise the rabbit, the eulogy of escape, in an emotional and psychological sense.
There is no need for "battles", but above all we need to understand, accept and smile. The "struggle for peace" is an ambiguous expression, because peace is a condition of non-struggle: it is an attitude. It is about making it universal. I repeat, this does not mean "doing nothing" or "letting go": the most useful action is perhaps that of spreading ideas, that is to oppose preconceived current ideas, perhaps with a smile. To actively contribute to making the idea of non-struggle universal is in any case an action.
The world is not something to be conquered, but it is the whole of which we are a part. If we then have to try to "grow" something, let's try to improve our perceptual qualities to achieve a better harmony with the vital rhythm of the Cosmos. It is not that in a world of this kind there is "nothing to do" or "nothing to think about": you can admire the flowers and the trees, watch the moon and the stars, watch the birds fly and feel in tune with them , and above all to think, to participate in the universal symbiosis.
If we abandon the mania of success and enjoy the pleasure of non-competition we will reborn the taste for life.
In the conception that sees mind and matter as the only indivisible expression of Nature, we are certainly quite far from the idea of "brute matter" moved by something "external", from the idea of a world made for us and manipulated to our advantage (! ) and liking. The reality of today, due to the affirmation of a particular way of thinking in a human culture, the Western one, shows that the disasters caused by our species to the Global Equilibrium are of infinitely greater severity than those eventually caused by other living beings, but it is not just ethical considerations, because if the cultural premises do not change, the already enormous disasters will become irreversible. Even if Nature manages to restore a balance (as it does with other species, but on a much smaller scale), it will result in a much "poorer" situation of Life and Mind.
The fact of not considering ourselves "special beings" or "in a central position" should not induce pessimism; on the contrary, it is a reason for happy serenity.
Instead of the God-Person distinct from the world and judge of human actions, we find the immanent God-Nature in all things, and therefore also in ourselves, that we participate in it. Divinity observes itself even through the eyes of a marmot, or an ant, or the fascinating and mysterious sensitivity of a tree.
We also try to let loose some animal "symbol", let's stop to exalt those who imitate the eagle, the lion, the tiger for their symbolic aggression. The world is full of rodents, not eagles that, poor things, are about to die out due to the mad human expansion. To curb the prevailing craze a little, it is time to praise the rabbit, the eulogy of escape, in an emotional and psychological sense.
There is no need for "battles", but above all we need to understand, accept and smile. The "struggle for peace" is an ambiguous expression, because peace is a condition of non-struggle: it is an attitude. It is about making it universal. I repeat, this does not mean "doing nothing" or "letting go": the most useful action is perhaps that of spreading ideas, that is to oppose preconceived current ideas, perhaps with a smile. To actively contribute to making the idea of non-struggle universal is in any case an action.
The world is not something to be conquered, but it is the whole of which we are a part. If we then have to try to "grow" something, let's try to improve our perceptual qualities to achieve a better harmony with the vital rhythm of the Cosmos. It is not that in a world of this kind there is "nothing to do" or "nothing to think about": you can admire the flowers and the trees, watch the moon and the stars, watch the birds fly and feel in tune with them , and above all to think, to participate in the universal symbiosis.
If we abandon the mania of success and enjoy the pleasure of non-competition we will reborn the taste for life.
In the conception that sees mind and matter as the only indivisible expression of Nature, we are certainly quite far from the idea of "brute matter" moved by something "external", from the idea of a world made for us and manipulated to our advantage (! ) and liking. The reality of today, due to the affirmation of a particular way of thinking in a human culture, the Western one, shows that the disasters caused by our species to the Global Equilibrium are of infinitely greater severity than those eventually caused by other living beings, but it is not just ethical considerations, because if the cultural premises do not change, the already enormous disasters will become irreversible. Even if Nature manages to restore a balance (as it does with other species, but on a much smaller scale), it will result in a much "poorer" situation of Life and Mind.
The fact of not considering ourselves "special beings" or "in a central position" should not induce pessimism; on the contrary, it is a reason for happy serenity.
Instead of the God-Person distinct from the world and judge of human actions, we find the immanent God-Nature in all things, and therefore also in ourselves, that we participate in it. Divinity observes itself even through the eyes of a marmot, or an ant, or the fascinating and mysterious sensitivity of a tree.
____________
II
WILDERNESS
* * *
The concept of Wilderness
a new need for conservation
of areas and natural resources.
"Wild nature is both a geographical condition
what a state of mind "
"The conservation of wilderness for the value in itself
and for an ecocentric and holistic vision "
"In every place it would take a place, thus, left uncultivated" (Cesare Pavese).
"The protection of a natural territory can certainly have many roles, many purposes, but I believe that only one must be the purpose for which it should be implemented: to preserve the territory as an end in itself" (Franco Zunino).
Before the civilized man made his "appearance" on earth the whole world was "wilderness" , an immense wilderness where only natural truth reigned. Then the civilized man arrived and, little by little, he took from the world and himself the unpredictable and "chaotic" harmony of nature that was the spirit of life. Aldo Leopold (1949) writes: "Wilderness is a resource that can diminish but never increase. The destruction can be blocked or limited in such a way as to make an area still usable for recreation, or for science, or for wildlife, but the creation of new wilderness in the true sense of the word is impossible. It follows, then, that every conservation program that regards the Wilderness is a defensive action, by which its degradation can be reduced to a minimum ....
The ability to understand the cultural value of Wilderness is ultimately becoming a matter of intellectual humility. The conceited thought of modern man has detached himself from his roots with the earth, and claims to have already discovered what is important; it is those who cry out of empires, political or economic, which will remain thousands of years behind .... ".
But let us now explain what is the essence of the "concept of wilderness", let's see why it is to be considered a real philosophy from which the protectionist thought is generated and, more generally, the very conception of life. We report in full the laudable words of Franco Zunino founder, as mentioned, of the Italian Association for Wilderness.
"The ever-changing social development is altering every corner of our land, and even the truly wild areas that have been left out of randomness or, as of today, lacking in economic interests or not usable for this purpose, are now being constantly affected by new initiatives to them they give, without ever the economic justifications to their alteration being considered in second order to the spiritual ones, defining such, for brevity, all those demands for which nature is protected everywhere in the world.
The few areas without roads and modern buildings left are considered 'land of conquest' by civilization, and the offices in charge of land planning and its use are always planning new forms of exploitation rather than preserving them in their natural state as ecological rarities such as they are , and also as Eden for the emotional needs of the individual. No one in local social contexts seems to love his land, the landscape in which he was born! Even the recreational use of the environment by the citizens is proving, especially in the National Parks, a last frontier of the conquest of man, because an excessive use in this sense is likely to turn into a more subtle and creeping damage, less conspicuous than a street or a residence, less annoying than hunting on the moral level, but as damaging and deteriorating as everything physical and psychic is contained in the definition of wild nature, that is of 'Wilderness' as it is understood in culture Anglo-Saxon.
Wilderness is a term that can sound obscure to the profane, but whose intrinsic meaning goes well beyond its literal translation, it also defines the dictates of a specific philosophy, which stems from human needs and emotional enjoyment in contact with the wild nature of conservation of those natural territories where these needs can be expressed.
The 'Wilderness Concept' is nothing but the definition of this philosophy; a philosophy that sees in the relationship between man and nature a reciprocal respect that privileges nature in cases of conflict of interests; a philosophy based on the idea of giving substance to environmental heritage to be left to posterity, investing our generations of their responsibility in this sense, that is to decide today the maximum limit beyond which man and his suggestions must no longer go, to leave a perennial space to nature and its wild creatures.
....... We need to prepare the public opinion of today and tomorrow to understand the spiritual need of our and future generations to enjoy even knowing that there are still distant places, in the sense of large and wild; places where nature is left to itself as in the dawn of life on earth, and with lasting guarantees of their preservation over time that takes them away from the evolution of civilization ........
The associations of nature protection have too often ignored the purely spiritual needs linked to the relationship between man and nature, and so those impacts on nature on the part of man who, by satisfying purely material needs of social development or merely physical recreation, prevent their expression; they have underestimated the potential destructive force of the economic spiral of our civilization in its most insidious nuances, as well as those of the needs of man as an individual. It is not a few times that these associations have expressed favorable consents to certain activities, too superficially believed to be educational or necessary and therefore compatible with the reasons for conservation as developed by those who manage protected areas or disseminated and promoted with the aim of improving the relationship with nature by those who actually aim at indirect economic interests (eg camping, hiking, photographic hunting, fake management artifices, when not realizations of shelters, roads and other 'indispensable' structures), which seen from a different point of view are in fact, the embryo of failures that undermine the very basis of what is the 'Concept of Wilderness'. Due to a lack of social security we run the risk of being protectionists who, in the most delicate cases, trigger, one day with difficulty of control (and the history of conservation teaches, for those who want to learn!), Aided by this compact collaboration of the mass media, mostly favorable to the economic discourses that are behind the always new justifications that allow the 'man effect' to become increasingly deeper in the natural environments.
A day will come when even visits to the Parks will have to be planned, and limited will be the artifices to enjoy nature with the inevitable facilities, today more than ever in vogue (and behind which is always the economic spiral): this step will trivialize even the wildest, most remote and most inaccessible places on earth!
Certain natural areas must be saved only because they have the right to continue to last in time as they have come to us, modified only by the slow evolution of the forces of nature or primitive man, and therefore not because they are 'used' by man today as centers of economic production or recreational vent, that is, in a narrow material sense. They must exist instead for themselves; nature must be saved in these wildest areas only for fauna and flora, which must be developed in complete harmony. In these places man must set precise limits beyond which in principle he will no longer allow any further and even modifying intervention or artificial achievements, and must then have the strength and the will to draw back even as a visitor as soon as his presence tends to modify the physical state, or even the psychic state of the visitor himself, who must always enjoy the sensations of a relationship of solitude with the wild nature.
Of course, this is a difficult choice, but it is the only serious alternative to oppose the frightening anthropization of the landscape that surrounds us daily and the vandalization of the natural environments that we do when we become tourists in summer or Sunday ........ the time has come to make this choice of 'use-not use' for the wildest areas ....... If we do not do it today for lack of political courage it will be too late for future generations. Any other decision we wanted to take to their physical protection or even the spiritual values that they enclose and represent, will be a palliative that will only serve to avoid our generations the responsibility of a choice that you know difficult and unpopular ..... "
Thoreau observed that "in the wilderness it is the salvation of the world", and he said he was convinced that a wild nature helps us to know ourselves better, to improve ourselves and to improve the society in which we live. The only thought that an area can remain wilderness, that is savage "forever" , freeing itself from the presence of the conquering and subjugating man, profoundly affects the sensitivity of a person who has his own spiritual life. As we have already pointed out, the concept of Widerness does not only concern the physical space of a territory but also concerns the inner emotionality from which man, only in the face of the wild nature, can be taken. The wilderness philosophy can therefore be summarized in a sentence "Wild nature is both a geographical condition and a state of mind".
Salvatore Veca (1986) writes: "nature is not a pseudo-person towards which human beings are responsible: we are responsible for it because our actions cause alterations in the biosphere and we can no longer, or better, not we have more to be the predators of the biosphere. Obviously, we are part of nature, without having total control of it (we are not responsible for its existence), and yet we differ in some essential aspects from other constituent elements of nature. Unlike other species, it seems that we can change - improve or worsen - the effects of our actions on nature: this causal responsibility generates a moral responsibility .... ".
As a corollary to what has been observed regarding the protection of nature according to the wilderness philosophy, we are allowed to formulate a provocative reflection: if someone proposed to destroy a large work of art, a museum or a precious Romanesque church would certainly be considered a crazy, but paradoxically it is not considered crazy who decides to destroy a centuries-old forest to get through a highway or to build a high mountain sports facility, with all the environmental damage that those works entail.
Man is therefore responsible for providing for the preservation of nature because he is the man who destroys it and it is therefore his duty to protect it, unless one wants to consider it as a simple component of dialectical materialism, to which it would have been entrusted with the task of completely subverting the natural environment: only this could be ironically the essence of anthropocentric philosophy.
Gary Snyder (1992) notes masterfully: "Thoreau says: 'Give me a wildness no civilization can endure' (give me a wild world that no civilization can tolerate). Such a thing is not difficult to conceive. It is more difficult to imagine a civilization that the wild world can tolerate. Yet this is precisely what we must try to do. Wildness does not simply mean preserving the world; wildness is the world. Eastern and western civilizations have long been on a collision course with wild nature, and today, in particular, industrialized countries have the senseless power to destroy not just individual creatures, but entire species, whole processes of the earth. We need a civilization capable of living fully and creatively with the wild world, with the wild being ..... The wilderness is a place where the wild potential is fully expressed, where a variety of beings, living and not, are manifest according to their internal order ..... Wilderness means totality, wholeness. Human beings emerge from that totality; and the idea of reaffirming our participation in the assembly of all beings is by no means a regressive thought ".
Zunino still writes: ".... Who feels the desire for a different relationship with the environment, more linked to the inner needs of beauty and solitude, of reflection, of enjoyment of beauty, of moments of living and of the evolution of nature more easily understand the need for greater respect, will understand that the rights of nature must have the first place and that man must always visit it ready to draw back as soon as the signs of change that his presence brings to them become evident; ranging from environmental degradation to the disturbance of the fauna, to the loss of certain states of peace and solitude (which are a right of the fauna before our own), therefore also ready to renounce nature when it is the case.
Instead, the majority of those who love nature, fauna, flora, or enjoy it through physical recreation in it (naturalists, mountaineers, hikers, hunters, etc.) rarely pose problems of renouncing their pleasures out of respect to its needs ......... In reality every category of users of nature must resign itself to setting limits, because there are no good users and harmful users, and it is in the limitation of all the freedoms the right compromise that allows to guarantee nature the possibility of perpetuating itself in its freedom, because while our needs are adaptable, in most cases it is not those of nature ....... 'there is need of love towards the Earth, not towards the pleasures that derive from it through use. ' Unfortunately, it is almost always the inverse for the vast majority of members of the various interest groups, from the ornithologist to the hunter .... ".
Zunino writes again and completes the speech: "The Wilderness Concept is the hypothetical invisible but impassable barrier against the pressures of the economic needs, and therefore of development, of human society, placed by the man himself to defend nature, or rather to guarantee the its perpetuity, in practice a premeditated renunciation of human rights to guarantee those of nature.This barrier was first codified in the world in 1964 by a special law of the American Congress.The territories delimited by this legislative barrier are forever and in principle protected against any project to change their environmental status.
Today is the time to seriously start fighting for the conservationist concept to be applied around the world.
Saving the salvable of the last wild lands of the Earth is an unmissable priority; we have too many examples of wild places lost in the space of a few years because they were considered enormous or unassailable due to lack or scarcity of resources or the difficulty of operating profitable enterprises. On the other hand, little has been enough because the slow eroding of lands to the great wild spaces has evolved with a dizzying exponential growth (the Amazon is the most current example) as a result of socio-economic developments unthinkable only a few years ago; and so it was for natural resources discovered in unthinkable places, resources of quality and quantity, whose demand has reached the top on world markets (oil, uranium, gas, etc.): and here he teaches Antarctica, considered a barren and desolate land now discovered as an inexhaustible treasure trove for the whole world! It is also the places considered unapproachable due to the technical difficulties of opening up ways of penetration: the engineering sciences in the last decade have practically solved every technical problem: now it's just a question of money. If we want to bring civilization through roads, dams and constructions of every kind, there is no longer any natural barrier that can stop or contain the colonizing will of man.
To such a state of affairs, all based on profit, only a current of thought can effectively oppose it. The will to destroy by colonizing or exploiting can be fought only with the opposite will: that of preserving. No utilitarian belief will ever take the place of that inner and moral need to preserve something we love because we feel intimately our own as the favorite corner of our home. Until we convince ourselves that preserving a place or a territory is like making strangers respect our material properties (who does not rebel against those who smear us the house or the car?), We will not obtain any law, no provision lasting to protect the environment: we will always accept compromises, compromises that we would consider absolutely unacceptable if they concern our material properties. And this is not right. It means that we have not yet reached a social conscience that makes us feel what is ours. That is, we will continue to consider what belongs to everyone as if it were not of nobody or never ours.
It is for these reasons that rather than serious and lasting constraints we continue every day to ask the political forces for the establishment of new Parks and protected areas only for the satisfaction of stamping these definitions on cartographically circumscribed areas that have very little of Park or Reserve. of and for nature, accepting weak bonds to obtain those simple geographical expressions that, in fact, have become the Italian Parks, be they national or regional. The 'Parcomania' put up by hunters exists, it is not a definition to deride the environmental movement!
The Regional Parks established in recent years, and so the many Regional and State Natural Reserves, as well as the National Parks designed, are based on constraints so little binding that beyond the usual obvious and sometimes useless hunting ban, very little defend the environmental heritage defined as 'protected areas'.
We run the risk that, as in the past, it has occurred for all the existing national parks, the better environmental and landscape values are lost just after they have been or will have been, theoretically, protected! We think what great areas of wild nature were the Gran Paradiso or the Abruzzo or the Stelvio at the time of their designation in National Parks: 60,000, 30,000 and 70,000 hectares of Wilderness! Now that little thing has remained of that Wilderness.
Today, what parks or other reserves ensure that no road or shelter works (let alone worse!) Be carried out in their borders after the date of their designation? Few, if not in a rigid sense.
Hence the need for a new stream of conservative thinking about it. A current that discovers and makes the Wilderness Concept its own. It is not a 'Parcomania'. Rather, an objective choice of places worthy of real protection, to be split from those of low environmental value or, worse, with only socio-economic values for which the pseudo-constraints of today can also go well. A choice, therefore, not so much of the places to be protected to be exploited as much as the places to be truly preserved, for biological and psychological necessities; to defend how we defend our gardens, to beautify which we spend money at the sole undisputed end of creating something beautiful to look at and enjoy. Only by acknowledging and acknowledging such an axiom will we be able to fight in order to obtain from us also the binding rules inspired by the Wilderness Concept, rules to be applied in all the existing protected areas and to be envisaged in future institutions, at least at defense of the last wild areas left in the Italian territory. And only in this way will we be able to consider their defense as an unquestionable right, as well as the right to defend our home, our landed property, our material assets in general.
Forever wild can also mean forever ours! ".
John Muir wrote in a letter to his brother: "Sell me 20 hectares of the lawn near the lake and keep it fenced so that it can not penetrate the cattle .... I want it to remain stolen for the salvation of ferns and flowers, and even if I will never see him again, the beauty of his lilies and his orchids will be so much present in my mind that I will only enjoy imagining them ".
Our mind, now atrophied in an artificial, illusory and superficial lifestyle, does not allow us to conceive, even for a moment, the existence of a nature that has not been manipulated and transformed by man. Our thinking of "civil" men no longer includes something that is not human or at least humanized. That's why we appreciate only the things that highlight in some way a human "presence", even minimal, but always human (a wild path, not beaten and unmarked, is considered "abandoned", impractical, not comfortable). Everything must always be subjected in some way to the work of man. It is hoped that the last areas of the earth that are still immune to human "disease" will remain so forever.
"What I have tried to say is that the conservation of the world is in the wilderness ... The way is made of wild spaces. The most vivid and the wildest thing. Not yet submissive to man, his presence resigns it .... When I want to re-create myself, I look for the most intricate, denser and more extensive wood and, for the inhabitant of the city, the most gloomy and swampy. I enter you as if in a sacred place, a Sanctum sanctorum. There is the strength, the marrow, of Nature. In short, all good things are wild and free " (HD Thoreau).
John Mitchell in his article (1998) reminds us, confirming what he said pocànzi that: "When we talk about wilderness is not meant exclusively a physical place, nor even a management system ...... Wilderness is also one mental state. An idea both elusive and earthly: as personal as risk, freedom, solitude and spiritual rest; as concrete as the living land and the waters that draw its profile ". He then adds, quoting one of his interlocutors Charles Little: " The earth is a community , Leopold taught. Its waters, soil, plants, animals, make up a harmonious whole not for our benefit, but for their own ".
It is good to complete and integrate the discourse with the words of the already quoted Aldo Leopold, who is responsible for the designation of the first Wilderness Area in the world, and universally known for his treatises on the "Ethics of the Earth". From the work A Sand County Almanac (1949/1968, translation by F. Zunino): "The Wilderness is the raw material from which man has manipulated the artefact called civilization.
Wilderness has never been a homogeneous raw material. It was very varied and the manufactured artifacts are, therefore, very different. We know these differences in the final product as cultures. The rich diversity in the wildness of which they have come to life.
For the first time in the history of the human species, two changes are incumbent. One is the depletion of the Wilderness in the portion of the most inhabited globe. The other is the hybridization of world cultures through modern means of transport and industrialization. Neither can be prevented; or perhaps it could also be, given that, by some insignificant improvements of the changes that loom, certain values can be preserved before they are lost.
For the hot smith in work, the iron on his anvil is an adversary to conquer. So it was the Wilderness, an opponent for the pioneers. But for the blacksmith at rest, able for a moment to throw a philosophical look into his world, the same raw iron is something to love and cherish, because it gives determination and meaning to his life. This means the preservation of some remains of Wilderness as museum pieces, for the pleasure of those who might one day wish to see them, live them, or study the origins of their cultural heritage ".
Although some steps are a repetition of what is written on the wilderness, we report some points (point 1 and 2) of the programmatic document of the Italian Association for the Wilderness, to focus even more the importance of some aspects of this real vision of conservation of nature.
Step 1 - Wilderness as a feeling
Like any beauty, even nature in the vastness of its multiple physical aspects and its manifestations before awakening scientific or cultural interests in us or satisfying recreational needs, arouses emotionality. To deny it would be silly; each of us with the reflection can succeed in going back to this first emotion of discovery of the natural world. All the rest of our interests came later, with acculturation. Nature is therefore primarily a spiritual heritage for man, and the most intact and therefore most beautiful environmental complexes according to a yardstick of naturalistic judgment, are the cathedrals or sanctuaries of this spirituality.
In modern society one can be sick of the spirit as much as in the body, and in this case the contact with nature, living in nature in a balanced way becoming members of his community by finding ancestral relationships with it, can be a way, and surely it is for many individuals, to rediscover the state of mind that improves us and improves our civil life with others, our social ethics; it is therefore a way to improve the society in which we live. In this case nature becomes an indispensable component of our life experience. This is the feeling that the Anglo-Saxons have closely linked to the experience of "Wilderness".
In front of a destroyed forest, a defaced mountain, any modification of the landscape states we love or have loved, we feel a spontaneous revolt within us, which is our first reaction to these misdeeds. All other reasons, social, cultural, recreational, scientific and even economic, we list them later, with reasoning. Once again we note, therefore, how both the spiritual value arouses our first and most felt interest. despite this, the common tendency is to place these other reasons at the top of our interests, and to make them the motivations for which we want to protect nature; in practice we also deny ourselves the emotionality that we have inside and that is the first reason for revolt and therefore the real first reason why we have to fight to protect the natural heritage (and this also applies to artistic works, whose sentimental value is always superior to the venal one): sight itself without these feelings would have no sense or would be sterile and cold.
Ultimately, we must protect nature because it is beautiful, because we like it and it gives us emotions, and above all because it has the right to exist. Those who understand this feeling have understood the Wilderness philosophy. Linking this idea to wild spaces alone is limiting: the great wild spaces are only the best places, among the highest ones for beauty and naturalistic wealth, where to guarantee the rights of nature and where our emotionality in relations with it manifests itself more.
The spiritual needs of man linked to nature are increasing, but both capitalism and consumerism are founded on a materialistic society that tends to ignore this human need and which is destroying or at least subjecting every natural phenomenon to its technological and economic needs. ; if there is a possibility of stopping this evolution, it is not in the revolutionization of social systems, but in exalting and advancing the values of human feelings, because it is in them the only force capable of resisting and conditioning it.
The inner motivations are among other things the only ones that can never be subjected to the volubility of politicians and administrators of the territory. Even in the most critical moments of social life it will be more difficult to derogate from the need to safeguard a little of nature; even in the face of serious contingent needs we can oppose, in the limits of the human, to the destruction of nature. Such a force has none of the materialistic motivations.
Point 2 - Wilderness as greater respect for nature
Those who feel the desire for a different relationship with the environment, more linked to the inner needs of beauty and solitude, reflection, enjoyment of beauty, moments of life and the evolution of nature, more easily understand the need for greater respect, will understand that the rights of nature, at least in some areas, must have the first place and that the man must always visit them ready to draw back as soon as the signs of change that his presence brings to light, ranging from environmental degradation to the disturbance of the fauna, to the loss of certain states of peace and solitude (which are a right of the fauna even before ours); therefore also ready to renounce nature when it is the case:
Instead the majority of those who love nature, fauna, flora, or enjoy it through physical recreation in it, rarely pose problems of renunciation of their pleasures for the sake of their needs. Usually, every organization, every interest group, tries to set limits to other bodies or groups of people whose freedom of action threatens their needs. You almost always look at others, before doing self-criticism and begin to see what goes wrong with their activities. The most striking example is the rivalry between naturalists and hunters. The former would like to abolish hunting altogether, seen as an activity rival to their interests, but almost never pose problems of limitation to their activity of observation, study or recreation as harmful as hunting in certain situations. The latter, on the other hand, are always ready to take it out on tourism or with polluters, but avoid setting limits to the terrible impact that their category inflicts on the wildlife population. Each category of users of nature seeks on the one hand to limit the freedom of the other antagonists, and on the other to choose alternatives that give only the appearance of limitations to their activities, always finding sufficient motivations to justify their "right" to the environment "and deny that of others.
In reality, every category of users of nature must resign themselves to setting limits, because there are no good users and bad users, and it is in the limitation of all liberties the right compromise that allows nature to be able to perpetuate itself in its freedom, because while our needs are adaptable, more often than not those of nature. The "Ethics of the Earth", or the environmental ethics of Aldo Leopold, is also at the bottom of this.
"We need love for the Earth, not for the pleasures it gets from using it". On the other hand, unfortunately, it is almost always the inverse for the vast amount of adherents of the various interest groups, from the ornithologist to the hunter. A policy of "carryng capacity", ie a rational and balanced use not only of resources but also of the environment as a place of recreation, and in the primary respect for the needs of nature .......
Man must respect nature for its value in itself, and must know how to pull back as soon as his presence affects you negatively, not find quibbles and temporary remedies to justify the necessity or, worse, the "right" of his presence ... ... "
Before concluding and passing on to illustrate some practical news we want to make a final reflection.
The high and praiseworthy meaning of the Wilderness philosophy for the conservation of a wild territory has been widely explained and we have seen that an area subjected to that principle represents, in its practical implementation, a concrete and real form of protection / conservation that is expresses at the highest degree to which we can arrive today.
What we want to bring to light (although Zunino has already abundantly spoken about it) is the fact that the concept of Wilderness has within it a very important fundamental aspect, both for the effects that it projects on an excellent protection of the nature, but also a principle so dear to profound Ecology: "the value in itself of nature" . We report again what was said by Zunino at the beginning of the document: "The protection of a natural territory can certainly have many roles, many purposes, but I believe that only one should be the purpose for which it should be implemented: preserve the territory for same " (Franco Zunino).
The value in itself of nature is one of the most profound attitudes that can be worked out. We go beyond the anthropocentric and utilitarian end of nature and we recognize that its existence is independent of that of man. Certainly man, especially in the wild, can find the maximum enjoyment, especially spiritual, to live a true nature and can rejoice knowing that it is an area protected with the highest possible value today desirable (remember, as mentioned , the American Wilderness Act that in 1964 established an epochal turning point for a true protection of natural territories).
This raises, as mentioned, the concept of wilderness outside of any utilitarian logic of nature and, as we know, it imprints to the real conservation of a territory a value that does not allow compromises, that is to protect an environment, but not allowing, or at most minimize, many human activities that eventually distort, at least to a large extent, the initial effects of the protective act (the parks policy in Italy is an example). The concept of Wilderness, looks first at the interests of nature and, later - but in a completely different form to what many believe is good for the environment - to "benefits" for humans, but these advantages are for the more spiritual and very little material.
The wilderness areas are not integral reserves in which it is not possible to access, but the ethic of the wilderness tells us to do it "on tiptoe" , because it is necessary to remember that in a wild area nature is always "mistress" and protagonist. Man must know how to pull back at the slightest sign of disturbance or alteration. An Indian Piedineri wrote: "A man should never walk so impetuously that he leaves such deep tracks that the wind can not erase them".
The recognition of the value of nature in itself leads to another fundamental concept that distorts all the positions that man has always had with regard to nature (and not only): ecocentrism! We abandon the centrality of man (anthropocentrism), and this will lead to a true revolution of all the mental and material attitudes that are expressed. And, taking this step we arrive directly at the conception of holism, the unity of the whole , a vision that puts on the same level every element of mother earth (animated or not): "You can not touch a flower without disturbing a star" (G. Bateson).
Says Hargrove "Beauty is an intrinsic and objective character of the natural entity (which therefore is beautiful for the mere fact of existing), therefore it is released from the perception by a subject ... .." and concludes ".... Wilderness is today the universal symbol of a wild territory not tampered with by the hand of man in whom nature, free to represent itself, manifests itself in all its splendor ".
Dedicated ....... to a Wilderness that preserves forever the last wild territories being exclusively on the side of nature, thanks to its vision, holistic, ecocentric, profound and that recognizes, in its highest meaning, the value in itself of the whole nature ".
After this long dissertation we now see to summarize the general aims of the wilderness philosophy and to mention some practical applications of the same.
The purposes
1 - For a new philosophy that considers nature to be a spiritual value for man, which exalts its moral and beauty value and the emotionality it arouses in the human soul; so that its respect is greater and the bonds taken in its protection are safer and longer lasting.
2 - For a more correct relationship between man and nature and a balanced use of the environment, even if for recreational and enjoyment purposes in the primary respect of its needs: so that it is actually possible to pass on our assets from generation to generation. environmental.
3 - For the maintenance of the absolute territorial and landscape integrity of the wildest natural areas, inside and outside the already protected areas; so that while respecting traditional uses of natural resources and the recovery of cultural values, they will remain unchanged forever.
4 - For the approval by the legislative bodies and other bodies that manage the territory, laws and special measures that protect the values of wild nature; so that the intangibility of the wildest natural areas is guaranteed forever and in principle, and any form of motorization and anthropization is forbidden.
5 - For a moral control and supervision in favor of nature on the management activities of the bodies that administer protected areas; so that the primary interests of nature should never be set aside or diminished in order to make those of man.
6 - For the legitimate recognition of a moral property right on natural beauties regardless of the land ownership of the land; so that every value of nature is no longer considered only from an economic point of view, with the consequent negation of the aesthetic and spiritual value that the same good possesses.
The concrete birth of the wilderness
Emerging in America in the last century and spread mainly in this century, until it spread to the rest of the world, the Wilderness philosophy believes, as we have just seen, that nature should be preserved as a value in itself, and considers this value a spiritual heritage for man for what he expresses, on an inner level, in every individual.
The Wilderness Concept has above all a profound protectionist implication, meaning a lasting bond over time with the maximum guarantees that the company can give. Codified in the USA in a special law, it allowed to designate those protected areas known as "Wilderness Areas" that have the same in the wide range of Parks and other similar reserves for the defense of nature. They aim to preserve the wildest corners of the Earth in their most primitive state, and for this they represent a fact of unsurpassable quality in the territory protection policy; this not only to ensure the survival of the fauna and flora in their original states or as close as possible to these states, but also to allow humans to enjoy them in an uncontaminated nature, and above all to enjoy them in balance and harmony.
The Wilderness Act
1964 - On September 3, 1964, the American Congress approves, after twenty years of discussions and revisions of the texts, the Wilderness Act , the first world law that recognizes, defines and protects the value of the Wilderness, designating simultaneously a long series of such areas. It is the most rigid law in the field of environmental defense ever approved by a government, and still never equaled. The defense of the Wilderness value is preceded by any other requirement; the territories so protected, completely wild and without roads, are removed forever from any manipulation and reserved exclusively for the free development of natural forces. But man can visit them as a participant member of the living community, that is, in a balanced way, without interference or forms of environmental wear.
1980 - With another law intended to remain a milestone in the history of world conservationism, the US Congress designates in one fell swoop 40 million hectares of new protected territories in the State of Alaska, of which about half immediately classified Wilderness and subjected rigid wing of 1964 law.
It is symptomatic to note that this very strict law is also a unique example of conciseness and legislative clarity: the best form of environmental protection has been codified with only 35 articles of 12 typewritten pages!
Currently, more than 500 areas are subject to the Wilderness Act, for a total of over 40 million hectares.
"However, - notes J. Mitchell (1998) - in the places I was able to visit, I observed and felt enough to say that after almost 35 years the National Wilderness Preservetion System still holds pretty good. Not that the problems are missing. As well as the forests, parks and national shelters that surround them, even the integral reserves are exposed to pitfalls: improper use, actual abuse, and then the lack of funds, the erosion of the paths, the invasive alien species, political bickering and local interests opposed to government regulatory intervention. So far, however, in most cases, ingenuity has prevailed over difficulties.
Of all the issues that harass those responsible, perhaps none requires such a waste of money and time as the impact of visitors on the paths and camps. In the last thirty years, the recreational use of wilderness areas has multiplied by seven times compared to the past .... ".
The wilderness in the world
The concept of the defense of the last great wild areas of the earth from the United States is extended to the rest of the world, and in particular to the countries of Anglo-Saxon origin. At present the nations that have a specific law on Wilderness areas are: United States, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Kenya, Finland.
"I will not be younger, but I'm happy if there is not a wild country in which to be. What is the use of all the freedom of the world without an empty spot on the map? " (Aldo Leopold).
"If you knew the wildest territories as you know love, you would never want to part with it. It is of the body of the beloved being that we speak, not of land ownership " (Terry Tempest Williams).
"The re-evaluation of the wilderness is one of the most extraordinary intellectual revolutions in the history of human thought about the attitude towards the earth ... From the terrestrial hell, the wilderness has become a refuge of stillness where visitors can approach, happy, to the dimension divine on the wave of the words of environmentalist John Muir and the melodies of John Denver ... " (Roderik Nash).
"We human beings must return to an understanding of the earth and the air in the moral sense of the term. We must live in harmony with an ethic of the earth. It is the only possible alternative to die " (N. Scott Momaday, Kiowa - in AA. VV., 1995).
"I was born on the prairie where the wind blew freely and where there was nothing to block the sunlight. I was born where there were no fences and where everything breathed freely.
I want to die there, and not inside these walls " (Ten Bears, Comanche Yanmparika - in AA, VV., 1995).
"The Wilderness has never been as important as today. But not as important today as it will be tomorrow " (Vance G. Martin).
"Let someone show me a place whose sight is unbearable to any civilization" (Henry D. Thoreau).
"The preservation of the natural world lies in its state of wilderness" (Henry D. Thoreau).
"The Wilderness is much more than lakes, rivers and forests along the banks, much more than fishing or camping, it is the sense of primitive, of space, of solitude, of silence and of the eternal mystery" (Sigurd Olson).
"The answer to any question you will always find in the wild nature"
( Mario Spinetti).
"Nature will be saved only if man will show them some love simply because it is beautiful, and because we need beauty, whatever the form to which we are sensitive according to our culture and our intellectual formation. Because this sensitivity is the best and the most complete expression of the human spirit " (Jean Dorst).
"Wild nature is a spiritual need that each of us carries within us and that goes from the simple love of beauty to the overwhelming need for solitude that some feel. It is the sense of annoyance that we experience in nature in the face of the work of man, even when this work is minimal or has purposes of conservation or study. The wild nature is water free to flow, to erode, to swell and overflow; it is the freedom to fly and run animals; they are the intact horizons of mountains or flat marshes; it is the immensity of the sky on a grass landscape; it is the silence of nature and the roaring of water in the mountain valleys; the cry of the storm in the forest; the hiss of the storm and the fearful roar of the avalanche; the slow flight of the eagle that cancels the space between the mountains; it is the game of waves on the cliffs. The wild nature is to turn around the eyes and not to see the sign of a man; it is listening and not hearing man's noises "(Franco Zunino).
"The protection of a natural territory can certainly have many roles, many purposes, but I believe that only one should be the purpose for which it should be implemented: to preserve the territory as an end in itself. And to preserve it means, or it should mean, to make sure that it is not intentionally altered, it means deciding to remove it from the logic of development (which is the logic of profit) that is purely human.
Deciding to preserve a place is to decide to hold ancestral, animal behavior for that place, which is our origin, which is the only way to define ourselves in balance with the environment: no deer, no wolf, no bear has ever been able or required to "develop" or "enhance" or "produce" its habitat. They have been using it for millennia for what it spontaneously offers them and leaving it unchanged for other generations. It is only man the only animal species to have emerged from this "circle of life" (Franco Zunino).
For a deep Wilderness
"There is only hope of rejecting the tyrannical ambition of civilization to conquer every place on earth. This hope is the organization of the peoples most sensitive to the values of the spirit, so that they fight for the free continuity of the wild nature "(Robert Marshall)
"Like the winds and the sunsets, wild life was considered safe until the so-called progress began to take it away. Now we are faced with the problem of whether an even higher level of life is worth its dreadful cost in all that is natural, free and wild "(A. Leopold)
"The battle for nature conservation will continue indefinitely,
because it is part of the universal battle between right and wrong "(J. Muir)
"Nature must be respected and safeguarded for its value in itself. He is the man who has to adapt to his needs and not vice versa. If it is possible, we must make sure that the wild world lives in its free continuity and its pride, that freedom and the pride that man, a prisoner and slave of his own conventions, perhaps unconsciously envies "
In this document we want to highlight the deepest part of the Wilderness Concept or the value in itself that recognizes the elements of nature. So we emend the aspects of surface ecology, stuffed with anthropocentrism to which the various wilderness movements (including the Italian one) land very often. In fact Franco Zunino, practically the Italian "father" of this movement, with a typically "Western" thought, writes: "In my opinion we can not ignore man. Like it or not, man is at the center of the world and it will never be possible to avoid it. And since we men are gifted with conscience and intelligence, it is inevitable that whatever is done is always done for man. So the preservation of nature is nothing but a reaction to the part of man who is destroying it. But even those who want to defend it, always for the man wants to do it. To say that we must preserve it for ourselves and that in doing so will still serve to man is almost pleonastic, because in reality always for us that we love it we do it, whether for material, scientific or spiritual purposes. So we do not try to deny a reality that maybe we do not like but that is such, in the illusion of a nature that lives in itself (but that certainly does not self-appreciate!). If man were not there, not even nature itself would make sense. I am happy to know that the nature of Papua Island exists whole by itself, but it is nevertheless an in itself that satisfies me and satisfies as a man. So it is always for the man that we desire the preservation of places for ourselves that we will never see in our life, but that as long as we live, it pleases us to know that they exist. It is a concept that is difficult to explain, but in the end always return to man. Otherwise, before we oppose the destruction of the nature of our planet we should do it to prevent man from discovering others, who certainly exist and live by themselves. But does it make sense to think like that? Will we ever be able to satisfy the idea of a natural world that lives by itself but that we do not even know if it exists? I do not think so. To satisfy ourselves we must know that it exists, and in the moment that we know it exists, behold that man returns to the center, to that navel which deep ecology would like to deny ". Zunino himself, in another passage of his thought, seems to have defeated himself, when he says: "the protection of a natural territory can certainly have many roles, many purposes, but I believe that only one must be the purpose for which must implement: preserve the territory as an end in itself . " And then again: " .... Who feels the desire for a different relationship with the environment, more linked to the inner needs of beauty and solitude, reflection, enjoyment of the beauty, moments of life and the evolution of nature, more easily understand the need for greater respect, will understand that the rights of nature must have the first place and that the man must visit it always ready to pull back as soon as they become evident signs of the change that its presence brings them, ranging from environmental degradation to the disturbance of the fauna, to the loss of certain states of peace and solitude (which are a right of the fauna before ours); therefore also ready to renounce nature when it is the case " .
Continuing with Dalla Casa he responds to Zunino saying that "I was quite amazed to see that the wilderness philosophy, according to Zunino's vision, is completely anthropocentric.
The wilderness areas would be preserved in the completely natural state, but for the spiritual regeneration of man and not for a value in itself or for their intrinsic spirituality. In essence, the wilderness philosophy adapts itself to the principles of surface ecology and current thinking, except for the (laudable) fact of asking for a completely different management of the protected natural-wild areas, which in any case remain islands in a sea of "progress" ".
The statement that seems to me really unsustainable is that deep ecology would be "materialistic" and the wilderness philosophy would have more "spiritual" aspects. Indeed:
- the wilderness philosophy, as shown by Zunino, sees the spiritual-mental-mental part only in man: the wilderness areas must be preserved, but for the spiritual improvement of man;
- deep ecology sees a deeply mental-psychic-spiritual aspect in all natural entities and in their relationships. He sees our species as an interrelated component in these relationships and therefore also endowed with profound spiritual value as an inseparable part of this Nature, of this Soul of the world.
How do you say that deep ecology is more "materialistic" than wilderness philosophy? To me it seems the opposite. In the wilderness philosophy the spirit is the prerogative of only one species, in deep ecology it is everywhere.
Moreover, in my opinion the concept of "primitive" is meaningless. It seems to me instead that Zunino substantially follows the current ideas that bring the current industrial civilization to the top of the so-called "progress": at most it asks for some corrective. I understand that it considers "Christianity", clearly understood as the current Jewish-Christian tradition, as a "progress" compared to the animist-pantheist visions of many other human cultures.
The Judeo-Christian-Islamic vision, on the other hand, is only the fruit of profound rifts, irreconcilable dualisms between God and the world, spirit and matter, man and nature. It becomes so easy to switch to pure materialism, just remove one of the two terms, already well separated. There is no "superiority". It is perhaps superfluous to add that this vision has practically nothing of the teaching of Christ, of which we know almost nothing. It remains only the impression that this teaching recalls very much "compassionate love towards all sentient beings" of Mahayana Buddhism.
As a detail, there are a hundred intermediate fossil species with other Primates, from the Australopithecia to the Neanderthal and then to the Homo sapiens. I would like to know where these sentient beings are placed by those who support the human-animal rift.
And then I add, we are not talking about two oppositions between the wilderness philosophy and the deep ecology. One is inherent in the other and, above all the deep ecology, contains a universal vision that includes our every positive perspective of things. Finally, it is a grave error to frame the importance of wilderness philosophy in a merely anthropocentric view (it would be more logical and meaningful to give it an ecocentric and holistic peculiarity) ".
On the other hand, it is important to reaffirm the concept of the value of nature itself so that an intimate bond can emerge even more between the concept of classic Wilderness and profound Ecology, which brings with it a new environmental ethics integrated by the Manifesto for the earth. ; all this produces fundamental elements that universalize the concepts of conservation and therefore of all ecological thought. It is not enough to commit only (though obviously it is already a laudable act) to the preservation of territories (wilderness and non), but we must also set up a new form of thought so that the protection of nature becomes a single thing with everyday life. Extinguish dualism and embrace the holistic and bioregional view of the whole. In this way the concept of Wilderness purged by the marked refluxes of the surface ecology that, as we have mentioned, too often belong to it, will expound principles not only of direct and real safeguard of the wild areas, but also of thought.
This is a fundamental point because thinking of preserving a place as wild as possible without going to affect even a new conception of the world, is certainly an important fact, concrete and commendable, but has at the base of the feet of clay, as stopping at a Myopic vision and aimed at a single "superficial" conservative element, in a future projection will inexorably be engulfed by a system of thought that is firmly rooted in the centrality of man and always in the exploitation of nature, in every sense that this conception intends. In fact, seeing the Wilderness as a function of man, even if in a predominantly spiritual form, is also a true form of utilitarian use of nature. In this case it is less serious, since it is a utilitarianism aimed at fundamentally extolling the spiritual aspects that man takes in living the Wilderness (even if there are no lack of material ones), but has a "cancer" inside if, because it raises the question in a sense of protecting a territory for the umpteenth benefit of man. It is true that the classic view of wilderness recognizes the value in itself of a territory, but this comes to life only if man can "benefit" in some way. Instead we remember the fundamental precept that says "nature must be safeguarded for its value in itself and not for our material, spiritual or ethical interest" ; then, at this point and with this vision if even man will find a good benefit, it is desirable, but this must be exclusively a reflection, not the purpose of that "rescue". It is necessary to understand that if we do not change the utilitarian mindset, the free unfolding of nature will never find space, because it will always be "curbed" by the direct interests of man. And without a holistic, ecocentric and universal vision, in the future everything will sink into the total destruction of mother earth, since being at first totally possessed by man, it is consequently annihilated. No one doubts that the "original" man saw in nature almost exclusively useful elements, but in this case we talk about "survival" and, like the rest of life on earth, "exploited" what he found available , but he never came to destroy what was his bread. But the man we are talking about is a man who has developed an excessive, indeed I would say, the only way of exploitation / utilization of natural resources that, having gone beyond subsistence ends, has reached "economic" interests and is destroying everything, just because now he sees in nature an immense "cableau of a bank" to which "steal" as much as I can, all the money he finds there.
"When we talk about ecology and the protection of nature, dealing with 'visions of the world' seems more abstract, or less practical, than giving advice on waste disposal or conservation of forests, but it's only because we talk about 'visions of the world 'has effects to a much longer duration. However, these are aspects that touch behavior and attitudes much more in depth, compared to the most immediate practical suggestions of petty ecology " (G. Dalla Casa).
It is certainly true that wanting to change the forma mentis, moving it from the current centered vision-on the human to a centered-on-Earth, is not easy and immediate, but to develop this renewed vision (renewed since the origin of the times was so lived) is essential because over time, albeit long, if established, will lead to universal, unique and unavoidable results. "Man is an outdated philosophical phenomenon. The universe is far too vast for man alone to dwell there " (HD Thoreau) and, quoting J. Muir " Nature has many other purposes, certainly not the interests of men " or " " Nature may have destined the earth fertile also for other purposes than for the nourishment of human beings ".
From the House, recalling the figure of Arne Naess writes in this regard: "In reality, as a philosophy of background and behavior, the deep ecology was well known to the Hopi or Lakota shamans, to other native cultures or to some philosophies of Asian origin. , but Naess was the first to define it in Western scientific-philosophical terms. In that article that became famous, Naess distinguishes between a "superficial" ecology, which fights for the preservation of nature, but which remains a resource at the service of man, and a "profound" ecology, which supports the intrinsic value of natural reality. If all that exists is interrelated, that is, "everything depends on everything", the human being is no longer separated from the natural world but is only a part of it, which interacts with the others and towards which he must assume an empathic attitude.
The great merit of deep ecology is to shift the consciousness from centered-on the human to centered-on-Earth. Naess defined the movement of superficial ecology, much more widespread than that of deep ecology, as "the battle against pollution and the depletion of resources, which will move humans to the so-called developed nations". The surface approach takes faith for technological optimism, economic growth, science-based exploitation and the continuation of current industrial societies. This is how Naess expresses himself: "The supporters of surface ecology think they can change human relationships with Nature within the structure of the existing society".
"The major driving force of the Deep Ecology movement - Naess writes - when compared to the rest of the ecologic movement, is identification and solidarity with all of life". The primacy of the natural world is considered "an intuition" and not a philosophical or logical derivative. In principle, every living being has the right to a free, independent and dignified life. For Naess, individual organisms, ecosystems, mountains, rivers and the Earth itself must be included among sentient beings.
The book by Rachel Carson "Silent Spring" (1962) had struck him deeply. Living beings, Arne Naess thought, have a value in themselves. Like the birds of increasingly silent American campaigns, they need to be protected from the invasion of billions of humans. We need to look for a new ecological harmony between the living beings that inhabit planet Earth. This renewed balance passes on a theoretical level through the renunciation of any form of anthropocentrism: the right to life of every living being is absolute and does not depend on the greater or lesser proximity to our species. On a practical level, the new ecological balance passes through the reduction of the human population, the use of technologies with low environmental impact and the lack of human interference in many ecosystems ...... ..
Finally, the meaning of Naess's work was also to present a way towards the discovery of a pre-industrial, animistic and spiritual relationship with the Earth, with respect for all species and not just the human species. This is the message our time needs, that the Earth is not just a "resource" for humanity, something that must be commercially exploited.
Unfortunately the most well-known figures of the ecological movement have never publicly nominated deep ecology, nor talked about its great importance: it is not by chance, since its principles would involve changes considered too drastic to society and above all to the economic system ".
"You can not touch a flower without disturbing a star" (G. Bateson).
Says Hargrove "Beauty is an intrinsic and objective character of the natural entity (which therefore is beautiful for the mere fact of existing), so it is released from the perception of a subject ... .." and concludes "... the Wilderness it is today the universal symbol of a wild territory not tampered with by the hand of man in whom nature, free to represent itself, manifests itself in all its splendor ".
DEDICATED ....... "To a Wilderness that preserves forever the last wild territories being exclusively on the side of nature, thanks to its vision, holistic, ecocentric, profound and that recognizes, in its highest meaning, the value in itself of the whole nature".
"Civilization can not be separated from wilderness,
the wild and uncorrupted nature! "
(John Muir)
***
But to elaborate the profound disagreement of man with nature is a task that is anything but easy, even if one simply wants to reach the pure awareness of the fact. It is partly like trying to recompose a complicated puzzle made up of many unequal elements without having a leading image in front of them. This is also due to the fact that it is necessary to eradicate a form of thought that in recent centuries has been progressively directed towards an all-encompassing disjunction where the mental monocultures, based on the deep groove of dualism (man on the one hand and nature, well distinct, on the other), they are strongly perched in a vision unilaterlally turned towards the only truth and existence of mankind. A new thought, libertarian and broad-minded, must therefore face a double obstacle; the first is to eradicate globalized thinking on the dominance and one-sidedness of man (thought that even in the unconscious form is now inherent in the minds), the second will be to unsaddress the false certainties so strongly set to glimpse, albeit in the distance, a holistic view of everything. How many authoritative figures with their saying and their actions have tried to carry out this immense task, but, at least in the first instance, they have seen themselves in the difficulty of being metabolized by "mental monocultures" to the exact opposite. But perhaps one day what for now, in some respects, still seems distant, will be understood and practiced in total awareness and understanding. At the beginning the acute "prophets" (Aldo Leopold, John Muir, HD Thoreau, etc.) of a profound change have not been understood or even completely ignored, but even if the time is very limited, a cautious optimism about even partial inversion of the route, it could hang in the air (?!). Understanding, understanding, self-examining seem to be terminologies and concepts difficult to digest, but it is not excluded that they instead make their right path in order to eventually be acquired. Hope, even if weak, is always the last to die. But for the moment until exploitation, looting and destruction of the planet earth (on all fronts) will still represent a huge economic advantage, extremely difficult will appear the way to proceed to the right operation and vision of things. So far the man from his blindness has begun to see something, but only the smoking remains left behind his devastating path and will be so wise and far-sighted to reverse course? The doubts remain many and largely unresolved. Many actions that now seem positive are still a small drop of water in a large ocean that is excessively dirty with "oil"!
"The protection of a natural territory can certainly have many roles, many purposes, but I believe that only one should be the purpose for which it should be implemented: to preserve the territory as an end in itself. And to preserve it means, or it should mean, to make sure that it is not intentionally altered, it means deciding to remove it from the logic of development (which is the logic of profit) that is purely human.
Deciding to preserve a place is to decide to hold ancestral, animal behavior for that place, which is our origin, which is the only way to define ourselves in balance with the environment: no deer, no wolf, no bear has ever been able or required to "develop" or "enhance" or "produce" its habitat. They have been using it for millennia for what it spontaneously offers them and leaving it unchanged for other generations. It is only man the only animal species to have emerged from this "circle of life" (Franco Zunino).
Wilderness: the "wild side"
and American non-conformist
by Eduardo Zarelli
There is a karst river linking American ecological thought to the permanent prophetic role in the history of the United States: that of those who think, practice and re-propose the good custody of the earth (steawardship) as an essential component of human freedom and social justice. From the civic virtues of Thomas Jefferson to the "transcendentalism" of Emerson and Henry D. Thoreau, from the pioneering naturalism of John Muir to the conservatism of Aldo Leopold, there is part of the cultural background from which the "rural virtues" of Wendel Berry draw; the bioregionalism of Peter Berg and Kirkpatrick Sale; the return to wildness (wildersness) of Gary Snyder; the "holistic paradigm" of Fritjof Capra and Gregory Bateson. Perhaps the vastness and the profound beauty of the landscapes combined with the wisdom of the Native American culture have crept from the beginning into the American spirit - Promethean exaltation of the conquering modernity of an "eternal" West transposed in the ideal type of the Frontier - a particular inner call to nature as a substantial reference to civilization. Since the US hedonistic lifestyle has become the major factor in the destruction of natural balances, the role of these thinkers has become more burdensome and contradictory than that of their predecessors. Since American culture has betrayed its original vocation, they are critical of that vocation.
Aldo Leopold - founder, among other things, of the Wilderness Society and died 50 years ago while trying to control a fire in the prairie that threatened his farm - in his Almanac of a simple world he reproduces simple and essential images taken from the experience of the world natural. His is a moving description of the changes that nature undergoes over the course of a year, with the flowering and fading of vegetation and the consequent behavior of animals: the cyclical nature of the four seasons as an analogy of the spiral of human existence. This narrative part then flows into reflections on the relationship between man and nature, outlining that original biocentric perspective, in which ecological knowledge is allied with ethics and aesthetics; This perspective has had a decisive influence on the ecology of the profound. Leopold, highlighting the failures of environmental "protectionism", starts from the assumption that the "Earth is an organism" and that, only feeling it as a "common home" to which we belong, we will be able to use it with due respect. The degradation of the beauty of nature corresponds to the reduction of its complexity, diversity, stability: that equilibrium, which deeply substantiates its vital and symbolic fullness.
Wendell Berry, a poet, writer, essayist, professor of literature at the University of Kentucky, but above all a farmer, is the heir to this interior attitude. His approach to the sudden environmental, cultural and human degradation of the industrial society began in the early sixties, when the demonstration of ecological damage became evident to the general public thanks to works such as Silent Spring by Rachel Carson. Unlike many thinkers and writers of that era, most of whom are linked to the Beat Generation, some of whom (like Gary Snyder) are very close friends, Wendel Berry does not wander the country on Easy Rider. His protest against consumerism does not pursue an "escape from the system" or the severing of the roots; on the contrary, his contribution is aimed at the rediscovery of the sources of Western culture, which progressive industrialism has suffocated. Revisiting the great works of European literature, from the Odyssey to the Divine Comedy to Milton's Lost Paradise, along with the Old and New Testaments, Berry traces the presentations of the tragic Western destiny. His poetry and his literature have nothing aesthetic or intimistic, but they still address the contemporary soul torn by a lack of personal and social identity. They do not indulge nostalgia but provide politicians, economists and men of the street with practical indications and technical and historical intelligence sedimented by the sober communal civic virtues.
With his feet on the ground is the emblematic title of his collection of texts (also translated in Italy); the arguments range from the improper primacy of the industrial economy, to the "specialized" failure of university education, to our relationship with the tools of technology and with wild nature. The problem of the coherent and practical application of personal and community consciousness in everyday life is the central problem of every man. When a society denies this need, separating itself from its own tradition, it regresses into individualistic anomnia and cultural degradation, despite the glossy garb of technological prodigies and the material successes it covers. Berry refers, in countertendency, to a perspective of ethical anchoring of which the economy can, and therefore must, be a mere instrument. In interpreting the evolution of the US economic model, he imagined rhetorically what society would have been like, if after the war the rural communities had been given the right weight compared to the exponential growth of the gross domestic product, if they had invested in the quality of life with the same commitment used to deploy the world's most powerful military-industrial complex. Question today as ever relevant and dramatically current.
The localistic fallout of Wendel Berry's thought is taken literally by the American bioregional movement. The word bioregion is made up of semantically bio, the Greek word meaning life and "region" that derives from the Latin regere, that is to govern. Life that is self-governing in the biotic boundary of a territory. An inhabited territory, a place defined by the forms of life that take place there, rather than the artifice of rationalization; a region governed by nature. All this is credible only by cultivating a renewed sensitivity to the specificity of places and cultures, a political loyalty to the territory in which we live, combined with sustainable economic and social practices, ie rooted in the particularity of the territory and its traditions, expressed by the sensitivity of local communities. The plurality of community identities avoids the risk of centralization of power and therefore of colonialism or imperialism. The complementarity and development of a dense network of inter-community relations - including subsidiarity and interdependence - can sufficiently define the intent of an "ecological federalism". The basic problem is to pluralistically rethink the world out of monistic universalism and western ethnocentrism, with respect to which everything becomes barbarism, retrograde periphery.
In this naturalistic perspective, the thought of Fritjof Capra is better known in Europe. Thanks to the originality and the importance of his contributions - including the international bestseller Il Tao della Fisica - the American physicist is today considered one of the most credible intellectuals among those who advocate a new holistic "paradigm" to interpret and favor the change of tecnomorfo development model. The author's debt to the ecology of the deep is clearly recognized, when he defines the "new paradigm" as a vision of the world that is based on the awareness of the fundamental interdependence of all phenomena and affirms that, as individual and social beings, all of us we affect and at the same time we depend on the cyclic processes of Nature. In his works, Capra, similar to Bateson, combines contemporary physics and the wisdom tradition by observing how, unconsciously, contemporary science moves further and further away from the frame within which it was born, which is the Cartesian one of a split between mind and nature. Thus, ideas such as that of the "substantial interconnection of nature" - the foundation of much of Eastern thought - or mythical archetypes such as the "dance of Shiva" that is of matter as energy emanation, begin to acquire a precise meaning in the language of Western physics; in fact the theories of quanta, quark and the so-called bootstrap come to describe analytically the "interpenetration" of the existing. The scope of this vulgate, which goes beyond the fields of scientific thought and invests the categories of "whole modernity", is understandable.
Capra envisages a radical change taking place in the field of knowledge. The linear and deterministic models inherited from Newton and Darwin are proving increasingly unsuitable to favor the understanding of the world and of ourselves: a new synthesis of the universe is needed, to which, from different fields, scholars are contributing on fronts. apparently distant, which are called Gaia's theory, systemic theory, complexity and chaos. Capra attempts a global synthesis of this "insensitive" revolution, seeing the outlines of a new / ancient thought, which sees in nature and in living beings not isolated, mechanistic entities, but always and in any case "living systems" where the individual is holistically in a close relationship of interdependence with his peers and the whole system. The sum of these relationships, which bind the universes of the psyche, of biology, of society and of culture, is a network: the web of life. Rejoining the plot of life means building and sustaining sustainable communities, where our needs and aspirations can be met without compromising the overall balance. Among the human communities, cultural diversity plays a role similar to biodiversity in the ecosystem. Diversity means multiple relationships given by different approaches to similar problems. Diversity is the vital resource against the suicidal uniformity of which Western unilateralism is epochal epoch-making.
Experience the spirit of the Wilderness
by Franco Zunino
Most of us nature lovers, nature does not live it; but the visit. It is not easy to explain the feeling that transforms an experience in wild nature into something that is not thematically scientific, as almost always happens to ornithologists or botany enthusiasts (but also to most game and wildlife biologists in general) or those who consider the natural world as a blackboard for didactic notes and knowledge (everything becomes the purpose of education, and we end up assuming the simple function of schoolboys or teachers), or for epic satisfactions (they enjoy most of the mountaineers and other practitioners adventurous activities) or physical recreation (when fitness and health or well-being are our real motive). So, however, we are far from the spirit of the wilderness. To look for the natural scenery only as a thing or a place to satisfy one's own interests or to satisfy egocentric desires is far from a wilderness spirit. When, instead, really, do you live the spirit of the wilderness? And who really approaches the understanding of the wild that is in us, which has remained in us because it is an inseparable part of our ancestral DNA? As absurd as it may seem, it is often the individual without culture that succeeds, or who has the ability to put aside his base of knowledge and interpenetrates in the world of nature becoming a member and a participant of the whole, stripping of the substratum that has given us the civilization, a rind of knowledge and needs that are often indispensable. We often find the existence of this spirit in shepherds or mountaineers in general, when not in hunters or fishermen, ie individuals who live nature not in a virtual way as we naturalists but returning "ancient". In fact, can a natural world be considered subjugated to man for his manual needs? Nature transformed into a vegetable garden, tamed, in all its forms, even in its function (if we can define it) to preserve itself by direct human commitment? But Nature exists and lives by itself, and only by returning with our ego to that state that civilization has suffocated within us can it discover the spirit of wilderness, sense it and live it.
It is more intuitive a state of wilderness during the emotion of a moment, when all our knowledge is canceled in front of events that prevent us from the notional reflection that is not in so many pages of essays, and hours and hours of naturalistic culture lessons or philosophical books, they are heard in conference halls or read on Internet sites. So yes, we become an integral part of what we see or live, which can be only the sudden thunder of a storm that forces us to burrow under a rock in the forest and then feel the world around us return primordial and we take part with that simple instinctive act of defense. So yes, we understand the true spirit of wild nature, we understand the right that it can continue to perpetrate at least somewhere, the right to us to be able to be part of it, not to be just visitors. And this happens because at that moment we become part of that whole and no longer strangers to the natural world .........