The Trumpeter ISSN: 0832-6193 Volume 26, Number 2 (2010)

A Dialogue with Arne Naess on Social Ecology and Deep Ecology (1988-1997)!
John P. Clark Preface In the spring of 1987, Donald Davis, an environmental sociologist at the University of Tennessee arranged a talk there by Murray Bookchin. At the time, I was working very closely with Bookchin, and I went there to meet with him and Davis, who had been a student and staff member at the Institute for Social Ecology. During the visit, Bookchin showed me the proofs for an article entitled Thinking Ecologically: A Dialectical Approach, a large part of which was an attack on deep ecology, systems theory, Asian thought, and the radical environmental organization Earth First! I was disturbed by what I read. I found it to be seriously lacking in careful analysis or nuance, and often to be unfair to the objects of attack. I suggested that he rewrite it, making sure that he did not over-generalize or misrepresent any positions. He replied, rather unconvincingly, that it was too late to make any changes, and he did not respond in any way to the content of my suggestions.1 What I did not know at the time was that he had recently written a much more extreme attack on deep ecology, in which he had parodied, and, indeed,
1

Later that Summer, I wrote to Gary Snyder that I was very troubled by the

direction of Bookchins thinking and actions, referring to a very disturbing development that became apparent this summer at the Social Ecology Institute. I noted Bookchins increasingly antagonistic and polarizing stance toward other ecological activists and theorists. I mentioned in particular his hostility to Deep Ecology and Earth First!, and note that we continued to debate Daoist philosophy but that I now nd that his mind is closed on the matter , and he makes dogmatic and ill-informed generalizations. Finally I lamented the fact that he seemed to be presenting me the dilemma of [either] becoming an abject follower or being rejected, and deplored the emergence of such destructive conicts within the still rather small ecological and Green tendencies in this country.
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demonized it to an extraordinary degree. The War of the Ecologies had begun. The article in question was called Social Ecology versus Deep Ecology: A Challenge for the Ecology Movement.2 It is noteworthy that although this article is one of the more analytically weak and theoretically inept efforts in the literature of environmental philosophy, it is the single text representing the position of social ecology that has been most widely reprinted. Not only has it appeared in various ecological and political publications, and in a collection on deep ecology, it has also been included in a number of environmental ethics texts.3! In this notorious article, Bookchin refers to a vague, formless, often selfcontradictory, and invertebrate thing called deep ecology that has parachuted into our midst quite recently from the Sunbelt's bizarre mix of Hollywood and Disneyland, spiced with homilies from Taoism, Buddhism, spiritualism, reborn Christianity, and in some cases eco-fascism. In addition to depicting deep ecology as such an invertebrate, parachuting, spiced thing, he accuses it of preach[ing] a gospel of a kind of original sin that accurses a vague species called humanity...which it sees as an ugly anthropocentric thing---presumably a malignant product of natural evolution---that is overpopulating the planet, devouring its resources, and destroying its wildlife and the biosphere... He indicts deep ecologists such as Dave Foreman, who preach a gospel that humanity is some kind of cancer in the world of life. ! Moving on to guilt by association, he observes that it was out of this kind of crude eco-brutalism that Hitler, in the name of population control, with a racial orientation, fashioned theories of blood and soil that led to the transport of millions of people to murder camps like Auschwitz. He says that the same [sic] eco-brutalism now reappears a half-century later among

Murray Bookchin, Social Ecology versus Deep Ecology: A Challenge for the

Ecology Movement. Green Perspectives: Newsletter of the Green Program Project, nos. 4-5 (summer 1987)
3

For example, those of Desjardins, Schmidtz and Willott, and Pojman and Pojman.

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self-professed deep ecologists who believe that Third World peoples should be permitted to starve to death and that desperate Indian immigrants from Latin America should be excluded by the border cops from the United States lest they burden our ecological resources. He concludes that deep ecology is a black hole of half-digested, ill-formed, and half-baked ideas that lies at the depths of an ideological toxic dump. Arne Naess, as the foremost philosopher of deep ecology, is not spared Bookchins wrath. He calls Naess the pontiff of deep ecology, implying that Naess claimed some kind of dogmatic authority over the movement. He also condemns Naess for his connection decades earlier with logical positivism, claiming that he was an acolyte of this repellent school of thought for years. The Dialogue The following year, in October of 1988, I received a brief note from Arne Naess asking for a copy of an article that I had written on Daoism and politics. In addition, he commented, I read your article in The Trumpeter with pleasure!4 The article, entitled What is Social Ecology? was written as the introduction for a collection I edited entitled Renewing the Earth: The Promise of Social Ecology.5 It generally follows Bookchins interpretation of social ecology but also contains evidence of the divergent directions that Bookchin and I were soon to take. I describe social ecology as a comprehensive holistic conception of the self, society and nature that is based on the ecological principle of organic unity-in-diversity and which rejects the dualism that has plagued Western civilization since its beginnings. I repeat Bookchins ideas about evolution being a process having directiveness and involving the progressive unfolding of

"What Is Social Ecology?" in The Trumpeter: Journal of Ecosophy 5 (Spring 1988): 72-

75.
5

John Clark, ed. Renewing the Earth: The Promise of Social Ecology (London: Merlin

Press GreenPrint, 1990).

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potentiality and tie this concept to teleological philosophical traditions.6 I also link such ideas to the Daoist concept of Dao as the path of unfolding of a being, a connection that would later be harshly attacked by Bookchin. Interestingly, I disassociate social ecology from both anthropocentrism and biocentrism, calling it an ecocentrism, in the sense that it requires humanity to situate its good within the larger context of the planetary good, and to transform our often narrow rationality into truly planetary reason. I say that this is interesting because Bookchin would later attack ecocentrism, while some deep ecologists, for example George Sessions, would attack me for defending anthropocentrism and rejecting ecocentrism.7 Naess did not explain what he liked about the article, but I assume that he appreciated it as a synthesis of the general perspective of social ecology with concepts that have afnities with deep ecology. In December of 1988, Naess sent me a brief letter thanking me for various articles I sent him. He comments with surprising optimism, I am now completely relaxed about social ecology/deep ecology. In the long run only joy will come out of the relation. Later in December, he sent me a longer letter in which he begins by thanking me for a recent letter I had sent him, and commenting that It will not be difcult for us to discuss. He continues (rather surprisingly, considering the date) by disassociating himself from a concept that has caused much controversy in ecophilosophy, that of biospheric egalitarianism. This is particularly noteworthy because it is one of the seven characteristics of deep ecology that he discussed in the original deep and shallow ecology article.8 Many sources (for example, The

I note that Bookchin rejected the term teleology because of his (in fact fallacious)

association of the term with determinism.

Later I rejected the term, since I began to question any idea of centrism. I

continued to accept the principles I had associated with it, but which I came to believe were more adequately conveyed by the non-neologism ecological.
8

Arne Naess, The Shallow and the Deep, Long-Range Ecology Movement: A

Summary in Inquiry 16 (1973): 95-100.

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Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature 9) still include the term in descriptions of his ecophilosophy. Actually, he had begun to question the concept at least as early as the 1984 article Intuition, Intrinsic Value, and Deep Ecology,10 in which he wonders whether the concept might be doing more harm than good. In the letter, he says, more decisively, that: I do not like the term egalitarianism in the biosphere any more. I reject the idea of equality as used for what I call a right to live and blossom. There is a right that all living beings have, the right to live and blossom. The rights of one of these beings are not equal to the right of any other, nor not equal. The quantitative or topological relationship is misplaced. The right is the same. It is the same right they all have. Similarly, there is an intrinsic value or worth of which one may validly say that it [is] common to all living beings - as such. It is inherent in their status of living beings, and is independent of any relation to usefulness or to the classication of higher or lower development. If I in a provoked mood kill a mosquito I do not consider justifying this by reference to any higher intrinsic value of humans. But I certainly would somehow justify killing any kind of animal in certain kinds of situations. Very complicated norms are involved! There may be intrinsic values which humans realize and are unrealizable by animals. I do not talk about that. Naesss position on this key issue was clearly evolving, and it has often been noted that he progressively qualied and weakened the moral implication of the concept. Yet, there seems still to be a fundamental ambiguity that needs to be resolved. What is the status of the equal rights that are still attributed to beings? And under what conditions should such rights be overridden? Later letters pursue these questions.

Arne Naess in Bron Taylor, ed., The Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature (New York

and London: Continuum, 2008), pp. 1149-1150.

Arne Naess, Intuition, Intrinsic Value, and Deep Ecology in The Ecologist, Vol. 14

No. 5/6, (1984): 201.

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Naesss next letter, of July 11, 1993, is one of the most interesting. In it, he addresses three important topics: 1) the level of generality at which social ecology should be looked upon as an ecophilosophy; 2) the degree to which social ecology engages in specic social and ecological analysis; and 3) the importance of community. He begins by observing: A week ago I left for the mountains with Renewing the Earth: The Promise of Social Ecology intending to go through the book carefully and write an article stressing positive aspects. Now 4 days are gone and I am gradually losing ground. I am more confused about the central issues dealt with in the book than I was when I started reading a week ago. Your article at the head of the book I understand and appreciate. The rst sentences make me believe that social ecology is an ecosophy in my sense, a total view in part inspired and motivated by the (increasing) ecological crisis. But: Is social ecology a name of one ecosophy or a class with basic common characteristics? I hope it is meant as a class-name, otherwise a Gleichschaltung [enforced conformity] is implied considering that there still are different cultures and people with great differences of backgrounds within a culture and of course strong terminological idiosyncrasies. So my conclusion is: of course it is a class name. Naess raises an important issue here. In fact, most of those who associated themselves with social ecology and the Institute for Social Ecology always saw it as a general viewpoint associated with themes such as ecological thinking, economic and political decentralization, alternative technologies, social justice and grassroots community. Bookchins own writings were, however, increasingly refashioning it into a very specically dened sectarian ideology and politics, which he came to call dialectical naturalism and libertarian municipalism. In fact, Bookchin commented to me that most of the contributors to Renewing the Earth, a book dedicated to him and his work, didnt really understand social ecology. Naesss remarks show that he understood that the book reected the divergence between my effort to preserve pluralism within social ecology, and Bookchins developing project of ideological entrenchment.

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In this connection, Naess mentions Bookchins concept that the human attempt to dominate nature stems from human domination of other humans. He comments that social ecology develops this concept within a Hegel/Kropotkin philosophical frame of reference, which he judges to be an excellent frame, and it is to be hoped it will inspire an increasing number of people. He says that he is not sure, however, whether social ecology should be xed to that frame. He observes that it seems to be a larger movement including supporters who either do not understand, or do not feel at home with that frame, or people who recognize and respect the frame, but feel coerced by an atmosphere of correct thinking. Again, he makes a good point concerning diversity within social ecology. It was disturbing that precepts of Bookchins own ecophilosophy were perhaps being imposed on a more diverse social ecology movement. Next, he asks, at institutes of social ecology and other places where social ecology is taught, do you discuss the main, pressing problems of the crisis, say, the areas discussed in The State of the World 1988 or problem areas as listed in the writings of the World Watch Institute or in similar writings with world wide distribution? Here, he points out a problem with social ecology that increasingly troubled me during the period in question. As a result of my interest in a wide spectrum of social and ecological issues and causes, and particularly after I became heavily involved in Indonesian, West Papuan and East Timorese issues around 1990, I increasingly found Bookchins version of social ecology to be insular and out of touch with global political, economic, and ecological realities. I found that the literature of social ecology was focused on ideological debate, on vague, generalized attack and selfdefense, almost to the exclusion of either careful, informed analysis of phenomena, or careful, reasoned theoretical reection. Finally, Naess poses some important questions about the signicance of decentralized and organic communities. He says that especially in the 60s many in my circle were heavily inuenced by Kropotkins Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution and that I found Tnnies Gesellschaft und Gemeinschaft valuable. . . . However, he says that he and his colleagues later observed that the traditional communities that came closest to the communitarian ideal no longer took good care of their environments and that it became clear to them that centralized regulation was needed. His conclusion was that in the years to come (30? 60? 100?) we need central authorities and we desperately need

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to counteract irreparable damage to resources. He comments, I wish to know where in the world empowerment has not increased ecological unsustainability so far. This is an area in which greater dialogue would have been useful. Both the global justice movement and materialist ecofeminism have shown that there is much to learn from indigenous people and women of the global South who continue to engage in caring labor that sustains both human community and larger ecological communities.11 Though I am not sure to what degree the texts I sent to Naess reect it, this is what I learned from my study of and work with the Papuan people in particular. In a letter of November 9, 1993, Naess writes that he was glad to receive my last letter, which, he says, marks a denite end to my worry about social/ deep ecology. He included with his letter a 700-word text entitled Note on Social Ecology. As far as I know, this text has never been published. In it, he quotes Bookchin on rst and second nature, and comments that: the passage shows how the view that the ecological crisis stems from social crisis is located at the center of social ecology as Bookchin uses the term. I permit myself to say that one may be a supporter of social ecology even when social crisis and to stem from are taken in a wide sense, wider than probably acceptable to Bookchin. For instance, I nd it acceptable to say the ecological problems which the ecological crisis raises are really social. That biologism and ecologism ignore the social (including economic and technological) factor is clear to me. We face grave social problems. This is a very important comment. Naess nds it acceptable to state something that is very much like what Sessions and some other deep ecologists have attacked Bookchin and others for saying: that not only is the ecological crisis a social crisis, but that one-sidedly ecological views fail to address social, economic and technological issues adequately.
11

See the important recent work of materialist ecofeminism, Ariel Salleh, ed., Eco-

Sufciency and Global Justice: Women Write Political Ecology (London and New York: Pluto Press, 2009).
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Naess then comments that: As to the ecological sensibility, its high level is a necessary, not a sufcient condition. The majority of a community may reach such a level, but economic and other forces may nevertheless determine an unecological policy. The supporters of the deep ecology movement are supposed not only to have that sensibility but to have it intimately related to their life philosophy or religiousness. With only people with a pragmatic leaning, and with rationality dened without relation to ultimate view, I disbelieve in a viable solution of the crisis. Here social ecologists would raise questions about whether such an analysis strays into ungrounded idealism. The beginning is promising, since Naess points out that ecological sensibility is not effective in the face of entrenched institutional structures. However, his next point does not address how these structures might be changed, but rather the need for relating ecological sensibility to deeper-level ultimate values. The idea that change in sensibility must be accompanied by change in fundamental values is quite valid. However, large numbers of people can achieve certain forms of ecological sensibility, and also possess certain ecological ultimate views, but this in itself does not necessarily lead to ecological social transformation. The issue of the preconditions for effective practice and the crucial question of how

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pervasive fetishistic disavowal can be overcome obviously need to be confronted.12 In December 1993, I received a letter in which Naess replies to questions I raised about the Deep Ecology Platform in a (generally sympathetic) review of McLaughlins book Regarding Nature.13 He says that the review contains some fairly critical sentences about my 8-point proposal of a deep ecology platform which I have never seen before. They ought to have been announced before . . . . others should already have put them forth if they had read the 8-point formulations in an analytically more sensitive mood. He then responds to some of the questions I raise and claries certain issues about the Deep Ecology Platform. For example, he admits that the terms principles and platform are to some extent misleading, and that he now prefers the rather long expression set of fairly general views. He explains that these views obviously have premises not all of which are ultimate, according to the supporters of the views. There is a gap in the letters for over two years, after which Naess writes in a letter of February, 1996, that Some time ago I asked you to tell me what it was that you found unacceptable in deep ecology. Now you have sent a
12

Fetishistic disavowal is a concept from Lacanian psychoanalysis popularized in

contemporary social theory by the philosopher Slavoj Zizek. As a general term in social analysis, it refers to a mechanism in which the subject knows something, but acts as if he or she did not have such knowledge (epitomized by the French phrase Je sais bien, mais quand mmeI know very well, but nevertheless.). Classically, in Marxs analysis of the fetishism of commodities, the well-socialized capitalist consumer knows very well that the commodity is merely an object in a system of economic exchange, but nevertheless that consumer acts as if the commodity had mysterious powers. Similarly, the members of todays mass society increasing know very well that the dominant economic and political order is leading the world toward ecological catastrophe, yet nevertheless they act as if they do not know this (dutifully voting for representatives of that very order, engaging in edifyingly innocuous green consumerism, etc.).
13

Andrew McLaughlin, Regarding Nature: Industrialism and Deep Ecology (Albany,

NY: SUNY Press, 1993).

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whole article which I read today. His quote from page two of the article shows that he is referring to my text How Wide is Deep Ecology?14 This article appeared in 1996 in Inquiry and later in the collection Beneath the Surface. It might be illuminating to cite some of the content of this text at length. In the article, I discuss several major points. First, I point out the value of Naesss "rules of Gandhian nonviolence," which he suggests can be applied to theoretical debates in ecophilosophy. Among the principles he recommends are the following: "choose that personal action or attitude which most probably reduces the tendency towards violence of all parties in a struggle; "ght antagonisms, not antagonists; "formulate the essential interests which [one] and [one's] opponent share and try to cooperate upon this basis; and avoid anything that might "humiliate or provoke [an] opponent." Secondly, I argue for the basic view of social ecology that ecological crisis can only be resolved through confronting social, political and economic realities. I note that there are . . . billions of people who are de facto reducing ecological richness and diversity in order to satisfy what are, without question, vital needs. They are thus doing what is permissible according to the Deep Ecology Platform. For this reason, it is necessary to confront the institutional aspects of the crisis while at the same time recognizing the centrality of ideological, moral, and spiritual transformation. I contend that to ignore or bracket these [institutional] aspects (as Naess does not do in his discussions of his own ecosophy, but as the platform does) will render deep ecology supercial . . . I point out that if we want to understand the basis for . . . eco-destruction, we would do well to investigate carefully the operation of the world economy, the policies of nation-states, the nature of poverty in the [Global] South, systems of land tenure, economic inequalities, the policies of the World Bank, international debt, and many other political and economic questions.

14How

Wide is Deep Ecology? in E. Katz, A. Light and D. Rothenberg, Beneath the

Surface: Critical Essays in the Philosophy of Deep Ecology (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000), pp. 3-15.
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Third, I contend that Naess's conception . . . of open, constructive dialogue, and learning from diverse views . . . seems to conict in some ways with a perspective that has been encouraged by George Sessions, the main American interpreter and historian of deep ecology. Sessions often presents deep ecology as presently formulated as being fundamentally beyond reproach and implies that any questions raised about its adequacy result from either ignorance or malice on the part of critics. His standpoint toward contending ecological viewpoints does not seem to reect Naess's concern with minimizing antagonisms and engagement in open dialogue. Sessions seems particularly concerned to depict ecofeminists and social ecologists as being in sharp contradiction with the basic ideas of deep ecology. Yet, many ecofeminists, social ecologists, and others who take issue with certain

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positions that Sessions sees as basic to deep ecology would, I believe, have little difculty accepting all the points of the deep ecology platform.15 Naess responded to this article with some enthusiasm. He says I consider it a precious gift to my 84th birthday at the end of January. It is well written and so convincing. I feel sorry for my good friend George Sessions, but can only very weakly object to your description of his role in recent debates. In response to my discussion of the preconditions for transformation, he says that clearly, [the eight points of the Platform] do not specify a center of attention: What are we to do in order to overcome the ecological crisis? Which must be our priorities? Here social ecology suggests an answer, and

15In

sections of the article that were cut before publication, I raised issues about the

concept of biospheric egalitarianism. I mention that Naess states that "when forced to choose, he unhesitatingly and deliberately steps on the Salix herbacea rather than the small, more overwhelmingly beautiful and rarer Gentiana nivalis, and I observe that it would be hard to imagine what would indicate recognition of a greater right to life for one organism than another more than the decision to destroy one in preference to the other. I also point out that in Deep Ecology in the Line of Fire Naess says that the expression biospheric egalitarianism means only that all beings are equal in that they all have intrinsic value and "does not even logically imply that the intrinsicness has degrees or does not admit degrees. [Arne Naess, Deep Ecology in the Line of Fire in The Trumpeter: Journal of Ecosophy, 12:3 (1995) http://trumpeter.athabascau.ca/index.php/trumpet/article/view/307/460.] He also states, in a discussion of human suffering caused by sleeping sickness, that "the agellate Trypanosoma gambiensis" has "an unfathomable complexity of structure, but we recognize the human being as a still higher order of complexity." [Arne Naess, Systemization of Logically Ultimate Norms and Hypotheses of Ecosophy T in Alan Drengson and Yuichi Inoue, The Deep Ecology Movement: An Introductory Anthology (Berkeley, CA.: North Atlantic Books, 1995), pp. 38-39.] I observe that although his point is that protecting the human can be defended using the norm of

"complexity!" that his analysis raises questions about any non-rhetorical force of his biospheric egalitarianism principle.

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also ecofeminism. Both suggest basic causal factors leading to the crisis, and each suggests a main direction of ght to reach ecological sustainability and social justice. (Very important views belonging to level 3 in my "Apron Diagram.") And social justice is thought to be implied. Thus, he recognizes these views as important. But does he accept the case? As I read him, he nds my article convincing but he has not quite been convinced. He continues: As I see it, a minimum of social justice is implied, but one of my sinister scenarios is a development of the Third World in the direction of Western consumerism. This may result in a sort of social justice, but ensures ecological catastrophe and opens the door for authoritarian regimes? But does this concern really relate to the position of social ecology? The contention of social ecology (and also of materialist ecofeminism and ecosocialism) is that meaningful social justice cannot be attained through a mere reform of global capitalism. Any form of social transformation that leaves Western consumerism not only intact but continuing its expansion to every corner of the global would signal the complete failure of the programs of these ecophilosophies. In a letter of January, 1997, Naess showed himself to be quite open to possible evidence for connecting social domination and the domination of nature. He says that What might be called Murray Bookchins domination hypothesis has interested me since the 60s, but I am not acquainted with historical studies that conrm a relation between the level of domination people/people and people/nature. I am sure some social ecologists could help me. I would be grateful to you if you could bring me into contact with those who have studied that relation. Despite his optimism about the existence of such studies, I never found Bookchin or those who supported his view to be interested in careful analysis of the evidence. However, shortly I would send him my own analysis of the issue. Naess also seemed very open to including concern about social domination in the platform. He suggests that the wording of point 6 [of the Platform] should be changed for instance by adding in order to diminish and ultimately to eliminate human domination over humans (person/person and group/group domination) and he asks whether Point 7 is perhaps too closely connected with the problematics of rich countries and the prevailing efforts to reach a level and kind of consumption of rich countries. It could

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stress the importance of communities with absence of domination. He suggests that perhaps the level and areas of human domination over humans could by gigantic social and political efforts be signicantly reduced within three generations. But without direct activism against ecological unsustainability the situation in the year 2100 will presumably be extremely serious, and the same holds good if we give up work to inuence countries or areas where certain forms of human domination over humans are extreme. Naess thus seems to be moving toward a greater recognition of the importance of the question of domination to the issue of ecological crisis. However, he does not really respond to the core of the social ecology position. To state this position rather starkly: there will be no solution to the ecological crisis without a solution to the problem of social domination. And we do not have three generations to nd a solution to the ecological crisis. In my next letter, in early August, 1997, I tried to address this question of domination more clearly. I said that I had written a long analysis of George Sessions' Deep Ecology for the 21st Century,16 and included a section on the question of domination. This section, along with about half of the entire text, was cut in the published version in The Trumpeter.17 I mentioned that he was the rst to see it other than the editor, David Rothenberg. That section goes as follows: Some deep ecologists have criticized ecofeminists for holding that the source of domination of nature is found in patriarchal domination of men over women, and have attacked social ecologists for holding that the domination of nature is rooted in the domination of humans by other humans. [For example,] Warwick Fox argues against ecofeminists and social ecologists that it is possible to imagine a society that has realized social, racial, and gender equality, but is still ecologically exploitative." This argument supposedly refutes the contention by advocates of
16 17

George Sessions, ed. Deep Ecology for the 21st Century (Boston: Shambala, 1995). Reading Deep Ecology, published in abridged form as "Not Deep Apart" in The

Trumpeter: Journal of Ecosophy 12 (1995): 98-104.

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these two viewpoints that the solution to ecological problems is the overcoming of domination in human society (whether this domination is essentially patriarchal, or essentially a system of various interrelated forms of domination). Fox's argument is based on a misunderstanding of certain aspects of social ecology and ecofeminism. First, neither theory is based on an ideal of social equality, and, in fact both would question this liberal, often economistic conception. But more fundamentally, the criticism overlooks the view of these theories that domination in society and domination of nature are dialectically interrelated. Bookchin writes of an "epistemology of rule" and Karen Warren of the "logic of domination," concepts that do not refer exclusively to relations between groups of humans, but rather to a comprehensive system of values and a peculiar sensibility. Thus, they address the quality of the whole of human experience. The kind of revolutionizing of values and sensibility envisioned by these theories could hardly be limited to certain social realms and have no implications for our attitude to nature. To assume this possibility suggests a certain psychological navet, a failure to consider the holistic nature of the psyche, or a misunderstanding of the transformative projects of these theories. In any case, while it is true that in unreective consciousness, compassionate and destructive attitudes to the other can easily coexist, theories that call for fundamental reection on the nature of domination and objectication seek to uncover exactly such contradictions. ! Social ecology does not accept the simplistic division between realms of domination that Fox attributes to it. As a philosophy of dialectical holism, it studies human society as part of the natural world in constant interaction and mutual determination with the rest of the natural world. Overcoming human domination means coming to grips with the problem of domination by humans in nature--for there can be no humans dominating other humans in society somewhere outside of nature. For an authentic social ecology, there is no dualistic division between the domination of nature by humans and the domination of humans by humans. We are nature, and thus any form of domination is immediately a form of domination of nature. It is therefore impossible to reect critically on any form of domination without confronting the issue of domination of nature. Furthermore, such dualistic

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projects as the domination of mind over body, of male over female, of civilized over primitive, and so forth are conceived in each case by the dominating consciousness itself as a kind of domination of nature, since that which is dominated is invariably assimilated into or reduced to nature. Thus, given the nature of the existing social imaginary, it is impossible to reect on many traditional ideologies of domination without directly confronting the problem of the domination of nature. I conclude by agreeing that Bookchin has not adequately defended his position, and noting that his view was in fact quite undialectical, but arguing that a stronger social ecological position exists that might be the focus of discussion. In his reply of the same month, August, 1997, Naess begins with the slightly cryptic comment that I have always been sure that you would send me a letter, and yesterday I received just what I wanted. Presumably he meant a letter on the issue of domination, which was an ongoing theoretical interest for him. He comments that he has attempted to initiate dialogue with Bookchin, but that little has come out of it. I believe that he was referring to the fact that Bookchin was invited to contribute to the volume Philosophical Dialogues: Arne Naess and the Progress of Ecophilosophy.18 Unfortunately, instead of writing an article engaging in dialogue, Bookchin chose instead to send the inammatory Social Ecology versus Deep Ecology in almost exactly the form that it had appeared over a decade before. Bookchins text is followed by very brief responses by Naess and Andrew McLaughlin. The collection also included Naesss conciliatory Unanswered Letter to Murray Bookchin, 1988. In that letter, Naess expresses his conviction that deep changes of economic, technological, and ideological structures are

18Witosek,

Nina, and Brennan, Andrew, eds. Philosophical Dialogues: Arne Naess and

the Progress of Ecophilosophy (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littleeld, 1999).

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required to radically change policies towards nature.19 In other words, he asserts that change in social relations is a precondition for change in the relation between humanity and nature. Thus, even if he ignored entirely Naesss published writings, Bookchin knew almost a decade earlier that the gap between his own position and that of Naess was far narrower than he pretended. In Naesss letter to me he reiterates his ongoing concern about how we might prevent the disputes among radical ecologists from being used to discredit the whole movement. He concludes with the comment that he is "Sorry that we have not met each other considering the many interests we have in common." This is something that I now regret very much. In what I believe to be my last letter to Naess (August 20, 1997), I conclude with what I see as common ground between my conception of social ecology and some aspects of deep ecology. I comment on my efforts: to synthesize the dialectical and teleological tradition of Western thought with an Eastern critique of the self and identity coming from Nagarjuna, Taoism and Zen. Perhaps this is not possible, but I see the confrontation between these traditions as necessary and creative. I differ from Bookchin on dialectic in that he uses it to produce a "result" that is more reiable, positive, and self-identical than I think possible. I take theoretical results in a more ironic, tentative, provisional way (to use inadequate terminology). I would stress the dynamic, self-transforming, critical, negating aspects of dialectic more than Bookchin. Our reality must be seen as part of the "whole," but this whole is (as I think D. T. Suzuki put it) "an ever-becoming whole" for which our concepts always seek to "stop the movement," or achieve the impossible dream of one-sided rationalism. My idea of dialectic is not, like Bookchin's, to discover the
19

The quoted phrase comes from the Deep Ecology Platform, point 6: Policies must

therefore be changed. These policies affect basic economic, technological, and ideological structures. The resulting state of affairs will be deeply different from the present. [Bill Devall and George Sessions, Deep Ecology (Salt Lake City, UT: Peregrine Smith Books, 1985), p. 70.]
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"latent potentialities" in everything or to uncover the privileged "directionality" of phenomena, but rather to "think the movement"to express our immersion in that ever-becoming wholeness. But on the other side, what is just as important is that we need to express our appreciation of what is attained in this process: the beauty, goodness, sacredness of the phenomenon . . . . The dialectical holism that I'm working toward would also I think synthesize some of the seemingly conicting approaches of deep and social ecologists. In the last letter I received from Arne Naess, dated Aug. 27, 1997, he says: I am now completely at ease about the deep ecology/social ecology relations. He remarks that The frontier is long! and we need supporters of the deep ecology movement and we need social ecologists. As activists we do different things, and may differ in priorities. But, as I see it, there are not two conicting approaches. You may, and others may, feel that the approaches are not only different, but conicting. This does not make me sad at all. And we shall avoid biased descriptions of each other's views. Actually, his suspicions were correct, and infected as I am by dialectical thinking, I believe that they are conicting, but they are also not conicting, both conicting and not conicting, and neither conicting nor not conicting. Accordingly, I am very grateful that Arne Naess was with us to speak for the important truth of non-conict. I am also sorry that his more subtle view was overwhelmed by certain louder and more manic partisans of conict, and, nally, that we have not been able to move more quickly beyond both conict and non-conict to a deeper level of dialogue and dialectic. Postscript Naesss hopes for respectful dealings between social and deep ecologists were unrealized not only because of Bookchins obsessive vendetta. George Sessions, in Wildness, Cyborgs, and Our Ecological Future: Reassessing the Deep Ecology Movement20 was still as late as 2006 presenting the saddest parodies of other ecophilosophies. Referring to contemporary
20

In The Trumpeter: Journal of Ecosophy, Volume 22, Number 2 (2006); online at

http://trumpeter.athabascau.ca/index.php/trumpet/article/view/906/1338.
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The Trumpeter ISSN: 0832-6193 Volume 26, Number 2 (2010)

ecophilosophers, environmental ethicists, and environmental historians, and the social ecologists, ecofeminists, and Callicott with his Leopoldian ethic, he charges that these contemporary ecophilosophers and environmental ethicists have generally paid little attention . . . to the worlds scientists increasingly dire warnings about the global ecological crisis, something that many of them have been stressing for decades. He says that I believe that the most distinctive claim of social ecology is that the human urge to dominate nature . . . results above all from human domination of other humans, which is in fact a view that I have criticized as being too simplistic. He also refers to my attempts to defend social ecologys anthropocentrism, although I have attempted to show it to be nonanthropocentric in signicant ways. He says that I now consider myself a deep social ecologist, although in fact this is not my term but one used by Bookchin to attack me. He says I now claim to support bioregionalism, although in fact I co-founded an early bioregional magazine 21 over twenty years ago, and have been close to the movement over all that time. He says I now apparently support Ken Wilbers anthropocentric Hegelian spirituality, apparently because I am a friend and colleague of Michael Zimmerman, who is a proponent of Wilbers ideas. Finally, he states that I have more recently . . . sought strong ties with ecofeminism, although in fact I have supported and written in support of ecofeminism for decades. Because of my suspect sympathies for ecofeminism, he questions whether I might also be a supporter of the Cyborg Manifesto, something no ecofeminist I know has supported or even seen as being of particular interest. In the end, he dismisses social ecologists, including me, and ecofeminists in general, for academic game playing and political power trips involving a jockeying for position which has basically obfuscated the issues and delayed realistic solutions to the ecological crisis. I can only conclude that the kind of constructive dialogue championed by Arne Naess is needed now as much as ever.

21

Mesechabe: Greening and Reinhabiting the Mississippi River Watersheds, founded in

1988, and later retitled Mesechabe: The Journal of Surre(gion)alism.