Zizek on the ideology of ecology.

[Deicide]

From Zizek's segment on the documentary ''examined life''.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGCfiv1xtoU

[Dean]

Any comments?

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Interesting prose; one doesn't often see someone advocating humanity to become "artificial" in order to counter the ecological crisis.

[ForgedConscience]

His assertion that we should try to find beauty in abstract logic and mathematics is one I agree with.

One thing I have a problem with is that Zizek tends to be a bit vague. Saying that we should 'love' our destruction of the environment? It is very open to interpretation imo, though what I think he means is that instead of becoming primitivists, we should find ways to solve environmental problems through even further technological progress. He doesn't literally mean we should admire piles of trash, I think he means that we should admire the aspects of our race which resulted in it, and develop and sublimate them even further.

[Kronsteen]

He's quite right of course, that the majority of ecologists have a vague image in their heads of a perfect, original world which we've corrupted and disrespected, and to which we should (to some extent or other) return, in the interests of our own survival.

There's a marxist version of the same idea: The return to communism after the overthrow of capitalism. Specifically the creation of industrial communism as a kind of higher version of the primative communism before class society.

A lot of revolutions are conveived as a return to a lost golden age, a rediscovery of the one true authentic way of living. Zizek is warning us that this is a foolish illusion.

If we do manage to stop making the planet unbearable for human life, and if we do manage to establish a new classless world society, it'll be a jump forward, not back.

[Thetwoterrors]

One of the reasons I love Zizek's take on ecology is because it alludes to a deeper notion of ecology i.e. that much of what we see as nature is actually artificial. I don't mean it in the sense of some sort of lofty ideal or mental construct but that we profoundly underestimate how much humans have changed the environment.

Charles Mann's 1491 goes into profound depth about how indian societies terraformed the continents they lived in (especially in the amazon). Mann's argument was that what European's saw during their conquest of the america's was an artificial wilderness profoundly changed by the indians. For instance in the Northeast, European conquerors often commented on the open park-like forests,the productivity of the land, the clearings in the forests that opened it up to bigger game. However, just two centuries later after smallpox and indian ethnic cleansing had decimated indigenous populations and all but stopped the use of indigenous methods the forests looked much different. Writing in the 1850s Thoreau could not have realized that the dark wild primeval forests of old-growth trees were a relatively new phenomenon (and short-lived, american industry was felling this profitable timber like mad) but he could see the lasting damage that capitalist exploitation of nature was having.

In many ways, the abundance of natural wealth the settlers were met with as they moved westward was the consequence of native population collapse from disease and their own policies of ethnic cleansing. The herds of millions of buffalo, billions of passenger pigeons, and multitude of salmon that would literally fly into boats as europeans were paddling upriver was in many ways the consequence of native genocide. I'm not saying that the native americans destroyed the environment, on the contrary they were very good stewarts of the land, they just weren't passive recipients of their environments-they changed them quite considerably.

Were just beginning to understand how we as humans have played complex role in the ecological transformation of the planet. I recently read a piece by an ecologist who noted that the flood control and hydro-electric projects of Germany, changed the landscape in ways that were so profound that the Germany of 150 years ago would be unrecognizable.

One of the reasons we do need more artificiality is because the ecological crisis is actually so grave. If you go outside and it's springtime and the dogwoods are in bloom, everything looks fine so you're not really motivated to take action. By straight-forward confrontation with the waste-products of our civilization and through scientific understanding of the "artificial wilderness" of our planet today I feel like as a whole we would be more driven and have more options when it comes to handling the crisis.

[Ned Kelly]

I like his take on ecology insofar as it exposes the 'environmental' movement, and their ideas such as the promotion of 'mother nature' as a caring, benevolent force and most of all the notion that the earth and nature were in perfect balance until us humans came along as fundamentally conservative notions aimed at taking the human race backward, not forward as revolutionaries would obviously advocate. Every problem throughout history that the human race has faced has been solved via human ingenuity, and that is the only was the environmental crisis can be solved.

[Mr. Natural]

I listened to the video twice and still don't know what Zizek's point was, other than to make yet another personal promenade.

The overall tone was hyper anthropocentric. Does he really mean we should develop alienated ecological relations further? Based on what? What would the organization of this process be? It could only be capitalist, anti-life organization, and while I'm at it, Zizek didn't mention capitalism at all.

Life has a universal pattern of organization that we who must consciously organize our lives must follow. The life process is created by and composed of self-organizing material systems that exist in dynamic interdependence with each other and their physical environment. This is the pattern of organization of community and communism, while capitalism's malignant organization attacks human and non-human communities and converts them to dead commodities.

Zizek had nothing to say about this, but it sure took him a long time.

My red-green, ecological best.

[Thetwoterrors]

Zizek definitely didn't present an alternative vision or go nearly deep enough into why capitalism is causing this crisis. Our problem is trying to figure out what direction to take our civilization ecologically on a planet that has been extensively terraformed for better and worse. Zizek makes too much light out of the grave matter of the biodiversity/climate crisis today; the science seems to say that we are entering an age of mass-extinction and that our present course of civilization is not compatible with the climate we depend on.

We know these things are happening not through some new-age spirit journey in the wilderness but through the artificial construct of scientific reasoning (something the more anti-scientific primitivists never comment on). Artificial means such as ecologically responsible terraforming or technological action to mitigate climate change isn't necessarily a dirty thing if we do it responsibly.

One thing zizek is very right about is the very conservative western vision of nature. This western view about the sacredness of pure wilderness actually allows us to do quite a bit of damage, because it encourages us to not care about the land we actually use. Not every culture makes the distinction between land suitable to be completely raped and pure wilderness that we do.

I don't know if you've ever been unfortunate enough to meet a real eco-fash online but this conservative don't-touch-anything vision of nature definitely drives them (along with their insistence on "biological racism" and obscurantism/pagan spirituality).

[Mr. Natural]

Thetwoterrors, You've done a better job deconstructing Zizek than I, and I have no major problems with any of your comments. The "New Agers" you oppose are particular problems for me, for the green of my "red-green" is deep and radical, while the New Agers' green is shallow, often silly, and very human-centered. Good news, comrades! We don't need to go to the trouble of organizing, we only have to buy the right crystal!

My green is of the ecological, organizational relations of life--the organizational relations humanity must learn and emulate. This green, informed by the new sciences of the organization of life, can provide the answers to your statement, "Our problem is trying to figure out what direction to take our civilization ecologically on a planet that has been extensively terraformed..."

Marx defined communism as "an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all." (Manifesto). This is also a description of community; communism is self-organized human community.

Life is also self-organized community, whether it is the community of a cell or the community of an ecosystem formed by networked, emergent levels of cells. All living systems are self-organized communities; life is "communist." All living systems are communal associations in which each self-organizing unit finds its life through dynamically interdependent (communal) relations with the rest of life.

Life is community. There is no separate life. Global capitalism, however, has increasingly separated human nature from Mother Nature, and the human species is on its way out.

We are on a short road to hell, but we can find our way to a realized human future. This path to paradise, however, must begin from a red-green base. Marxism (red) can only come to revolutionary life by engaging and employing the new sciences of the oranization of life and community/communism (green).

The left must marry red and green; instead, it demands permanent divorce. I can't find any discussions of the new sciences of organization on the left. This is unnatural and un-Marxian.

Engels at Marx's graveside: "Science was for Marx a historically dynamic, revolutionary force."

My revolutionary red-green best.

[Thetwoterrors]

Capitalism thrives by exploiting the mutuality of human society and the commons that well share; the goal of capitalism is to extract as much profit as possible from what you might call the 'communist roots' of human society and to reorient people towards this form of social organization and exploitation.

There's a lot of academic marxists who name-drop ecology these days; I'm willing to admit that my knowledge of ecology isn't of tremendous depth. One thing that helped me tremendously to get a better grasp on ecology,naturalism and environmentalism is to read an excellent anthology of environmental writing edited by Bill Mckibben called "American Earth: Environmental writing from Thoreau to present" which is a wonderful that includes work by ALL kinds of environmental writers.

From what I can gather, the three most important things we can do as ecologically aware communists (and human beings) to preserve our ecology and biogenetic heritage is to 1.Stop Climate Change 2.Preserve ocean ecosystems 3. Reforest what we can of the planet.

We can answer the first with a combination of new and old technologies. According to low-tech magazine (which occasionally posts a good article) Over 70% of the energy used in industry is heat energy, not electrical energy. 30% of the heat energy required used in industry is under 212 degrees, heat energy at this level can be produced at this level cost-effectively, using scrap materials and indigenous methods on any place on earth. Solar can produce heat over 6000 degrees, which can melt any metal and can produce any heat requirement needed for industry. These technologies are cost-effective, they aren't much more expensive than fossil fuels and hopefully they can be improved to be more effective.

Electricity production is pretty much the boring side of the energy equation (since that what everyone focuses on) but its still an important subject to tackle. Smart electrical conservation can actually reduce the amount of energy an american household uses by almost half without spending a dime! (though you may need a sweater).Using methods of ecological design intended to prevent and conserve electrical and heat energy expenditure it can be much less than this. Renewable energy, specifically wind and solar, is getting more and more economical by the day; germany's massive solar and wind projects have actually dropped electricity prices so much that natural gas plants are getting shut-down because they can't compete. They actually suffer from oversupply and in some parts of Germany people have actually been PAID to use excess electricity. Obviously, this is a great sign Natural gas is one of the most economical forms of electricity and to see renewables beating it is a positive sign. It shouldn't be too long till king coal is uneconomical, coal prices keep exploding upwards everywhere, while renewable prices keep dropping. In any case, waiting for that to happen is a terrible argument against ceasing the use of coal because it is dangerous to human and ecological health and it is killing our planet.

Oil is more difficult, but Cuba actually lost half its oil in the nineties and did fine, so we know we can conserve what we have left. Overall, our goal should be to replace antiquated personal automobiles with more efficient mass-transit. The shelf-life for our cars and our oil supply is 50-60 years, after that we might chose to have a small fleet of electric cars and buses for rural areas.

We can use Bio-char (a method for creating manmade soil invented by amazonian indians) to store carbon in the ground in the form of extremely productive and healthy soil! If we implemented it on a large scale, we could actually over time put all the C02 released into the air during the industrial revolution out of the atmosphere and back into the soil! Once the C02 levels start to drop the glaciers and arctic ice that we have lost (and will lose) will start to come back!

Our oceans can heal themselves relatively easily if we stop climate change, stop overfishing them and stop polluting them.

What developed countries need to do to allow the process of reforestation to begin is to de-surburbanize their continents. By moving our populations back into the cities, we can abandon the suburban wasteland that checkers our continents. By allowing these areas to go back to the land, we can reforest, save endangered species, and increase biodiversity. What is more, by growing our food in the city core using urban agriculture, we can actually afford to abandon massive amounts of farmland; the rural seclusion of productive farmland and the mature ecosystems which often coexist beside farmland make it perfect for reforestation. The third world should be encourage to develop their cities; however no one should be forced to leave their traditional ways of life if they don't want to

The reorganization of our cities to be more ecologically, energetically, and materially efficient offers a lot of promise for our society in my opinion. Much more than the primitivist fantasy of transitioning back to hunter-gathering or the doomer fantasy of moving to a rural farm Iowa in order to survive the collapse of civilization. I do not however believe any of these things are truly possible under capitalism. I feel like this is what we as communists will have to deliver.

[Mr. Natural]

Thetwoterrors, As my handle suggests, I look at life and society "ecologically." I often remark that human ecology must be modeled after natural ecology. Life and its ecologies have a universal pattern of organization humanity must emulate, and this pattern of organization is that of community and communism.

Bill McKibben has ecological insights, but no understanding of capitalism. I doubt the anthology he edited mentioned capitalism even once. McKibben's political liberalism trumps his environmental concerns.

A political liberal I love on the topics of human and natural ecology is Fritjof Capra. His Web of Life (1996), which brings systems-complexity science to earth for popular understanding, is my manual for the organization of life, society, and revolution. Capra uncovers life's universal pattern of organization; Web is deeply radical.

I marry Capra and Marx. Civil marriages are increasingly legal between two guys, but I'll be damned if I've been able to promote this revolutionary marriage of Marx and Capra on the left. Yet.

My red-green, unmarried but lustful revolutionary best.

[Thetwoterrors]

That anthology is actually pretty good, there is a lot of naturalistic/scientific articles plus a few genuine leftists. McKibben does disappoint me because as erudite as he is, he still thinks liberalism holds some kind of ecological promise. I have moved onto a lot of other enviro literature since then, but that anthology helped me get started.

This might slightly off-topic, but I completely reject this small-town, small business, "Relocalized" bourgoistopia that is petaled to us by so many environmentalists who consider themselves part of the left. The very idea of "Natural Capitalism" is false and perverse.

[Mr. Natural]

Thetwoterrors, You betcha "Natural Capitalism" is an oxymoron. Nature produces for community; capitalism destroys community as it produces for profit.

I hear Bill McKibben frequently on "progressive" talk radio. (Yes, I'm that desperate to hear "news") I don't believe McKibben has mentioned capitalism once.

I'm a big supporter of Judi Bari, a deep ecologist and red-green revolutionary for sure. Judi and the radical deep ecology she advanced suffered much at the hands of various liberals, such as Dave Foreman of Earth First! Judi, though, knew there was a natural alliance between forest workers and forest protectors that needed to be developed.

Deep ecology gets no respect from the left, nor have its current adherents earned any. However, I believe the first three points of deep ecology's eight-point program get humanity's place within nature correct. Here they are:
1: "The well-being and flourishing of human and non-human life on Earth have value in themselves (synonyms: intrinsic value, inherent worth). These values are independent of the usefulness of the non-human world for human purposes.
2: "Richness and diversity of life forms contribute to the realization of these values and are also values in themselves.
3: "Humans have no right to reduce this richness and diversity except to satisfy vital needs."

There you have it: humanity is part of nature (Marx and Engels knew this) and human relations need to be organized naturally--ecologically, communally, communistically. We occupy a privileged position within nature, but attacks on natural ecology are in effect an attack on communal relations with ourselves and the rest of life.

I'd better quit before I go all mystical here and have Rosa L's ghost stick another pin in my voodoo doll

Have you read Joel Kovel's Enemy of Nature (2002)? Kovel is the head of the American ecosocialists now, and Enemy is Marxist and written for a popular readership. I have given a half-dozen copies away to those I thought might appreciate it.

My red-green best.

[Thetwoterrors]

I've never read it. I'll be sure to check it out.

[Vanguard1917]

He makes some good points there.

Also, insofar as increases in household waste are closely related to general increases in household wealth, there is something very suspect about middle-class ecologists who see dumpsites as symbols of everything that is wrong with modern society. What really worries such people are rises in working class wealth, which they see as leading to so-called over-consumption by the masses. Needless to say, such a pro-austerity outlook is alien to what socialists stand for.

I'll tell what kind of household produces minimal waste: an impoverished one.

[The Jay]

He makes some good points there.

Also, insofar as increases in household waste are closely related to general increases in household wealth, there is something very suspect about middle-class ecologists who see dumpsites as symbols of everything that is wrong with modern society. What really worries such people are rises in working class wealth, which they see as leading to so-called over-consumption by the masses. Needless to say, such a pro-austerity outlook is alien to what socialists stand for.

I'll tell what kind of household produces minimal waste: an impoverished one.

I think that they are concerned about the consequences of increased lower-class wealth for the very reasons you mentioned. However, I think that the consequences are what they fear and not the cause. If more wealth didn't mean more pollution then I don't think that they would have a problem at all with it. In fact, I'm sure that most would risk the consequences if it meant eliminating poverty.

[the zizekian]

Speaking of human ingenuity, I consider Zizek a genius precisely because he was able to revolutionize my conception of the past.

[the zizekian]

What’s remaining when we stop seeing balance in nature? Terror.

[Cirno(9)]

I once met Zizek in person and asked him if this critique could be extended so as to say that ecology is simply the mold of Christianity with different contents but he wasn't able to give a full answer since it was during the book signing after the talk and I was holding up the line..

[Thetwoterrors]

That's very unfortunate that you weren't able to get a full-answer from him on that question, I'm sure it would have been epic if you had.

It's very difficult to say what's christian and what's not, Nietzsche tended to see liberal democracy and to a large degree socialism as continuing christian modes of thought and morality only without God.

One environmentalist (whose name escapes me at the moment) wrote that environmental writing tends to be a mixture of Either and High Mass. On one hand much of the style of environmental writing is concerned with the wonders and beauties of nature and coming to peace with it and on the other hand much of it is like a sermon which scolds us for destroying nature and exhorts us to take personal responsibility.

I try not to avoid things because it might be considered "christian" not everything about christianity is bad (just most everything) but it's a great point on your part Cirno(9)

[the zizekian]

For Zizek, there is no big Other. This is the teaching of Christ and this teaching is not understood by the ecologist movement.