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- THE PROBLEMS WITH TECHNOLOGY AND ECONOMIC GROWTH
- TO REFORM OR NOT TO REFORM
- MAINSTREAM CRITICISMS
GESTALT ONTOLOGYEcospheric thinking is derived from Naess’ idea of “Gestalt Ontology.” An ontology is a way of asking and answering the philosophical question “What is”? Ontology is the study of being and existence. An ontology provides a “lens” or a “framework” through which we make sense out of the world. Naess is highly critical of the dominant ontology, which conceives of the world as though it were a “supermarket.” Through dominant supermarket ontology, we are all shoppers, roaming the aisles of the world, picking up items out of nature that can be bought or sold. This supermarket ontology creates a view of the world as made up of compartmental, “machine-like units to be controlled and manipulated”85 Naess describes the way people see a forest through the dominant ontology, “The atomistic view helps to value the forest in terms of market prices, of extrinsic parts, and tourism. ‘A tree is a tree. How many do you have to see?’” With a solely atomistic conception of nature, a person can never gain a sense of wonder for the ecosystem of the forest as a complex, interdependent web of life and beauty, because the forest is reduced to its use value for the human species. The supermarket concept is dangerous because it “makes life progressively less rich, narrowing it down to a mass of externally connected details.” 86 Unfortunately, this is the ontology that is dominant for modern culture. As an alternative, Naess argues that humans need to reconnect with an ontology that views the world as a “gestalt.” A “gestalt” is best explained with the phrase, “the whole is more than the sum of its parts.”87 When you view a forest as a gestalt, you see it as a whole ecosystem, not a mass of parts. You cannot master it by taking it apart into its components, or classify every interaction and piece of the system. This is why gestalts provoke a sense of wonder. Naess argues that we inevitably see things as gestalts, because it is impossible to see the world all the time in every detail. We inevitably take many details of daily life for granted. However, gestalt ontology is “delearned” through indoctrination to consumer culture in the media and education. THE PROBLEMS WITH TECHNOLOGY AND ECONOMIC GROWTHDeep ecology, following Marxism, critiques technological, consumeristic lifestyles. Technology creates worlds of artifice that separate people from nature. Nature becomes something to be set aside on “wilderness preserves” instead of the environment we come from and are encased in. This relationship with “nature,” if unstopped, will lead to its destruction as well as our own. For Naess, nature is not what stocks the shelves at the supermarket, it is home. The consumer culture, which pursues more and more economic growth, can never be satisfied in its relentless pursuit of bigger and better things. This culture leaves people unsatisfied, with no sense of wonder and appreciation for nature, tradition, or culture, no connection to the past or the world. “Development” is based on the anthropocentric assumption that nature is insufficient in itself and needs humans in order for it to “develop” its fullest potential as consumable goods to meet human needs. The consumer culture will also one day find that there is nothing left to develop. Deep ecologists worry that calamities may result, such as the rise of totalitarian governmental policies to ration the remaining resources, or ecological disasters. TO REFORM OR NOT TO REFORM?As a response to this modern crisis, deep ecologists suggest that people change their ways of conceptualizing the earth and consequently, their ways of living will change. From a gestalt ontology, it follows that you would not want to harm the earth’s ecosystems on which all life depends. Flowing from a sense of wonder, people would realize they cannot harness, control, and master all of the earth, and would cease their attempts to make use of the earth as a supermarket of “resources.” Deep ecologists are reluctant to embrace “shallow” reform proposals that leave humans as agents of control over nature, are technologically oriented, and are based on anthropocentric assumptions. Naess believes that the reforms necessary for sustainable living will be far-reaching and drastic. MAINSTREAM CRITICISMSMainstream environmental critics, who would be labeled “shallow” by the deep ecologists, often criticize deep ecologists for being nostalgic for primitive times. They argue that a return to the past, even if desirable, would not be possible, because humanity enjoys such technological advances as indoor plumbing, modern medicine, and the Internet. Critics also point out that primitive ways of farming or hunting were often destructive to the environment, and that primitive societies were repressive to women and often violent. Mainstream critics, such as Martin Lewis, also accuse deep ecology and other radical forms of environmentalism as alienating to the general public and producing a backlash from the right wing and the powerful. This backlash to environmentalism is ultimately destructive of the mainstream reform movements that have the best chance of producing actual change. They accuse deep ecology of being too academic and too far removed from the lives of real people to have any impact. Naess responds with reference to the eight principles of deep ecology. He claims that the goal of deep ecology is not a return to the past, although we can learn from the study of so-called “primitive” cultures that achieved better balance with the environment and were sustainable for tens of thousands of years. The goal is to change the way people envision their relationship to the environment. The resulting state of affairs will be drastically different. Another common criticism is that deep ecology is contradictory, because even deep ecologists must “use” the environment to provide for their own subsistence. Naess’ response to this criticism is that humans should only “use” the environment and interfere with the well-being of the ecosystem if it is to fulfill a vital need. 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