Re: Coming from the Left to be Right.

** I sent this first at 13:28 11/03/00 +1300, but it hasn't appeared.
   So this is my second try from my bigfoot.com address.

At 22:16 9/03/00 +1100, Jon Sumby <.-.-.@green.net.au> wrote:
>Hi,
>Everybody is invited to participate.
>
>David Orton's recent 'Ecofascism Bulletin' highlights an issue
>that is not going to go away. ... It seems as if he has taken the 
>idea of 'ecofascist' literally which is something I have never come
>across before.  In my experience, the ecofascist label has been
>a pejorative ... entirely a political weapon. 
> ...
> Deep ecology as a system of thought is charged with being 
>'ecofascist' by both Left and Right wing thinkers. 
> ...
>These similar accusations of the ecofascism of environmentalism,
>and especially DE, ... are both rooted in humanistic philosophy.
> 
> ... politically conservative people hold that even shallow 
>environmentalists, and especially deep ecology, are profoundly 
>antihuman and are akin to totalitarianism. ...
>
>How do people who profess a deep ecology philosophy deal with
>this charge? The condemnation 'ecofascist' is one that, I think,
>is behind Naess' backing away from the 8-point platform that he
>first proposed for DE. If you recall, Paul Erhlich faced the
>same pressure when he proposed ending humanitarian aid to
>ecologically marginal areas. 
>
>By advocating dramatic reductions in the human use of the Earth,
>deep ecology has been attacked as 'ecofascist', especially as it
>theoretically condemns the third world to poverty while keeping
>the first world (you and me) rich. This seems exactly what the
>new world order of the WTO is doing. ...

**  I won't be going into this at any length, since:
(1) I don't see myself as a Deep Ecologist, rather, a thorough ecologist.
(2) I know very little about historical and current fascism - I had to look
it up in our Oxford Dictionary. It seems to be a method, rather than
describing a set of goals.
(3) I am totally in favour of dramatic reductions in the human use of the
Earth, so for about a year now I've been giving my views on what those
goals should be. I have no interest in what one thinks of, e.g. religious,
deep-ecological, philosophical or other thinking, while one works to
achieve those goals.

**  To me, the attraction of belonging to a fascist group is exactly that:
belonging, being part of the "in" group, the old us-them dichotomy. Exactly
like a gang or The Mob. The charisma of the leader is the cement or binding
that takes people *e pluribus unum*.
    I see no need for leadership in that ratio: thousands or millions
following one. I believe we have sufficient leaders within our own social
group: one in three, to one in twenty. And they should be asked to lead,
and only for a specific, time-limited purpose. For a new challenge, hours
or weeks later, a different leader would quite likely be chosen, depending
on the skills required.

**  Secondly, I do not believe that changing the current 25 year old
mind-set will happen by political leadership, normal politics. The US, and
more recently the rest of those anywhere in the world who have aspirations,
seems to have been brainwashed to believe that /first and foremost/ one
must have money, then you can do what you aspire to. So business and
money-making is the purpose of most of daily life.
    I don't have a real idea of how to put this back to what I grew up
with, that one's life was much more than this, so paid (or otherwise
money-getting) work was only a quarter to a third of what one concentrated
on, each week. Certainly less than half.
    But I /am/ sure that won't happen through the "normal political
process". It's partly the way political power must be bought, these days. 
    Mainly, reducing the individual's impact on the earth to a third (world
average) or a tenth or twentieth (for most Americans, or the richer half of
Europeans) cannot happen unless each individual decides to do so, outside
of a disaster.
    That sort of change is too large to be done by democratic politics, and
in my view /has to/ be done person by person, each realising how "bad"
their current way-of-life is, and deciding that they'll start with making
/their own life/ good.

**  I know the goal; I cannot prescribe (or even think up) a method. I just
wish people weren't constantly "waiting for a messiah". For millennia.

**  "Do it yourself" is my motto.

David.
(David MacClement) d1v9d@bigfoot.com 
www.geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/3142/Pg1-AD11.html
 or better: http://www.emucities.com.au/member/davd/
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