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PeaceNews #2446: Ecotopia: a future with a long past
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Ecotopias may appear as relatively modern visions, but their
origins lie in the ideas and thinking of historic movements.
David Pepper examines the journey to modern ecotopias.
Ecotopia: a future with a long past
David Pepper
Most radical thought and action
about the environment could
be described as "utopian",
since it envisages a radically different
society with strongly sustainable
development where the integrity of
"natural" ecosystems is maintained.
Utopianism, popularly associated with
a literary genre, is also a "state of mind"
found in the constitutions, outlines or
blueprints of any ideal republic. It always
reflects existing social conflicts, and
rejects existing society. The utopias of
1960s and `70s counterculture, including
environmentalism and feminism, were
reactions to apocalyptic visions of over-population,
nuclear disaster, or Frankensteinian
experiments gone wrong.
Underestimating capitalism?
Marx and Engels criticised utopian socialists
for underestimating the huge forces
within capitalism that would squash all
radical subversive movements as soon as
they threatened to be effective. And like
these unrealistic utopians, some contemporary
eco-anarchistic alternative communities
think it possible to create in the midst
of capitalist society a microcosm of an
essentially non-capitalist society - which it
is hoped might spread by example.
Marxists would say that this could only
be done once non-capitalist economics
were established, which would require a
more revolutionary, confrontational
approach. By the same token, social
democratic (eg New Labour in Britain)
attempts to create capitalism with
"human and ecological faces" are also
unrealistic, and destined to remain in that
place called "nowhere".
Ecologically benign societies
Modern utopianism was "invented" by
Thomas More (Utopia, 1516), and became
a social movement in the West in the
nineteenth century. From then on, some
people have striven to realise utopia here
on earth. Environmentalists have been
inspired by literary "ecotopias", including
Reich's (1970) Greening of America, Schumacher's
(1973) Small is Beautiful, Le
Guin's (1974) The Dispossessed, Goldsmith
et al's (1972) Blueprint for Survival, van
der Wyer's (1986) Wickwyn and, notably,
Callenbach's Ecotopia (1978), and its "prequel",
Ecotopia Emerging, (1981).
Most of these insist that the key to an
ecologically benign society is an inclusive
democracy where the majority's will prevails
over economic and social decision
making. (Given freedom, they argue, people
will avoid disharmony with nature; a
rational thing to do.) And, like Capra's
Turning Point (1982), many see "feminine"
values as central to ecotopia.
Ecotopian visions often reflect nineteenth
century socialist and anarchist
utopianism. To environmentalists who
see common ownership of land as a key
issue (reflected in groups like Reclaim the
Streets or The Land is Ours or the alternative
communities movement), Gerrard
Winstanley and the Diggers are seminal
figures [see Andrew Bradstock's article on
p24]. Their approach foreshadowed an
important green activist strategy: that of
"prefiguring"` the desired society. This
means rejecting any approach (eg involving
violence, or social hierarchies) which would
not feature in the ideal society itself. Robert
Owen wanted the example of his early
nineteenth-century paternalistic communities
(of about 500-3000 people each,
and without private property) to lead to a
cooperative socialism embracing the earth.
Contemporary utopias
Charles Fourier (1772-1837), also influences
anarchist-feminist, communalist
radical environmentalism. His utopia featured
"phalansteries"-communities of
about 1700 people-as a basic social unit,
with no state regulation. In them, creative
talents were expanded, meals and
child-care were communal, and "industrial
armies" carried out important environmental
projects.
Although capital, private property and
wealth disparities remained, people were
emotionally and sexually satisfied and
spiritually rich. This theme of enhanced
life quality, perhaps compensating for
lower material standards, features strongly
in the contemporary ecotopian visions
of Schumacher and Goldsmith et al.
The commune and back-to-the-land
radical environmentalism of the past 40
years echoes the many nineteenth-century
alternative communities set up in Britain.
Two strong influences here were Peter
Kropotkin and William Morris.
Morris ("the first English Marxist") set
out, especially in News from Nowhere
(1890), basic socialist ideas which were
also "green", including voluntary simplicity and fellowship, rejecting the "false"
consumerist wants and sprawling, ugly,
polluting mass developments of capital-ism
in favour of "...the simple joys of the
lovely earth". But unlike some deep ecol-ogists
today, Morris didn't dislike all
human changes to nature: he saw a place
for machines in doing unpleasurable work
(as does the modern ecotopian Andre
Gorz).
Morris's vision was close to anarchism,
and for Kropotkin anarchism would lead
to true commune-ism: the free association
of producers without class division, wage
slavery or even money. His picture of an
ideal communist landscape based on
mutual aid, also written in the 1890s, is
close in detail to later ecotopias-for
example, the inclusive ecological democracy
envisaged by Takis Fotopoulos and
Murray Bookchin.
Ecotopian inspiration!
Other forms of ecotopianism like bioregionalism
and deep ecology (expressed for
instance in the Earth First! movement)
tend towards idealism, and here two
twentieth century utopians seem particularly
influential: Teilhard de Chardin and
Aldous Huxley. Teilhard's Phenomenon of
Man (1947) is reflected in deep ecology's
view of evolution towards a higher, Gaian,
state of consciousness, forming an enlightened
"noosphere" (a realm of thought)
round the earth, as the key to ecological
salvation. Callenbach's Ecotopia (1974)
closely resembles Huxley's Island (1962).
The latter was a curtain raiser to 1960s
and `70s hippy and environmentalist
rejection of consumer materialism, conformity,
alienation and perceived dangers
of globalisation and science allied to capitalism,
such as large-scale development,
nuclear war/power, pollution and waste
and "overpopulation". Huxley, who figured
on the sleeve of the Beatles' Sergeant Pepper
album, proposed remedies for these evils in
Eastern mysticism, and the supposed liberating
power of drugs and sexual freedom.
Ecotopia may not yet have arrived, but
utopian visions are vital to the health of
the green movement. They give constant
inspiration, hope and direction to those
engaged in what is still a long struggle.
David Pepper is a Professor at Oxford Brookes
University and the author of Communes and
the Green Vision (Green Print, 1991)
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