Chapter One The Idea of Green: From

Homocentrism to Ecological
Enlightenment

1.1. Modernity and the Death of Nature: Reason, Science and

Religion as a Totalizing Explanatory System
Contemporary environmental scholars argue that the first serious historical
development influencing the fate of natural world is irreversibly characterized
by the unlimited confidence in man himself. This anthropocentric perspective
prompted by humanism leads the philosophers of the Medieval Age to define
every object and also every abstract idea through the lens of men. While nature
is rediscovered by the medieval scholars regarding man as the central fact of
the universe, civilization, on the other hand, is to be re-established in a way
that consolidates man’s position. It is believed that the potential laid buried
in human mind can emerge to carry out radical changes in the mechanism of
the universe. In his remarkable study including five hundred years of Western
culture, Jacques Barzun states that the first is “the conviction at the heart of
Humanism- ‘more human,’ therefore better than the medieval outlook, behav-
iour, and language” triggering the confidence in the enlightened man himself
and the other one is “the awareness of techniques obviously ‘advanced’- per-
spective in painting, polyphony in music, improvements in the practical arts
and the sciences” (2000: 74). Both indicate the capacity of human mind to dis-
cover the potential in the universe.
If people are to understand how the idea of ecological sense has been radical-
ized, they must turn their face to the great humanist tradition paving the way
for modernity and the age in which this tradition echoes, because the belief in
the capacity of human power and the desire for “more human,” a fundamental
reason for the extant environmental crisis, is definitely rooted in the Age of
Reason or the Enlightenment.
As the terms like reason, critical thinking and progress identified with this
period reflect only one aspect of the Age of Reason, socio-economic dimensions
of the age should be included in its large-scale definition as well. Lester
G. Crocker, in his introductory notes to The Age of Enlightenment, makes an
in-depth explanation on the nature of the period claiming that Enlightenment
is the intersection of the past and future and an ideal model armed with the
weapon called critical reason which helps diagnose the problems of the society
22 From Homocentrism to Ecological Enlightenment

and offer remedies (1969: 1). As can be seen, many illustrations seem to describe
the spirit of the Enlightenment by showing its positive influences on culture
and society. This age, as Crocker observes, is often “characterized by optimism,
liberalism, the teaching of morals, and other appealing tendencies” (1969: 1).
However, the idea of Enlightenment, for Crocker, “did not exist in any such
pure form as we should like to give it; that it was imbedded in […] all sides,
creating a complex of dynamic, dialectical tensions” (1969: 2).
The tension between human and nature therefore lies at the heart of this
humanist optimism. The philosophical logic contrary to mystical and symbolic
illusion initiates a great universal order in which nature has thus become a sub-
sidiary object, or more precisely, an inferior existence. In other words, the unity
between soul, body and nature crack deeply. For instance, being a precursor
of Renaissance humanism, Petrarch gives the first signs of this breakup. One
day, he enjoys admiring some mountain scenery. On the top of the mountain,
he opens St Augustine’ Confessions to consult and ensure what he feels is valid;
yet he is abashed: “I closed the book, angry with myself that I should still be
admiring earthly things, when I might long ago have learned from even pagan
philosophers that nothing is wonderful but the soul” (2011: 33). In opposition
to respecting and admiring the idea that nonhuman nature is holy and lofty, the
sublime, consequently, seems to transform into a human quality adopted by the
Augustinian doctrine which propagates Neo-Platonic ideas to the middle ages.
As a consequence of a new perspective overriding the metaphysical pattern of
nature, the cosmos, therefore, becomes humanized and an experimental object.
In this sense, man distinguishes himself from all other nonhuman living beings
as a creature endowed with the faculty of reason through which he can prac-
tice free will. The idea of human supremacy based on his freedom of choice
is now the essential issue for medieval scholars. Defining human as the most
wonderful and fortunate being, Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola postulates the
thought that God puts human beings in the midst of the earth and regards them
as superior creatures with no boundaries. He believes that the creator grants
human beings free will so that they can become the moulder of themselves.
Alternating between “soil,” which represents his earthly place among all living
beings, and “soul,” which exalts him to a heavenly being, mankind, by virtue
of his reasoning, man is given the right to be integrated into whatever form he
would like to prefer (1998: 4–5). The medieval humanism invites man to face
the fact that he is located into the middle of the earth where he is capable of
shaping his self-owing to the free will he is granted. Harris observes that it is
man’s own choice and “the instrument lay in the use, or misuse, of his reason”
because human being “endowed with freedom of choice, becomes the ‘moulder
 Modernity and the Death of Nature 23

of himself’, capable of degenerating to the level of beasts, or, by the use of his
reason, becoming a heavenly being” (1968: 23). In accordance with his emphasis
on human privilege, Mirandola also draws the medieval picture of universal
chain of being. The creator, for him, likens to a “Supreme Architect” who creates
“this earthly home” and places “a multitude of creatures of every kind” and
then when every detail is ready to serve the benefit of human being, he decides
on “the creation of Man” who is a “great miracle” and “a wonderful being”
(1942: 347–48). All living and nonhuman living beings are now made based on
a divine hierarchy and everything is arranged according to the highest, middle
and the lowest orders (1942: 348). On one hand, the links among the phases in
the hierarchy are supposed as strictly related to each other reflecting the medi-
eval cosmology, this fundamental thought concerning the position of human
being in the universe, on the other hand, is responsible for transmitting human
supremacy to characterize the ensuing centuries.
Sir Isaac Newton, with a radical ecological understanding, may be assertive
when he praises the great thinkers of the previous age: “If I have seen further it
is only by standing on the shoulders of giants” (qtd. in Merton, 1993: 1). Among
the giants he stands on their shoulders are Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler
whose discoveries make human beings believe the idea that the physical world
is an organized mechanism governed by laws which can be grasped through
human reasoning. As Harris claims, “[t]‌hese laws were to be discovered, not by
a priori reasoning, not by some reference to an authority, such as the ancient
philosophers, or the Scriptures, but by empirical means” (1968: 10). The dis-
covery of nature- to be more precise, the process of dominating over nature-
could be carried out via new experimental knowledge that requires man to
discard the religious doctrines. Theological assumptions ascribed to a great
authority are replaced with inductive reasoning provided by scientific obser-
vation and calculation. However, the only change in the approach to physical
world is the method determining how the objectified nature would be handled
in Western culture. That is to say, the radical shift from theological perspective
to the new modes of thought does not bring any advantage for nature. People
strictly abiding by Christian doctrines and religious scriptures consider that
they are punished and then sent into the earth. Supposing that they are cre-
ated as superior to other living beings, men give precedence to the other world
which they think they once belonged. Indicating the worsening relationship
between man and nature as a consequence of this religious background, histo-
rian Lynn White Jr. accuses Christianity of separating man from nature and of
justifying man’s exploitation of nature in terms of religious ends (1967: 1205).
In an ecological sense, Christianity is credited for its anthropocentric approach
24 From Homocentrism to Ecological Enlightenment

and the ecological crisis, for Lynn White Jr., is based on “the Christian axiom
that nature has no reason for existence save to serve man” (1967: 1207). Despite
the disavowal of traditional Christian doctrines and the recognition of intel-
lectual and empirical approach to the operation of the physical world, which
is initiated following the discoveries of Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler, the
exploitation of nature is advanced more than ever before.
Though Bacon is labelled as half medieval and half modern due to the fact
that he cannot totally refuse medieval conceptions, it can be claimed that his
thoughts and works mark the beginning of a new era. He popularizes the notion
that one can arrive at the generalizations beginning from the observations of
minor events, which can be called as inductive logic. With this experimental and
empirical method, he challenges the traditional Aristotelian deductive method.
Yet, he could not go beyond his contemporary philosophers like Descartes in
terms of ontological argument and abstract reasoning. Thus, Stuart Hampshire
claims that “he had the temperament of a naturalist rather than a philosopher”
on account of the fact that “his eye was always caught by the colour and variety
of concrete things in nature before he had followed an argument far enough
among generalities” (1956: 20). Like other enlightenment thinkers who at-
tempt to comprehend the purpose of nature, Bacon also endorses the belief that
nature, concerning biblical references, exists for the benefit of humankind. The
physical world, for him, is an object to be studied and man can only achieve
superiority by unveiling the secret laws of nature. Unless the hidden rules and
functions of natural environment are ascertainable to human mind, human
beings cannot make progress and then establish a flawless civilization. In his
The Wisdom of Ancients commenting on mythological figures, Bacon discusses
the state of man. His argument seems to be rooted in humanist philosophy
and then paves the way for the primary principles of modern science. Namely,
for Bacon, it can be concluded that man is the center of the universe because
the world is “nowhere” with no goal if man does not exist. Thus, for him, the
world is an aimless instrument shaped for the service of man. The stars exist
for the comprehension of seasons, the middle sky is for weather forecast and
the winds serve for sailing man’s ships. Moreover, all nonhuman forms of life
are not only the embellishments of the world but also means of comfort satis-
fying human needs. (1986: 270). The reason why environmental historians and
critics treat Bacon as a scapegoat by accusing him of provoking a close relation-
ship with nature manifests itself in his philosophy of nature which triggers a
close relationship with nature, not for the purpose of reconciliation between
society and nature but for an attempt to underpin a legacy for the human con-
quest of nature. This ideal prompted by Bacon becomes a new understanding of
 Modernity and the Death of Nature 25

universe in which the role of a mechanism is assigned to nature possessing an

unconscious order. The knowledge, thus, grows into the prerequisite for the sci-
ence to decode the unconscious mechanism. Bacon certainly supports the view
that “[h]‌uman knowledge and human power meet in one” that “the true and
lawful goal of the sciences” is to enrich humanity “with new discoveries and
powers” in an attempt “to establish and extend the power of the human race …
over the universe” (qtd. in Gruner, 1977: 54). Though his theory of dominion is
clear, the majority of scientists claim that Bacon cannot be accused of imposing
the idea that nature should be dominated, controlled and tortured because his
fundamental purpose is to merge human reason, mechanistic science and the
potential of nature for an ideal universe. However, ecofeminist philosopher and
historian Merchant not only provides a feminist view to Bacon’s philosophy,
but also reinforces the idea that his method of inquisition is responsible for
the dominion over the earth. In The Death of Nature, Merchant argues that
“[m]uch of the imagery he used in delineating his new scientific objectives
and methods […] treats nature as a female to be tortured through mechanical
interventions” (1980: 168). Furthermore, Merchant revisits the view of universe
held by Bacon through going beyond the textual analysis responding to those
who defend the Baconian model of universe as a pure and innocent kind of sci-
entific advancement strategy: “Bacon’s goal was to use constraint and force to
extract truths from nature. His choice of words was part of a larger project to
create a new method that would allow humanity to control and dominate the
natural world” (2006: 518). In an ecological sense, the philosophical principles
of Bacon, therefore, are based on paradoxical formulations known as sophis-
ticated understanding of modern scientific method, which paves the way for
man’s detachment from nature.
The Enlightenment can be claimed to find its intellectual roots in the
Cartesian philosophy. While it is Bacon who evokes the idea that the confi-
dentiality of nature is ascertainable to human mind which is able to consoli-
date human sovereignty over physical nature, it is Descartes who invites human
beings to consider that they are the true owners of nature as long as they grasp
the fact that the language of nature is mathematics. Environmental critics like
J. Isaac Kureethadam mostly share the common belief that the anthropocen-
tric division between humanity and the rest of the world, or, in other words,
between human beings and non-human living beings is originated by Cartesian
duality which separates human mind from human body and the world. It
follows that the philosophical tradition of Descartes considers nature as inert
and “res extensa,” which is the rest of the physical world that cannot have the
ability to conceive, and human beings as “res cogitans” which Descartes calls
26 From Homocentrism to Ecological Enlightenment

the thinking man. Kureethadam claims that the exploitation of natural world
since modernity has been largely due to the Cartesian metaphysical dualism
because the concept of nature shaped through this separation justifies and
sanctions the domination of man over nature. (2017: 248). Descartes reinforces
the dichotomy between “res extensa” and “res cogitans” with his well-known
quote “cogito ergo sum” which explicitly gives the impression that any living
being who does not have the ability of what humans call “thinking” is infe-
rior to those who have. Admittedly, “[a]‌n environmental ethic,” according to
Serenella Iovino, “displaces its focus from the ‘monological’ centralism of the
Cartesian self (the one who says ‘I think, therefore I am’) to everything that
in nature undeniably is,” namely, “to everything that may not have language,
or reason (at least in a human sense), but nonetheless has an autonomy of life”
(2010: 35). Contrary to the environmental ethic denying the alienation of non-
human nature as a mechanized object, Cartesian philosophy is quite influen-
tial on modern men’s attitudes toward nature with its thoughts on animals.
Descartes considers nonhuman beings, particularly animals, as unconscious
creatures which are deprived of rationality. According to Anna L. Peterson, this
belief is based on the use of language by human beings, that is to say, the an-
imals lack sentiment and consciousness since they do not speak any language
(2001: 39). Cartesian view of being, therefore, not only focuses on the ontolog-
ical assumptions and “anthropocentric definition of such terms as rationality,
consciousness and morality” but also “many other assertions of human unique-
ness, such as the ideas that only humans are self-conscious, only humans ask
existential questions and only humans are moral” (2001: 39).
On the other hand, Thomas Hobbes, who is another representative of
modern humanistic philosophy, in his major work entitled as Leviathan, draws
the picture of a civil society in which individuals are governed by a social
contract in order to maintain a sustainable and peaceful life for human beings.
However, it seems that there is no room for nature in his portrayal of the state in
social and political order contrary to Bookchin’s conception of ecosocial order.
For Hobbes, only science, or as he calls the knowledge of consequences, can
be applied to learn the truth and to gain reliable knowledge about the future.
Contrary to other humanistic views, Hobbes believes that human beings natu-
rally have tendency to compete with and kill each other. In Leviathan, he iden-
tifies what we call natural with questionable terms like wild, violent, immature
and brutal. Thus, the natural condition of mankind requires for an authority
for him to overcome his most natural instincts. Namely, he offers a vision of
a modern developed civilization in the form of a government based on the
notion of a mechanistic and experimental science; on the contrary, humans
 Modernity and the Death of Nature 27

cannot recover from Hobbes’s state of nature, the primitive characteristics of

human being. “The philosophical foundation of the modern state committed to
science,” Joni Adamson claims, “was complete only with the work of Thomas
Hobbes who posited that nature was a state of anarchy, a chaos of meanings,
emotions, and hallucinations, and that in a state of nature man is an enemy to
every other man” (2001: 171). His equalization of being in the form of “nature”
with the image of primitive and savage culture should not be surprising for
an age which assumes the role of a cornerstone leading up to the degradation
of the image of nature. On the other hand, the controversial point between
Hobbesian view of equality of beings and radical ecology lies behind in his
notable beginning statement in chapter XIII of Leviathan: “Nature hath made
men so equal, in the faculties of the body, and mind […]” (Hobbes, 1839: 110).
Ignoring the situation of “res extensa” in his “State” or “Leviathan,” Hobbes
distinguishes human beings from animals emphasizing the significance of
reason and science. He manifests that “a man did excel all other animals in this
faculty, that when he conceived any thing whatsoever, he was apt to inquire the
consequences of it, and what effects he could do with it” (1839: 33). Needless to
say, it can be claimed that “in the Hobbesian account, man is both the matter
and the maker of the Leviathan state” (Coleman, 1996: 32).
The anthropocentric tradition of establishing mastery also emerges in the
philosophy of Locke. Contrary to the principles of Hobbes’s state of nature con-
cerning struggle, Locke’s state of nature is based on the independence governed
by natural laws, or the law of mind, which defends the view that all men are
equal and independent on earth and should respect the rights and possessions
of each other. Locke states that “[t]‌he commonwealth seems to me to be a
society of men constituted for the procuring, preserving and advancing their
own civil interests” (1977: 245). By civil interests, he means “life, liberty, health
and indolency of body; and the possession of outward things, such as money,
lands, houses, furniture and the like” (1977: 245). This statement implicitly
emphasizes the dichotomy between society and nature. For Locke, on the other
hand, the civil authority promises to secure men’s possessions and even domi-
nance over the subjects thought to be given for the service of mankind. Harris
certifies this view by stating that John Lock “found man a reasonable being, pri-
vate property an essential attribute, and freedom a necessary mark of civilised
man” (1968: 57). Though freedom is of significance and an untouchable right
for Locke, a man’s freedom does not give him the right to interfere with the
scope of another man. Yet, the critical question is that what if man’s freedom
coincides with a nonhuman living being’s freedom? The answer lies behind
the fact that the possession of private property is required for the material
28 From Homocentrism to Ecological Enlightenment

progress in Locke’s theory. According to him, God not only gives the world to
humans but also gives them the reason for benefiting the richness of the world
at the highest level. Likewise, the earth is created for the comfort of human.
Humankind owns all natural objects including fruits, vegetables and beasts
which clearly serve for the purpose of him. Human beings can expand his prop-
erty in parallel with his effort to plant, cultivate and improve the land created
for the use of mankind (1977: 289–91). Locke, here, points out the significance
of man’s labor which provides him the right to own nature as a property. To
Locke, as long as man labors on nonhuman living beings including animals and
plants or combines “his labour with” the soil given to him and contributes “to it
something that is his own” (1977: 289), it belongs to man.
Bertrand Russell, on the other hand, focuses on Baruch Spinoza’s relatively
moderate philosophical aspects when he calls him as “the noblest and most
lovable of the great philosophers” (1945: 569) because, as Don Garret claims,
“no important philosopher of the seventeenth century strikes a deeper chord
with a broader range of contemporary readers than Spinoza” (2018: 2). In a
similar vein, environmental critics including contemporary radical ecologists
find Spinoza, compared to the other thinkers of last 500 years, more credit-
able in terms of his insightful naturalist arguments. It is essential to the under-
standing of Spinoza’s thesis to recognize that he develops a strong belief in a
non-anthropomorphic God, which is identical with all forms of reality, later
called pantheism, and suggests a monist God-nature thought. With his onto-
logical philosophy based on pantheistic metaphysics, Spinoza can be distin-
guished from the tradition of Cartesian and Baconian anthropocentric view of
universe in terms of identifying God with nature. In his book entitled Spinoza,
Hampshire comments on this identification: “To Spinoza, it seemed that men
can attain happiness and dignity only by identifying themselves, through their
knowledge and understanding, with the whole order of nature, and by sub-
merging their individual interests in this understanding” (1951: 161). Such
radical thoughts of Spinoza find their spokesperson not only in Goethe but
also in Wordsworth and Coleridge, in other words, Romantic Movement can
be claimed to find its roots in Spinoza’s doxastic formulations. Nevertheless,
for the deep ecologist Sessions, the system of Spinoza cannot be qualified as
demonstrably ecological. According to Sessions, Spinoza still postulates the
seventeenth-century utilitarian view of wild nature (1995b: 162). The under-
lying reason why Spinoza cannot be the role model of ecocentric thinking is his
conflictual discussions on the source and nature of morality in his Ethics. He
believes that the law against killing nonhuman living beings is not reasonable
but a superstition. Animals have less right against men while men have more
 Modernity and the Death of Nature 29

right to claim. For him, it does not mean that animals are senseless beings but
human beings are clearly more advantageous in many ways, which allows them
to use lower animals for their comfort. They are not compatible with men in
nature but different from men in terms of their affects (Spinoza, 1996: 135).
With respect to animals defined as lower beings who should have far less rights,
Spinoza, despite his pantheistic philosophy which differentiates him from those
who manifest that man has right to own nature as property, seems not to escape
the hands of anthropocentric view of universe of modernity.
Fritzof Capra states that, in the course of time, the dominant view of
organic world “characterized by the interdependence of spiritual and material
phenomena and the subordination of individual needs to those of the com-
munity” transformes into the view of “world as a machine, and the world-
machine became the dominant metaphor of the modern era” (1982: 53–53).
The mechanistic worldview both maintains to deepen the environmental crisis
and leads to a misconception of the universe with Newtonian physics in the
eighteenth century. As Ashton Nichols observes, Stephan Hawking considers
that explaining the concept of time, existence of universe and human expe-
rience with regard to Newtonian causality, or to beginnings and ends, has
been a fatal human error since the Age of Enlightenment. Likewise, Einstein
regards Newtonian dichotomy between matter and energy, or body and soul,
as another error and an oversimplifying theory (Nichols, 2011: 197–98). The
strongest and most vocal voices of Romanticism deprecate Newtonian dichot-
omies due to the fact that the divine and nature are misconceived as two sepa-
rate things. Particularly, William Blake reflects his objection to the mechanistic
formulation imposed by Enlightenment when he depicts Newton in one of
his paintings as a man who sits naked on a rock drawing diagrams and cal-
culating some measurements.1 Blake here implies that Newtonian calculation
and reduction of the enchantments of the world to mathematical forms pave
the way for the scientific materialism and utilitarian worldview alienating man
from nature. Praying as “[m]‌ay God us keep from single vision, and Newton’s
sleep” (1998: 141), Blake also accuses Newtonian calculation of the universe of
projecting “Satan’s Mathematic Holiness” (1982a: 132). Nearly a century before
radical environmental thoughts on the mechanization of cosmos, Blake, in
“Jerusalem” objects to the utilitarian principles of empirical science and the
power of reason: “A murderer of its own Body: but also a murderer/ Of every
Divine Member: it is the Reasoning Power/ An abstract objecting power, that

1 For the monotype created between 1795 and 1805, see “Newton” by William Blake.
30 From Homocentrism to Ecological Enlightenment

Negatives every thing” (1982b: 153). Along with these lines, Blake, for David
Fideler, disengages “purity of the scientific intellect, which robs life from every-
thing it touches” (2014: 159). Furthermore, Blake also invites the theorists of
scientific empirical method to face the fact that distancing matter from energy
creates an “abstract objecting power” which negates reality itself.
As the Cartesian-based discussion keeps maintaining among philosophers
throughout the ages, the externalization of nonhuman realm maintains to stim-
ulate the ecological crisis. Among those who discuss the Cartesian duality of
mind and matter, Bishop Berkeley, also known as George Berkeley, announces a
distinct ontological model. Harris can be claimed to interpret this model as “to
be is to perceive,” which is how we know that the mind exists, or to be is to be per-
ceived, which is how we know our universe to exist (1968: 172–73). Sessions, on
the other hand, calls this as an “anthropocentric epistemological and ontolog-
ical subjectivism” the development of which “is thus led to deny the existence of
non-observable extended substance” (1974: 76). Berkeley’s philosophical tradi-
tion is indeed grounded on theological ends. He disavows the Lockean abstrac-
tion of ideas on which Western philosophy is grounded, that is, the ideas are
imprinted by means of God, or as he calls God of nature, in the light of laws of
nature. The laws of nature, for him, function in a way that God already planned
before. Therefore, according to Harris, Berkeley demands men to “replace the
idea of a universe consisting of essentially unknowable, inert, senseless matter,
with the idea of a universe immanent with the spirit of God” (1968: 173). To
put it simply, people know that the solar system is constantly moving and the
Earth orbits and rotates around the Sun. The spinning of the Earth around
its axis causes day and night. While Newton puts it by mathematical princi-
ples claiming that this rotation is related to why objects fall to Earth, Berkeley
attributes it to the eternal and flawless plan of the God which is the true cause of
any phenomenon. In either case, the explanation seems to lack commonly cited
principle of the environmental sense that all natural phenomena and even non-
human world must be regarded as a part of a self-conscious entity having its
own intrinsic value and being independent from anthropocentric epistemolog-
ical and ontological subjectivism. Meditating between religious concerns and
scientific subjectivism, the seventeenth and eighteenth century ways of thought
appear to ignore a wider cosmic and ecological perspective. In this sense, It
can be claimed that Berkeley is “responsible for reinstituting an instrumentalist
interpretation of science,” which is “reminiscent of the 14th century Christian
positivists” (1974: 78) despite the fact that it is disputable whether he, as con-
vinced adherent of Christianity, makes an effort to reconcile Christianity with
the new science.
 Modernity and the Death of Nature 31

Although Hume is considered as the successor and pioneer of empiricist tra-

dition after Locke and Berkeley, the most significant characteristic which makes
him different from these philosophers and other Enlightenment thinkers is his
decentering human reason and distinguishing it from morality. At first glance,
one can think of him as a philosopher who possesses environmental concerns
due to his disavowal of reason-centered thought dominating last two hundred
years. Particularly, the liberalist attempts tend to explain Hume’s philosophy
through some principles of Deep Ecology by misidentifying Humean concept
of “sympathy” with Naess’s “identification.”2 However, the ecocentric ethics
manifested by Naess bear no resemblance to Hume’s utilitarian philosophy.
It is clear that what Hume calls sympathy does not extend beyond the limits
of human species. In his book Less than Human: Why We Demean, Enslave,
and Exterminate Others, David Livingstone Smith explains the concept of sym-
pathy as referring to “an inborn tendency to resonate with others’ feelings- to
suffer from their sorrows and to be uplifted by th eir jo ys” (2011: 50). Ju stice
is then based on this kind of feeling forming the ground of society. “Because
nonhuman animals cannot participate in human society,” as Smith clari-
fies Humean discourse on animals, “the notion of justice is inapplicable to
them” (2011: 53). Hume further claims that there exists “a species of creatures,
intermingled with men, which, though rational, were possessed of such infe-
rior strength, both of body and mind, that they were incapable of all resistance,
and could never […] make us feel the effect of their resentment” (1826: 261).
Considering the situation of animals, Smith finds Hume’s response to the ques-
tion that how human beings should react to these animals disturbing because
Hume believes that the relationship between animals and humans cannot be
a social interaction. If so, it would require a sense of equality, however, man is
the commander and the animal is the subservient to the needs of him. They can
hold possessions only through man’s permission and affect human will as long
as human reveals his compassion and kindness (Smith, 2011: 52). Thus,
human beings have no duties of justice against these beings. It can be seen that
nonhuman animals are not a necessary part of Humean society contrary to the
moderate thoughts encapsulating Hume’s philosophy within the framework of
environmental ethics. Though he claims that the reasoning capacity of men is

2 For a multidimensional discussion on “identification,” “sympathy” and “self,” see

Gus diZerega, “Empathy, Society, Nature, and the Relational Self: Deep Ecology
and Liberal Modernity”, in Social Theory and Practice, vol. 21, no. 2, Summer 1995,
pp. 239–69.
32 From Homocentrism to Ecological Enlightenment

similar to that of animals, this may not be considered as approval or admiration

for nonhuman animals as Hume reduces the capacity of reason to a function
which is of less significance compared to passions. On one hand Hume calls
for sympathy, on the other hand he considers that “attributing mental states to
[nonhuman] others is the work of the imagination” (qtd. in Smith, 2011: 53).
Namely, identification of human traits with non-human entities, or what we call
anthropomorphism, is an imaginative error in Hume’s philosophy. From this
point of view, as Helena Feder observes, “[w]‌e avoid imagining, avoid knowing,
that other animals have fellow feeling to avoid extending ours to them. We do
not allow them to participate in human society as persons” despite the fact that
“they participate in all sorts of other ways- as meat, as slave labour, as discourse
and ideology” (2016: 137). In Hume’s view, anything can be virtuous as long as
it is useful for human society. Evaluating the outcome of an action according
to its utility for human society may hinder human from paying attention to
“others.”
The thoughts of Adam Smith, often associated with Hume in terms of
their focus on sentiment, provide some neo-liberal scholars with a far-fetched
engagement of eighteenth century with modern environmentalist movements.
However, Smith, who is considered as the father of modern economics, does
not possess any counter-discourse concerning environmental issues. No matter
how seriously Smith is accepted as a precursor of environmental economics,
there seems no clear evidence proving that he has ecological concerns as much
as a shallow ecologist does. Suffice it to say, it is certainly open to discussion to
what extent it would be possible in the transforming socio-economic structure
of eighteenth century. Failing to estimate the destructive consequences of the
industrialization, overpopulation and urbanization, and also, overlooking the
fact that environmental problems can turn into a serious impediment to social
progress seem to affect the way how the philosophers including Smith see socio-
economic issues. He accepts that the key pathways to wealth are rooted in labor
and natural sources. Thus, he is somewhat identified with ecological thought.
Yet, be that as it may, he endorses the economic view that natural resources are
unlimited and boundless, which is a baseless assumption severely protested by
radical ecologists. At this point, Smith’s environmental economics should not
be mixed with an environmentalist or ecocentric economics. Environmental
economics as a sub-discipline of traditional economics, as Joshua Farley and
Robert Costanza state, “prioritizes economic efficiency, and tries to force eco-
system services into the market model” (2010: 2060). To put it simply, it mainly
deals with the conditions of profit and concentrates on the market itself only
by taking environmental convenience into account. Its scale is so extensive that
 Modernity and the Death of Nature 33

it ignores the account that the planet is finite. Ecocentric or environmentalist

economics, on the other hand, focuses on reconciling ecology and economy,
designing a sustainable ecology besides discussing the ways how individuals
support themselves in an ecological life-support system and escaping the
exploitation of the natural sources. The key argument here is whether eco-
nomics adopts an anthropocentric perspective including environmental eco-
nomics or an ecocentric perspective. “With respect to any given environmental
policy question,” argues J. Samuel Barkin, “the anthropocentric perspective
asks how the policy will affect the well-being of people in the future, and the
ecocentric perspective asks how the policy will affect the natural environ-
ment in the future” (2006: 56). In his book entitled Ecology, Community, and
Lifestyle: Outline of an Ecosophy, Naess also discusses similar anthropocentric
perspective: “What is especially annoying to many environmentalists is this: in
the papers and books of economists nature is practically never mentioned, and,
if it is, it is only in very shallow argumentation as resources or as obstacles”
(1990: 105). Thus, in an ecological point of view, Smith’s economic theory can
be claimed as annoying because it takes nature as a resource and central for
capital, which is closer to anthropocentric environmental economics than an
ecologically oriented economic model.
The advocacy of reason, science and humanism dominating the Age of
Reason, on the other hand, could not correspond to the philosophy of some
poets as Jonathan Swift and also some social thinkers as Rousseau and Diderot
in the eighteenth century. To categorize Swift’s position on human considering
Gulliver’s Travels, it can be claimed that his thoughts are closer to misanthropy
rather than philanthropy. In his essay entitled “Politics vs. Literature: An
Examination of Gulliver’s Travels,” George Orwell considers Swift as “a dis-
eased writer” who refuses “to see anything in human life except dirt, folly and
wickedness” due to his “general hatred of humanity” (1968: 205–23). Harris, on
the other hand, focuses on Swift’s lack of confidence in the capacity of human
and considers Swift’s favorite philosopher as Socrates who declares that “it was
the beginning of Wisdom to recognize that a man knew nothing” (1968: 149).
Giving the impression that the human race is closer to Yahoos, bestial beings
in human shape, rather than Houyhnhnms, a race of intelligent horses, Swift,
in Gulliver’s Travels, demonstrates that human being is not as great as exagger-
ated by the enlightened mind. Thus, man cannot be “distinguished from brute
creation by the possession of a soul, the exercise of free will, and the faculty
of reason by which free will could be exercised” (1968: 23). In his introduc-
tory notes to Gulliver’s Travels, Claude Rawson alleges that “Swift’s tactic” is to
tell his reader “if you think man is a rational animal, let me show you what a
34 From Homocentrism to Ecological Enlightenment

really rational animal is like” (2005: xxxiv). The belief that human knowledge
and intelligence are capable of unveiling the secrecy of nature is resisted and
deconstructed by Swift’s vivid imagination and attack on his age’s obsession
with scientific endeavor through human reason.
If one foot of Rousseau and Diderot is in eighteenth century, the other stands
in the beginning of Romantic Period. Though their attitudes are significant in
terms of both having a precipitating effect on the rise of environmental con-
sciousness and cultivating an appreciation of the nature to a certain extent,
these philosophers, who disclaim a total-anthropocentric discourse and the
scientific rationalization of nature dominating the Enlightenment, are not so
influential on the zeitgeist and the mindset considering the industrial cap-
italism in the late eighteenth century and the deterioration of the environ-
mental crisis of the period. It is necessary to the understanding of Rousseau’s
thought to recognize that he associates the source of all kinds of human and
earthly phenomenon including moral and ethics with nature. In this sense,
it can be claimed that Rousseau, among enlightened thinkers, is a distinctive
philosopher who revisits the “enlightened” mind with his naturalist thesis in
which human nature plays a vital role. According to Joseph H. Lane, Jr., the
logic of Rousseasu’s position, when compared to the subsequent philosophers,
is that the deformation of human nature endangers nature and the “environ-
mental problems are intimately tied to our denaturalized human character”
(2006: 475). In this sense, Rousseau develops the term “amour-propre,” an end-
less passion which is identical to egocentricism causing “each man in partic-
ular” to regard “himself as the sole spectator who observes him, as the sole
being in the universe who takes an interest in him, as the sole judge of his own
merit” (qtd. in Neulhousser, 2014: 65). Mankind possessing “amour-propre,”
for Lane Jr., is “inescapably committed to what Hobbes characterized as the
restless pursuit of power after power ceasing only in death” and this restless
pursuit “inevitably results in the destruction of the ecosystems in which we
are embedded” (2006: 475–76). Furthermore, Rousseau does not totally neglect
the power of human faculty but he believes that the faculty of perfectibility
differentiating man from the beast is also the motivation for man’s miseries
and cruelty towards nature. Man’s limitless faculty is the primary cause for
his misfortune. According to him, it is this faculty that transforms man who
is in harmony and peace with nature into a tyrant, with his vices and errors,
domineering both himself and nature (qtd. in Linzey and Clarke, 2004: 33).
Associating tyranny, vice and misery with human faculty as the central point
for scientific and industrial revolutions of the civilized society, Rousseau, with
Session’s own words, “shocked Europeans by claiming they had lost their
 Modernity and the Death of Nature 35

spontaneity and freedom, together with the morality and virtues associated
with “natural man” living in primal societies, by becoming overly civilized and
refined” (1995b: 163). Despite including fundamental counter-discourses on
the dominant view, this kind of perspective is not sufficient to label Rousseau
and Diderot as anti-humanist. Not only Rousseau but also Diderot focuses on
human as a part of the primary treatment. In spite of his disavowal of Cartesian
dualism and anthropocentrism, according to Bryan Moore, Diderot is “preem-
inent in making humans the central focus of the world” (2017: 130). Human is
of significant importance because Diderot believes that if man does not exist,
nature turn into a place of “desolation and silence” (1992: 25). On the other
hand, Moore, in Ecological Literature and Critique of Anthropocentricism, clari-
fies Diderot’s position on nature by associating him with romantic resistance
to mechanical view of nature. Nature, for him, is not a machine but an organic
whole and this unity of nature is based on biology. This idea of unity lies behind
Dr. Bordeu’s statements in d’Alembert’s Dream in which Diderot implies that
when someone observes a drop of water in a microscope, he can easily see the
history of the world. In this book consisting of philosophical dialogues, Diderot
not only disavows the mechanization of the nature, but also emphasizes the
similarities between human and animals. Like Rousseau, Diderot is sceptical
about the supremacy of human over nonhuman just because he has the ability
of reasoning (Moore, 2017: 128–30). In this sense, evaluating human and non-
human living beings within a set of rules of survival, Diderot, in Thoughts on the
Interpretation of Nature, states that humans like other beings in the nonhuman
world are born, grow, live and die “successively acquiring movement feeling,
ideas, thought, reflection, consciousness, feelings, emotions, signs, gestures,
sounds, articulate sounds, language, laws, arts and sciences” (2003: 117). As
can be seen, the objection to the remarkable differences among species is based
on a proto-evolutionary scenario which will later find voice in Charles Darwin’s
theory.
As mentioned before, some thinkers like Rousseau and Diderot, rewording
Spinoza’s pantheistic metaphysics by refusing Cartesian dualism, mediates
between the new humanism of eighteenth century and the visionary opti-
mism of the following century. Thus, they are regarded as the precursors of
Romantic Movement which privileges nature before urban while integrating
the individual and nature into a unified system. To handle modernity as an
all-encompassing process, the centuries-long effects of its anthropocentric ap-
proach surpasses the Romantic Movement which could only last for approx-
imately fifty years. In other words, this revolutionary movement could not
succeed to break the ongoing anthropocentric tradition save for creating
36 From Homocentrism to Ecological Enlightenment

an ecological awareness. Particularly in literature, the reason may be the

reawakening of the prose which adopts a more realist and true-to-life method
to satisfy the material expectations of the day against the poetry embracing
more emotional and spiritual realm. Del Ivan Janik notes that the reason why
Romantic period is characterized by environmentalist concerns is based on
three major reactionary sources. The first one has a direct relationship with
a reaction to the destroying effects of industrial revolution and mechaniza-
tion paving the way to escape from the vileness of industrial revolution and
the atrociousness of urbanization to the wilderness. Second, there is a reaction
to the rationalization which attempts to justify human behaviour with logical
reasons, which, with the urban-industrial conditions, provokes the advocacy of
primitivism and agrarianism. Finally, influenced by the early environmental
philosophy of eighteenth-century, Romantic literature reacts against the tra-
ditional Judeo-Christian doctrines (Janik, 1995: 104–05). Furthermore, the
rising environmental conscious with Romantic period turns to be an inspiring
reference for the later modernist novelists. Janik argues that “D. H. Lawrence
was dissatisfied with the anthropocentric assumptions that have dominated
Western culture,” for he repudiates “Western society’s reliance on rational intel-
lect” and “the split between body and mind” (1995: 105). In “Why the Novel
Matters,” D. H. Lawrence raises an ontological discussion echoing a holistic
mode of being in order to overcome Cartesian dualism. He disavows the fact
that he is composed of soul, body, mind or any parts because he believes that
the whole is greater than these parts: “I am a man, and alive. I am man alive,
and as long as I can, I intend to go on being man alive” (1985: 195). Comparing
Lawrence’s organicism to Heidegger’s holism, Michaell Bell claims that “there
is no external world separable from human being in the world” (1992: 10) in
the fictions of Lawrence, such as Lady Chatterly’s Lovers, The Rainbow and
Sons and Lovers. Therefore, born into Industrial Revolution (1760–1840) both
as an outcome of its degenerated norms and reaction to its devastating effects,
Romantic Movement (1800–1850), along with its influence on such literary men
as Lawrence, Aldoux Huxley and Gary Sneyder, is of particular significance in
terms of its reaction to over-rationalization and dualism. However, it is nec-
essary to note that what remains for West is not John Clare’s biocentric green
universe or Lawrence’s postoral scenes, but Dickens’ smoky, dull and stagnant
cities in the following century.
Being a prolonged process of socio-cultural, socio-political and socio-
economic reconstruction encapsulating early humanism, Renaissance, Age
of Reason, Technological and Industrial Revolution, modernity under-
goes complete metamorphosis with its reconceptualization as a polytheistic
 Modernity and the Death of Nature 37

anthropo-religion whose gods are human reason, science and knowledge. This
philosophical paradigm produces some new stream of thought like individ-
ualism, positivism, rationalism, economic individualism and humanism pro-
voking global and local wars, revolutions and environmental havoc that human
history has hitherto never experienced. The excessive confidence in man’s him-
self seems to cause an anthropocentric motto of modernity: Everything is for
man, according to man and by man. Namely, human is the ultimate measure
of everything. Notwithstanding its promise for progress, modernity not only
creates a subversive system based on industry and technology, but also builds
a disruptive human prototype. In this sense, the power of modernity changing
the focus of human beings to an explorable universe primarily stems from this
disruptive character. The sacred nature preserving its mystery throughout the
ages is distorted by the weapons of modernity like knowledge, science and the
greed for progress in a couple of centuries.
Abel Jeanniere, in his spectacular essay drawing the picture of the moder-
nity, discusses that the most significant thing is to determine whether the word
“modern” is just a label stuck on a couple of ages or a sign that demonstrates
the transformation of the total culture, or namely, of human’s relationship
with nature, other humans and religious conceptualization. For him, modern
world replaces the agricultural world as a result of the fact that moder-
nity affects human first and then his world. Jeanniere further claims that in
order to understand this new world order, it is crucial to define four historical
revolutions determining the transition to modernity: scientific, politic, cultural
and technical and industrial revolutions (2000: 95–97). The scientific revolu-
tion is initiated by Newton. Accordingly, directly conducted by God and the
angels, nature is transformed into a mechanism in which it orders its own rules.
With scientific revolution, physical world whose laws must be rediscovered by
human seems as a mechanically organized realm based on another order of
reality. Believing that all other revolutions derive from scientific revolution,
Jeanniere explains political revolution within the framework of a ruling power
whose source shifts from divine power to the people. Thus, the purpose of
political theories is to base the democratic manner of ruling power on reason
(Jeanniere, 2000: 97–100). Called Aufklarung in Germany, Lumieres in France
and Enlightenment in France, Cultural Revolution is a significant movement of
thought rooted gradually in the view of new physical world. The most radical
conclusion of this movement, claims Jeanniere, is that the essentials of social
life could only consist of rational grounds. Finally, industrial revolution, which
might be the conclusion of the former revolutions, indicates a revolutionary
step for the invasion of nature in which human exists. Characterized by the
38 From Homocentrism to Ecological Enlightenment

isolation of labour, industrial revolution comes to mean that the technical

structure mediating between man and nature gains an increasing autonomy.
The phases of industrial revolution, for Jeanniere, both accompany and con-
figure the new type of relationship characterized by nature, scientific and cul-
tural revolutions (2000, 100–102).
If one seeks to understand the extension of environmental crisis to an alarming
degree and, as a result of this, the emergence of a radical ecological thought, s/
he must explore the assumptions of modernity dominating Western culture
and literature. Discussing that the roots of ecological crisis lie behind moder-
nity, Charlene Spretnak, one of the most important American feminist envi-
ronmentalist thinkers, focuses on modernity’s “belief system that constitutes
our normative view of life on Earth” in her book entitled The Resurgence of
the Real: Body, Nature and Place in a Hypermodern World (1999: 219). Along
with scienticism, rationalism, anthropocentricism and mechanistic world-
view, claims Spretnak, progressivism, homo-economicus, reductionism, mass-
production industrialism, consumerism and objectivism structure the modern
worldview (1999: 219–20). These factors are closely related to the emergence
of an environmental enlightenment, at least in environmental philosophy, in
twentieth century.
The sense of pre-modern harmony associated with what people call wild
nature is ruined by the two key assumptions of modernity. The first is the faith
that the reason is the ultimate guide for decoding the mysteries of the universe.
The second is the confidence in the power of science which is believed to pro-
vide humanity with the irresistible armor among other species. The belief that
human history has an indivisible organic connection with the idea of progress
is to take him to the new Promised Land in which man is the domineering
object. The seeds of this idea are implanted in the philosophical assumptions
of Descartes who declares that the self is the sole object and the precipitating
factor of the knowledge. Regarding Descartes as one the most significant ac-
tors of modernity, Charles E. Bressler believes that “[f]‌or Descartes, the rational
essence freed from superstition, from human passions, and from one’s often-
times irrational imagination will allow humankind to discover truth about
the physical world” (2011: 86). Along with the contributions of Newton and
Bacon, scientific method through experiments, generalizations and mathemat-
ical calculations becomes a means of the total comprehension of the physical
universe. “[I]mbued with the spirit of progress,” as Bressler puts forward, the
scholars included in the modernity believe that “[a]nything the enlightened
mind set as its goal […] was attainable” (2011: 86). This spirit of progress creates
a harsh imaginary boundary between human and nature. The dichotomy
 Modernity and the Death of Nature 39

between them turns into a key feature defining the conceptualization of

nature in modernity. Civilization, thus, has been perceived as an antipathetical
social behaviour to wild nature (Grumbine, 1995: 379). Being one of the most
prominent representatives of those who believe the loftiness of modernity’s
spirit of progress, Benjamin Franklin also sees the progress as inevitable and
essential to reach this promised golden age. Bresssler describes Franklin’s posi-
tion on the discovery of physical world as follows:

Self-assured, self-conscious, and self-made, Franklin concludes that all people possess
and essential nature. It is humanity’s moral duty to investigate this nature contained
within ourselves and also to investigate our environment through rational thinking
and the methods of science so we can learn and share the truths of the universe. By
devoting ourselves to science and to the magnificent results that will necessarily
follow, Franklin proclaims that human progress is inevitable and will usher in a new
golden age (2011: 87).

The passage also seems to sum up the core characteristics of modernity through
the lens of Franklin’s desire for human progress. Science and reason as the key
assumptions of modernity, when coupled with the dream of progress, empower
man’s ideal to be the sole master over non-human living beings and also lead
to a ruthless contest in the discovery of the physical world for the purpose of
achieving his well-being.
Defining relentless economical goal of an individual as one of the core values
of modernity, Spretnak claims that human is by nature an economic being or
homo economicus. Thus, the organization of economic model is considered as
providing welfare for the all facets of life. Modern societies including homo
economicus, for Spretnak, have ignored the environmental conditions while
they give value to materialism (1999: 219). As Spretnak puts, economic man,
or so-called homo economicus, who is more often than not in pursuit of his
economic welfare by the way of attempting to maximize utility and economic
profit, considers natural resources as material substance so that he can exploit
and abuse it for the benefit of himself. The thought of maximizing utility results
in the minimization of the ethical connection between society and nature
because the environmental ethics supporting that the resources granted by
nature are not a means of material product for the benefit of human comes into
conflict with profit-driven individual. Thus, homo economicus becomes a “bon
vivant” adopting an individualistic purpose permeated with a sordid way of life
and expecting maximum utility from each object environing him. Moreover,
homo economicus, as an egocentric individual, appears as a hazardous species
only showing considerations for profit, which also creates a huge gap between
40 From Homocentrism to Ecological Enlightenment

environmental ethics and economics. As Oelschlaeger observes: “The prototyp-

ical modern person is Homo oeconomicus, and the sole value of farming the
land is profit. Such activities do not bring the human spirit closer to the soil and
larger organic process but render nature of use value only” (1991: 159–60). The
early signs of economic individualism focusing solely on the ways of making
profit can be seen in the works of Daniel Defoe who is the strict propagator
of his age. Considering the influence of Hobbes and Locke on Defoe, it can be
claimed that Robinson Crusoe, as a character who is in pursuit of his economic
welfare by the way of exploiting land, animals and plants to obtain excessive
property and power, is a practical reflection of Locke’s philosophy in litera-
ture. According to Ian Watt, “[t]‌hat Robinson Crusoe, like Defoe’s other main
characters, Moll Flanders, Roxana, Colonel Jacque and Captain Singleton, is an
embodiment of economic individualism hardly needs demonstration” because
each of these protagonists “pursue money […] very methodically according to
the profit and loss book-keeping which Max Weber considered to be the dis-
tinctive technical feature of modern capitalism” (2000: 63). Robinson Crusoe,
for instance, as one of the most familiar representatives of homo economicus,
does not content with what nature provides him in the island and succeeds in
creating capital by exploiting some sources of nature. Imbued with the ego-
centric and homocentric idea of becoming the sole and exclusive owner of the
island, he develops some laborious skills for the purpose of building a com-
fortable life such as discovering the eco-system of the island to reinforce his
mastery in the island, catching a parrot to teach how to speak like a human and
making traps to capture goats not only for milk and meat but also for supplying
himself butter and cheese.
The philosophical tradition of modernity, contrary to the holistic approach
of radical ecological thought, tends to dismantle reality and breaks it into pieces
to seek for the meaning of the object in the parts of the whole. In this sense,
mechanistic worldview, as already hinted at above, invites humanity to accept
the idea that physical world is a combination of matter and energy and that the
ultimate reality rests on the dichotomy between what is physical and mental,
namely between body and mind. This fact actually lies behind the Cartesian
tendency which tries to explain non-human living beings accepted as automata,
or moving machines, reductively. It is the method of reductionism that asks for
the whole to be divided into smaller parts in order to grasp the nature of reality.
“Such reductionism,” as Spretnak states, “seeks the smallest unit of composi-
tion and yields no knowledge about the interaction of parts of a system or the
creative behaviour of the system as a whole” (1999: 220). In the philosophy of
ecology, the tension between reductionism and holism has caused a significant
 Modernity and the Death of Nature 41

debate among scholars who often equate holism with organicism, the view
that the universe with its parts is an organic whole, and also with individu-
alism based on the belief that well-being of an individual organism determines
the succession of a general state of affairs. Comparing and contrasting reduc-
tionism to holism, Gregory M. Mikkelson and Colin A. Chapman accept that
both individualistic and organicist approaches consider the well-being of indi-
vidual organisms. Yet, on one hand individualism holds the view that “[t]‌he
well-being of the individuals within a higher-level ecological whole, such as
an ecosystem, completely determine the intrinsic value of that whole,” holistic
view, on the other hand, “requires additional information” (Mikkelson and
Chapman, 2014: 335). In other words, a non-anthropocentric holism, con-
trary to the mechanistic worldview, demands a monolithic form of universe in
which all living organisms have homeostatic mechanisms or an interdependent
connection.
Provoking the process of the painful transformation from agrarian society
to the industry-based society leading to a socio-economic shift through mech-
anization, urbanization and exploitation of both labour and environmental re-
sources, industrialization is a socio-economic fact that modern human faces.
In this regard, the process of industrialization is closely linked to human’s per-
petual desire for progress and consumerism. According to Spretnak, “[m]‌ass-
production industrialism is the best way to attain ever-increasing levels of
well-being through consumption. Industrialism reflects faith in a rapacious
mode of production to bring an age of abundance and contentment” (1999: 219).
Though the modes of consumption to attain the promised welfare play a signifi-
cant role in comprehending the spirit of industrialism, it should be remembered
that industrialism is a socio-cultural system that cannot only be restricted to
the buildings in which machines and robots continuously work. As industri-
alism develops its techniques and methods so as to pierce the social codes of
a nation, it becomes a form of life functioning in all facets of social life, which
probably seeks new ways to expand while otherizing human from his kind and
also human from his environment. Thus, it paves the way for a socio-cultural
disorientation of which consequences can only be comprehended over the long
run. Though modernity comes to an end with its industrial methods with the
arrival of postmodern practices, the idea of industrialism protects its exis-
tence with newer methods. Nevertheless, its disruptive consequences are being
discussed in the framework of new theoretical assumptions. This stems from
the pervasive characteristics of industrialism and it seems that the ideology
of industrialism somewhat adapts itself into an ever-changing socio-cultural
structure. Andrew McLaughlin calls it “expansionary industrialism” which
42 From Homocentrism to Ecological Enlightenment

“embodies a faith in technology and a technocratic organization of society, as

well as an apparently insatiable consumerism” (1993: 13). Nevertheless, the fact
that industrialism regards nature as the constellation of exploitable resources,
though its method has changed, has remained unchanged since its emergence.
McLaughlin defines this long-established ideology of industrialism on nature
in no uncertain terms. This ideology does not see the essence of nonhuman
nature but deals with how its infinite sources can be used. The industrialist
ideology holds the view that the forests are lumber, oceans, seas and rivers
are not only water for fishery but also waste containers and farms are poten-
tial lands dissected and taxed according to its monetary value (McLaughlin,
1993: 67). This anthropocentric ideology of industrialism, thus, can present
growing body of evidences to support the fact that the essence of industri-
alism rests on the mass-production not to maintain ecological sustainability
but to sustain human consumption. The ideology of mass-production industri-
alism and over-consumption are best reflected in Huxley’s Brave New World in
which the author juxtaposes “an antiseptic, mind-controlled world civilization
of the distant future with the world of the primitive past” (Janik, 1995: 107).
Huxley is conscious of man’s estrangement from himself and his natural envi-
ronment. He indicates the new industry-based social order of his century with
the slogan adopted by the government in Brave New World: “Ending is better
than mending. The more stitches, the less riches” (2007: 42). Assuming under-
consumption as diseased and dangerous for the progress, the ideology of the
World State in the novel is the product of Fordism which is a socio-economic
model based on mass-production and overconsumption in an industrialized
system.
However, it must be recognized that the total human consumption seems
more than that the earth can provide when considering the increasing human
population. Overpopulation is surely one of the main cases to be noticed because
consumer society is a phenomenon both affected by growing population and
affecting the development of industrialism. They are directly proportional to
each other. To put it simply, as human population grows, not only vital but
also arbitrary needs increase stimulating consumerism and, in turn, consum-
erism triggers the ideology of industrialism. In the vicious cycle of modernity,
consumerism, highly inherent in the ideology of modernity, is confined to the
socio-economic theory that prosperity becomes attainable through consump-
tion without regarding the inputs and outputs. Though modernity harbors
some contradictory beliefs, it can be claimed that the ideology accepted by
modernity is consistently in favor of mass production, and therefore, mass con-
sumption. According to Erik Assadourian, this so-called ideology propagated
 Modernity and the Death of Nature 43

in modernity can be overcome by practicing three basic goals which seem like
a counter-modernist approach to consumerism. In Worldwatch Institute’s State
of the World 2010 collection, he advises that consumption undermining well-
being must be discarded by quitting the consumption of junk food, smoke,
single-use-only objects and huge houses. Second, private consumption must
be replaced with public consumption by borrowing books instead of owning
and using public transportation instead of a private car. Thirdly, the unneces-
sary old goods to be thrown must be transformed into utilizable positions by
using renewable and recyclable resources (2010: 17). Considering that consum-
erism brought by the modernity takes a long time to dominate the behaviors
of human beings, this counter-modernist action may be difficult to perform
because “[s]‌hifting cultural systems is a long process measured in decades, not
years” (Assadourian, 2010: 18).
The materialist interconnection between the ideologies of industrialism and
consumerism leads laissez-faire capitalism, a kind of free market capitalism,
to find a basis in rational objectivism. Discussing objectivism as one of the key
assumptions of modernity, Spretnak states that objectivism connects ratio-
nalism to reality by ignoring the ideas of any groups and sees absolute reason
as a mere reflection of this rational structure. The concepts are independent
of the variable groups and they are defined through idiosyncratic conditions
(1999, 219). Furthermore, she implies that objectivism is the modern re-enact-
ment of the individualist and rationalist culture of Enlightenment culture. In
this sense, contrary to the subjectivist perception of postmodernists, seeking
for happiness, individual interest, progressivism and rational individualism
are common beliefs adopted by objectivism. Randian objectivism definitely
employs these tenets in order to define the noblest goal of humanity which is to
achieve happiness. Ayn Rand, the most articulate propagator of objectivism, in
an afterword to Atlas Shrugged, defines the essence of this philosophy as “the
concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose
of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as
his only absolute” (1992: 1170). Objectivism, then, regards all kinds of human
actions, whether it is individually or not, as means that justifies ends, or, the
goal to reach the happiness indicated by Rand. Believing that it is possible to
comprehend and master the universe through human reason, Rand formulates
his philosophy with four basic tenets which seem to represent a modern refer-
ence to enlightenment thinkers from Bacon to Smith. First, reality is an objec-
tive absolute free from man’s emotions. Second, reason is the only source for
man to perceive reality and to gain knowledge. Thirdly, man as a creature who
is an end in himself must live for his own sake. Finally, the most appropriate
44 From Homocentrism to Ecological Enlightenment

economic structure is absolutely the free market capitalism guaranteed and

protected by the state assuming the role of policeman (1998: 4). It can easily
be understood that the anthropocentric premises of objectivism collides with
radical ecology considering that one of the most articulate principles of ecolog-
ical thought accepts non-human living beings as having intrinsic value, or as
valuable in itself and strictly rejects the idea that they exist for human benefits
and purposes.
In addition to these tenets dominating modernity, John Coates unmasks “the
deeper and more foundational assumptions of modernity,” to name dualism,
domination and determinism, which “have spawned the current ecological
demise” (2003: 44–46). Determinism, from which scienticism, rationality
and objectivism spring, represents the mechanistic view of universe based on
reductionism and also causality. In a deterministic system, human does not
carry any responsibility for his moral behaviour because these moral actions
are a necessary outcome of other pre-determined actions. In this sense, the
rejection of free will restrains those who follow deterministic philosophy from
claiming moral responsibility for human actions. This justifies the foundation
of progressivism as a deterministic law of human history because technolog-
ical and scientific development of humanity is an irrepressible fact and human
will be ready to unveil all mysteries of nature to take full authority sooner or
later. Determinism, associating the inevitable human fate with the desire for
taking the mechanistic universe under control, therefore, provides numerous
rationales for the idea of domination. Namely, the dominion of so-called supe-
rior over the inferior is inevitable. Coates invites people to face the fact that
anthropocentricism, egocentricism and individualism flow from the idea of
domination which is another fundamental assumption of modernity. For him,
the domination is that senior beings regard themselves as possessing the right
to master over those who are in lower positions. Therefore, it lies to a greater
extent so as to include many kinds of dichotomy like human/nature, human/
nonhuman, culture/nature, and binary oppositions like male/female, master/
slave and civilized/primitive. Due to the idea of domination, human, among
other species, is elevated to the most significant position on earth (Coates,
2003: 44–46).
As mentioned previously, Cartesian rationality posits a radical dualism
between immaterial mind and material body, which is held responsible by the
contemporary hard-line environmentalist indictment. However, the content
of dualism based on this fundamental dichotomy becomes diversified towards
the ends of modernity. Coates states that dualism not only paves the way for
the fragmentation of reality, as in the examples concerning creator/human,
 Modernity and the Death of Nature 45

plant/animal, human/nature and mind/body, but also forms a basis of the

“compartmentalization of our experience: for example, professional/personal,
emotional/rational, and material/spiritual” (2003: 44–46). In this regard, the
former pole of the schema indicating duality alienates the latter forming a huge
gap, which labels the latter as “other.” The valued pole of the duality in turn
rejects, exploits, and abuses the other claiming that it is still valuable without
the lower pole. This, for instance, can be identified with conventional Cartesian
dualism in which humans that are immaterial and conscious selves can exist
without unconscious and material body. Throughout the project of modernity,
as mentioned above, the case of dualism is handled both in order to intensify
and to soothe the opposing sides. Hegel claims that the debate between these
contradicting poles brings a sort of linear progress. Embracing both thesis and
anti-thesis as essential propositions to acquire a new perspective, Hegelian dia-
lectic offers synthesis as a paradigm that justifies dualism not in an attempt
to reject opposing poles for removing the spiritual gap but to reconcile them.
Actually, there are two different perspectives for Hegelian idealism in rad-
ical ecology. While Hegelian idealism, along with James and Dewey’s prag-
matism, is accepted as anthropocentric by most deep ecologists in the sense
that Western philosophical mainstream “failed to provide any restraints on
the developing urban-industrial society” and “provided a justification for the
technological domination of Nature” (Sessions, 1995b: 167), Bookchin’s social
ecology is an outgrowth of “Hegelian/Marxist ‘humans perfecting Nature’ tra-
dition in holding that wild ‘first nature’ must be made ‘free’ by incorporating it
into ‘second nature’ thereby creating a new synthesis which he calls free nature”
(Sessions, 1995c: 268). Disavowing the assumptions of Western dualism, deep
ecology mostly deals with Far Eastern philosophical and religious teachings
like Zen Buddhism and Taoism which, unlike Western dualism, hold more ec-
o-friendly philosophy due to their non-dualistic doctrines based on the inter-
dependence of relations while ecofeminism, as a sub-branch of radical ecology,
overcomes hierarchical dualism replacing it with socio-ecological principles
based on gender, body and environment. No matter how diversified dualism is
as an institutionalized norm of modernity, ecological philosophy also aims to
remove superficial hierarchy created by dualism. According to Val Plumwood,
overcoming dualism can happen with the sense of a reconstruction of the rela-
tionship, which requires a revaluation of “ the body, the senses, emotion, the
imagination, the animal, the feminine and nature” (2003: 123).
Along with its social thinkers, philosophical doctrines, mainstream
movements, social, political, economic and environmental assumptions,
modernity is of great significance in order to understand and unveil the
46 From Homocentrism to Ecological Enlightenment

primary reasons of current environmental crisis. The conventional wisdom

reverberating through modernity leads to a huge division between civilization
and wilderness. The alienation stemming from this huge gap begins with early
humanism reconceptualizing the role of human and putting it into the center
of universe. It keeps maintaining with Enlightenment thinkers like Bacon,
Newton and Descartes who commonly share the idea that man as a rational
being is capable of mastering over nature by discovering its potentials and
mysteries with the help of reason and science. Then, it culminates in cross-cul-
tural awareness assisted by contemporary environmentalist thinkers following
the experience of exploitive and destructive consequences of world wars.
Each of these theoretical positions makes an important contribution to
understanding modernity as a transcendent explanatory system. Modernity
invites people to see the universe through a different window along with
anthropocentricism it sacralises, and knowledge and science it institutionalizes.
It creates a center and merely puts human interests within the boundaries of
that center. To put it another way, all concrete and abstract ideas including any
concepts of nature are first determined and then interpreted in terms of the
discourses constructed by the modernity. Thus, when compared to postmod-
ernity, it becomes necessary for modernity to decenter one idea when another
thought is held. However, this is a partial and even wrong supposition because
of the belief that the scope of the center is too narrow to be inclusive of holistic
and multi-perspective approach. Modernity practically adopts an “either-or”
approach rather than a “both-and” perspective. Therefore, until the completion
of its evolution, modernity becomes a set of values, which approves patriarchal
superiority when defining the gender, justifies the superiority of the colonizer
when diagnosing the domination and imposes a laissez faire ideology in which
the powerful oppresses the lower when formulating an economic model. In an
ecological sense, modernity more often than not prioritizes human interest
when describing, diagnosing and even praising nonhuman realm. Thus, when
compared to the other silenced characters, bringing a solution to the otherizing
of nature seems like a more difficult act in modernist tradition. While the
devalued pole of dualities including the women, the lower class and the col-
onized can easily find spokesmen to defend their rights, non-human living
beings need human beings against human beings to defend environmental
rights just because they cannot speak and write as humans can. The reason also
lies behind the fact that modernity, while enabling human to be the master of
whole system, establishes its own anthropocentric assumptions as an explan-
atory system according to which each single abstract idea is shaped. Human
beings could never succeed to look through the lens of nature as they speculate
 Radical Ecology Movement 47

for the nature of nature. Indeed, the situation is not so different until the emer-
gence of modernity. Interpretations and suppositions over the nature of nature
are established on the information offered by religious scripts before modernity.
Though modernity’s saving its bonds from religious teachings and dogmatic
doctrines is announced as a revolutionary secular act on its behalf, it cannot
help being the initiator of a much more subversive revolution affecting the com-
plete ecological system. Therefore, only when the early footsteps of modernity
are heard is nature misconceptualized by its anthropocentric assumptions. The
concept of nature and the image of wild in the minds of human are reduced and
limited to what modernity offers and promises to people. On one hand moder-
nity causes the dissolution and erosion of unifying values, on the other hand
it creates new belief systems grounded on reason and science, which offer a
framework for each concept. Nature is characterized within this narrow frame-
work and exhibited as both servant and foe for humanity. Radical ecologists
as environmentalist thinkers of twentieth century, thus, oppose against the
restrained and oppressed condition of nature and make an effort to establish a
counter-revolutionist ecological ideology.

1.2. Radical Ecology Movement: An Environmental

Counter-Revolution
Radical ecology movement, in the simplest term, is an environmental tradition
opposing the dominant ideologies of modernity. Various anthropocentric phil-
osophical reflections governing modernity from Mirandola’s early humanism
through Descartes’s mechanistic worldview to nineteenth century’s atomism
and utilitarianism are rejected by conservative and reactionary assumptions
of radical ecologists. This, in an ecological sense, can be seen as a sort of rad-
ical enlightenment against the degenerated ethics and moral values of human-
induced system based on ecologically erroneous or deficient background.
Merchant, in her book entitled Radical Ecology: The Search for a Livable World,
seeks the codes of radical ecology in this background and defines it as a move-
ment that provides socio-ecological doctrines with a new insight in order for
the welfare of all forms of life. It opposes the already constructed social, political
and economic systems which constitute obstacles for human needs. The theory
not only diagnoses the roots of the environmental crisis but also indicates some
radical solutions for a sustainable world. Its scope, as Merchant puts, is not lim-
ited to environmental dimensions but expands into a wider scale embracing
such issues like race, class and sex (2005: 8). In accordance with what Merchant
states, the illusionary project of modernity causing two great worldwide wars
48 From Homocentrism to Ecological Enlightenment

requires a new paradigm shift like the reconstruction of conventional ethics

and vision. Thus, radical ecology can be claimed to emerge as a new project
against the anti-environmental ethics and assumptions of the previous centu-
ries in order to minimize social, economic, political and cultural pressure on
environment through developing radical articulations around ecology.
Though the term “radical” or “radicalized” may sound as aggressive and
violent, radical ecology is a constructive movement rather than a destructive
ideology associated with anarchism and also intuitive rather than discursive.
It may stem from radical ecology’s strong reaction to modernity’s holy prem-
ises and the roots of philosophical norms of the West. It is not a coincidence
that the radical environmental movement appears as a serious discipline in
the years when the catastrophic impacts and disappointing consequences of
modern world are discussed loudly. Such –isms as scienticism, rationalism,
anthropocentricism, progressivism, reductionism, mass-production industri-
alism, consumerism, objectivism and also homo-economicus and mechanistic
worldview characterizing the spirit of modernity are perceived as antagonists
in the philosophy of radical ecologists and considered as fundamental reasons
of current environmental degradation. Because, according to the ecosophical
insight of radical ecology:

a) Science must not be seen as a means of dominating the earth,

b) Reason has been a human aspect that does not justify the superiority
of men,
c) Human-centered ideologies and perception must be decentered,
d) Progressivism has been an illusionary promise, for the sake of which the
lives of all beings are endangered,
e) Reductionism has failed to see the ecological fact that everything is
connected to everything else as it focuses on the smallest unit,
f) The expansion of wild industrialism has been directly proportionate to the
exploitation of wild nature,
g) Consumerism has triggered the risk of depleting natural sources much
more than needed,
h) Homo-economicus has constituted an egocentric sense of individual in
himself, which is consciously blind and instinctively foe for everything not
serving for his self-interest,
i) Mechanistic worldview must be reacted due to its misinterpretation separ-
ating man’s mind from the spirit of universe,
j) Objectivism justifies each of them through promising artificial happiness
for each individual.
 Radical Ecology Movement 49

On the other hand, radical ecology never makes a misanthropic evaluation

on the relationship between human and nonhuman. According to Jeff Shantz,
radical ecologists underline “human-embeddedness within nature” and
“complementarity” within ecological communities (2006: 44). A total human
contribution into the nature without deforming and otherizing it emerges
as a precondition of constituting these eco-communities. Instead of simply
disavowing the components of social life in favor of a primitive community,
radical ecology attempts to reconcile each in an ecological framework. As
Stanley Aronowitz states, the environmentalist worldviews of radical ecologists
who do not see universe as nonhuman and inanimate not only target “the dom-
ination of nature, but of science and technology as well” (1990: 82). The under-
lying tension between anthropological paradigms and ecocentric framework
of radical ecology lies behind the fact that the philosophy adopted by radical
ecology, puts Michael Clow, totally refuses any idea differentiating human from
nature based on the notion that science and technology can allow him/her to
increase control over nature. (1986: 174).
In his book entitled Green Political Thought, Andrew Dobson underlines the
distinction between radical ecology and conventional environmentalism or as
he calls dark-green ecologism and light-green environmentalism. According to
Dobson, conventional environmentalism ignores the necessity of reformation
in the pre-established universal order and “argues for a managerial approach
to environmental problems, secure in the belief that they can be solved without
fundamental changes in present values or patterns of production and consump-
tion” (2007: 2). Radical ecologism, on the other hand, is a strong ideology which
“holds that a sustainable and fulfilling existence presupposes radical changes
in our relationship with the non-human natural world, and in our mode of
social and political life” (Dubson, 2007: 3). Instead of addressing the existence
of crisis simply, radical ecological movements, thus, diagnose the philosoph-
ical and historical roots of the ecological crisis, deconstruct the established
perception of nature and “attempt to resolve the contradictions that lead to
the crisis through action” (Merchant, 2005: 253) and by creating an ecolog-
ical concern for each component of social structure. The rise of environmental
consciousness is taken into consideration along with the environmentalists,
often cited by the theorists of radical ecology, like John Stuart Mill, George
Perkins Marsh, George Santayana, David Brower, Stewart Udall, Lynn White
Jr., Roderick Nash and Paul Ehrilch. In literature, radical ecology movement,
particularly deep ecology, finds its roots in the ecosophical idealism of Ralph
Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Gary Snyder, John Muir, Aldo Leopold
and Rachel Carson. In their works, each author reflects the similar purpose,
50 From Homocentrism to Ecological Enlightenment

that is, nature otherized and silenced by human beings should be moved from
margins to the center in order to create a widespread environmental awareness.
For instance, Carson, in her 1962 novel Silent Spring considered as marking
the initiation of modern environmental reaction, reveals evidences about the
dramatic disappearance of birds due to the use of pesticides DDT, which leads
public and media to re-evaluate the legitimacy of chemical industry. The adverse
effects of DDT both on human and non-human beings are first discovered and
announced by Carson who is attacked by chemical companies. In the novel, she
proposes some natural alternatives instead of using pesticides. For instance, as
Carson claims in the novel, Erasmus Darwin’s suggestion that insects can be
overcome by raising its natural enemies must not be seen as the sole alternative
biological control method to chemical methods (2002: 291).
In addition to its mission to raise public awareness of environmental aware-
ness, radical ecology movement, as Merchant observes, “offers an alternative
vision of the world in which race, class, sex and age barriers have been elimi-
nated and basic human needs have been fulfilled” (2005: 249). When it is con-
sidered that the use of DDT is prohibited later in Europe and America, the
instillation of radical ecology movement into literature can become an antidote
for modern environmental crisis. In this sense, Merchant, in Radical Ecology,
lists the significant contributions of radical theorists that can also serve literary
criticism as a theoretical model. She puts an emphasis on reality, social reality,
science, ecological science, natural resources, surplus and scarcity, production
and reproduction and social gender through the lens of ecology (2005: 249).
Indeed, she indicates the fundamental premises of radical ecology movements
like deep ecology, social ecology and ecofeminism.
Although there are some differences among these movements, some
studies have been done to reconcile the sharp discrepancies. According to
Jozef Keulartz, who contrasts the radical ecological currents in the simplest
form, these differences allow people to distinguish the movements within
radical ecology. He explains that “the current environmental crisis is attrib-
uted to modern man’s anthropocentricism” in Naess’s Deep Ecology, while
Bookchin’s Social Ecology “ascribes our hostile behavior towards nature to the
existence of hierarchical relationships among human beings” and Ecofeminism
“points to androcentrism rather than anthropocentricism as the main cul-
prit” (1998: 1). Thus, the proponents of one of these movements may think
that other radical ecological movements are not sensitive enough to their own
privileges, leading to the accusation of each other of being shallow, misan-
thropic and sexist. However, they have to find a common ground because polit-
ical reflections of radical ecology are improperly associated with the anarchic
 Radical Ecology Movement 51

acts of radical activists, which lead the movement to become the target of the
official attacks. Steve Chase claims that, despite on-going differences, it is inev-
itable for the proponents of radical ecology to unite to challenge the “divide-
and-conquer tactics of the FBI,” for this reason, Bookchin and Dave Foremen
agrees to come together in Learning Alliance’s meeting to find a common path
to their philosophical and political viewpoints (1991: 22). Though it is hard to
define common principles for radical ecology movements, there are certainly
common shared targets which lie behind the social, economic and political
changes. According to Matt Buttsworth, these changes include the removal of
capitalist free market economy, the transformation of urban-industrial society
into self-sufficient agrarian communities, the demand for communal owner-
ship instead of a system supporting private property, the tendency to ecolog-
ical religions like Buddhism and Taoism instead of patriarchal divine religions,
the disavowal of the mechanistic worldview in favor of a non-anthropocentric
holism supporting scientific theories like quantum physics and an overarching
revolution eliminating sexism, ageism and patriarchy created by Western civi-
lization (2011: 11–12).

1.2.1 Deep Ecology
The environmental literature becomes acquainted with “deep ecology” when
Naess coins the term in 1973. Nature-oriented writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson,
Henry David Thoreau and John Muir, who are closely concerned with the exploi-
tation and invasion of the wild nature, form both theoretical and practical basis
during the emergence of the movement. In his preface to the reference guidebook
he edits, Sessions states that “The Long-Range Deep Ecology movement emerged
more or less spontaneously and informally as a philosophical and scientific social/
political movement during the so-called Ecological Revolution of the 1960s”
(1995d: ix). The philosophy of the movement embraces an environmental activism
against the established truth of the modern society and assumes a deconstructive
role in order to voice the necessity of a radical change. For Sessions, the main con-
cern of deep ecology movement “has been to bring about a major paradigm shift- a
shift in perception, values, and lifestyles- as a basis for redirecting the ecologically
destructive path of modern industrial growth societies” (1995d: ix).
Naess, on the other hand, is unwilling to confine his philosophy to a simple
encyclopedic definition; instead, along with Sessions, he proposes a deep
ecology platform3 consisting of the eight points as basic principles, which will

3 For Naess’s formulation and detailed comments of the eight points of the platform,
see Arne Naess, “The Deep Ecological Movement: Some Philosophical Aspects,”
52 From Homocentrism to Ecological Enlightenment

later be called as the very core of the movement. McLaughlin, in “The Heart of
Deep Ecology,” probes the deep ecology platform declaring that “the platform
was meant to be a terrain of commonality which allowed, recognized, and even
encouraged differences in more logically ultimate philosophies” (1995: 86). The
first point is that both human and non-human living beings have their own
certain dispositions, the function of which cannot be based on serving for the
benefit of other beings. Thus, the second point emphasizes that these beings,
regardless of their so-called superiority or inferiority, contribute to the total
richness and diversity interdependently. The hierarchy of species justifying the
evolutionary belief that only the strongest survive is rejected. The third one is
a responsive point for those who accuse deep ecology of embracing a misan-
thropic approach. The focus is on the difference between vitality and arbitrar-
iness. As McLaughlin states, “[t]‌here is a real difference between an Eskimo’s
wearing the skin of a seal and one worn for social status in an affluent society”
(1995: 87). The fourth point of the platform is a criticism of over-population
increasing dramatically following industrialism. In order to establish the eco-
logical social order, deep ecology asks for a rational planning of the human
population in the following centuries. The fifth one is a clear warning that eco-
logical devastation reaches alarming rates. By human interference, Naess does
not mean that “humans should not modify some ecosystems, as do other spe-
cies. Humans have modified the earth over their entire history and will prob-
ably continue to do so. At issue is the nature and the extent of such interference”
(1995a: 69). In the next point, deep ecology demands a practical change of pol-
icies encapsulating economic, technological and ideological structures with
eco-friendly alternatives to overcome the previously mentioned deterioration.
The seventh point indicates the difference between quality and quantity, or
more precisely, qualified progress and unqualified development. The well-being
of a society cannot be ensured through consumerism imposed by industrialism
and current ideology of progressivism. The last point calls for a practical partic-
ipation, individual and social implementation and worldwide action from those
who feel uneasy about the condition of humanity and nature.
Naess, Sessions, Bill Devall and other proponents of deep ecology endeavor
to place the relationship between environment and human beings on the strong
grounds. The tenets of deep ecology developed by these theorists and activists
focus on the inherent values of each being instead of just on the well-being of

in Deep Ecology for the Twenty-First Century, Ed. George Sessions, Shambhala
Publications, Boston 1995, pp 64–84.
 Radical Ecology Movement 53

human beings solely and exclusively. Thus, they insist on making a distinc-
tion between shallow and deep ecology. As Devall suggests “ ‘shallow ecology’
is shallow because it lacks probing philosophical questioning. Deep ecology
combines the day-to-day problems of environment, including human health
problems, with the global, cultural, psychological, long-range problems”
(1988: 21). Naess defines the deep ecology movement as “a deep, but less influ-
ential movement” and the shallow ecology movement as “a shallow, but pres-
ently rather powerful movement” struggling against “pollution and resource
depletion” because of “the health and affluence of people in the developed
countries” (1973: 95). Contrary to the shallow ecology’s tendency to deter-
mining the symptoms of environmental crisis and their influences on human,
deep ecology, according to Devall and Sessions, probes the roots and the causes
of the crisis in terms of developing “a process of ever-deeper questioning of
ourselves, the assumptions of the dominant worldview in our culture, and the
meaning and truth of our reality” (1985: 8). Furthermore, Naess characterizes
some policies of deep ecology movement through ecosophical terms which
make it different from superficial ecologism. “The relational, total-field image,”
according to Naess, implies that all organisms have an intrinsic connection,
which is not independent of their environments, because they are rather indis-
pensable and inseparable parts of their environments. Thus, this relational
model creates a total-field in which either man-in environment image or thing-
in-milieu concept cannot exist alone. The advocacy of “biospherical egalitari-
anism,” on the other hand, is of significance within the framework of total-field
model. Though it is an argumentative principle among other movements of
radical ecology, biospherical egalitarianism means that all forms of life, from
microorganisms to human beings, deserve equal rights to survive. Alluding
to Marxist and Hegelian philosophy, Naess claims that the efforts not to pay
attention to this fact and to create a sort of hierarchy among species disrupt
this totality leading to a master-slave relationship, and then to the alienation
of man. The “principles of diversity and of symbiosis” require a collaboration
and solidarity between humans and all other forms of life. Accepting the rich-
ness and diversity of modes of life brings the common life awareness because
all beings are coexistent creatures. Thus, Naess adopts “live and let live” prin-
ciple instead of an egocentric “either you or me” slogan. Another characteris-
tics manifested by Naess is “anti-class posture” adopting the view that the first
three principles can be extended to any conflicts among communities. As a
consequence of egalitarianism and collaboration, social systems in which the
undeveloped nations fall under the hegemony of the developed ones, and eco-
nomic structures in which the powerful exploits the weaker must be adapted to
54 From Homocentrism to Ecological Enlightenment

classless systems. The proponents of deep ecology must fight against “pollution
and resource depletion.” However, much tendency to pollution distracts deep
ecologists, contrary to the shallow ecologists, from paying attention to some
other significant points lying behind the reasons. Also, if the current science
and technology do more harm than good during the process of preventing pol-
lution, it must be rejected. For the “complexity, not complication” principle,
Alan Carter asserts that “[u]‌nlike ‘complication’, Naess regards ‘complexity’ as
evident when a whole is integrated, rather than merely chaotic” (2013: 337). In
contradistinction to reductionism, the multiplicity of all life forms contributes
to the unity, which does not mean that the unity or the system is complicated
evoking the difficulty or chaos. For humans, on the other hand, this principle
favors complex economies, ecological integrity of industrial and agricultural
operations and the combination of urban and rural activities. Finally, Naess,
by “local autonomy and decentralization,” demands a radical political change
within the system to protect the complex structure of nature. Along with self-
responsibility and self-regulation, small local communities would reduce the
negative consequences of bureaucratic barriers on ecological problems and
achieve ecologically sustainable development (1973: 95–98).
Australian ethicist and philosopher Warwick Fox illustrates how
ecophilosophy has developed within philosophy by creating “a radical chal-
lenge to the anthropocentrism (i.e., human- centeredness) that has informed
mainstream Western philosophy since the time of the classical Greeks”
(1990: 48–50). As one of the recent radical ecophilosophical movements, deep
ecology embraces this radical challenge by developing an ecocentric model
in which all anthropocentric positions are deconstructed. However, deep
ecology’s ecocentricism, instead of creating a center based on the interests
of one species, advocates a classless, symbiotic community, and biospherical
egalitarianism including wide scope of beings. Overall, as Michael Uebel puts,
“[e]‌cocentricism offers a strong critique of any worldview modelled upon a view
of the nonhuman natural world as having less intrinsic value because it is an
object to be controlled and whose purpose resides outside itself” (2011: 133).
The tension between homocentric, or anthropocentric, view of world and
ecocentricism, thus, cannot be justified by accusing ecocentricism of having
misanthropic and merely nature-centered realm in which man is segregated
from nature. It is essential to the understanding of Naess’s thesis to recognize
that the otherized species should be included in the ethical considerations con-
cerning such modern socio-cultural problems as racism, sexism and unfair dis-
tribution of income. At this point, Fox explains Naess’s ecophilosophy based on
nonanthropocentricism or ecocentricism as the popular sense of deep ecology
 Radical Ecology Movement 55

movement. Fox claims that “anthropocentric orientation” attempts to interpret

nonhuman realm as “resources” serving for human comfort while “ecocentric
orientation” provides both human and nonhuman living beings with an inde-
pendent evolution and opposes to any exploitative human interference during
this process (1990: 48–50). Ecocentricism, thus, with its concentration on the
intrinsic values of both human and nonhuman beings, attempts to break the
dualism created by modernity. In so doing, it strictly rejects the exploitative and
expansionist policies justified by anthropocentric discourses as well. “The cen-
tral intuition of deep ecology,” as Fox observes, “is the idea that there is no firm
ontological divide in the field of existence. In other words, the world simply is
not divided up into independently existing subjects and objects […] human
and non-human realms” (1999: 157). The ontological fraction in the structure
of existence imposed by conventional human-centred Western philosophy is
replaced with holistic ecophilosophy which reconciles mind and spirit.
The assumptions of deep ecology mentioned above are generally intertwined
with Naess’s own personal ecophilosophy called Ecosophy T, which is mostly
affected by Buddhism and Spinoza’s pantheistic philosophy. The “T” is named
after Tvargastein Mountain where Naess produces his environmentalist philos-
ophy by listening to the sound of the wilderness in his cabin. Alan Drengson,
Bill Devall and Mark Schroll suggest that “[s]‌ome writers have misunderstood
Naess, taking his Ecosophy T, with its Self-realization norm, as something
meant to characterize the whole deep ecology movement” (2011: 108). Naess,
however, does not offer a one-dimensional theory and a uniform ecological
worldview upon which everyone has to agree without any personal involve-
ment of individuals from different cultural, political, social, religious and phil-
osophical backgrounds. To put it another way, as in postmodernist relativistic
theory of truth and self-conceptualization, Naess’s Ecosophy, distinct from
deep ecology, does not favour a normative and institutionalized paradigm.
As Drengson, Devall and Schroll observe, the more “individuals, languages,
cultures and religions” there are, the more ecosophies like “Ecosophy Ann,
Ecosophy Bob, Ecosoophy Chan” can be, which indicates how one can express
his own ecological idea independently from Naess’ Ecosophy T (2011: 107).
Nevertheless, it is essential to understand Deep Ecology in order to compre-
hend Ecosophy T of which basic principle is self-realization.
Self-realization is an ecosophical term for deepening and expanding any
individual’s own self in order that s/he can identify with all beings. A wider and
deeper identification is directly related to the process of human’s realizing his/
her own self and expanding his/her identity so as to embrace intrinsic values of
all life forms. Defining and discovering the personal ego is the prerequisite for
56 From Homocentrism to Ecological Enlightenment

self-realization. Thus, the self can attain a cosmic conscious demanding max-
imum symbiosis. In his article “Self-Realization: An Ecological Approach to
Being in the World,” Naess initially focuses on the self which he suggests not to
confuse it with narrow ego, thus, self-realization is not an egocentric phenom-
enon. The self that attains maturity, then, carries an all-encompassing charac-
teristic which helps association of one’s self with other living beings whatever
form it is. At this point, Naess accuses Descartes of being immature for his
thoughts on the “res-extensa,” or on nonhuman realm. Then, he deepens the
improvement of the self- from ego to social self and from social self to meta-
physical self- in which the relationship and identification with nature is con-
sciously or unconsciously omitted. He develops the term ecological self, which
he sees as the ultimate maturity of the sense, as the third stage in addition to
these conventional conceptions of self because the interactions do not only
happen between human and other human, and human and human society.
The joy and happiness as the meaning of life reside in this ecological sense, or
in the increased state of self-realization, which results in the fact that humans
see themselves in others including all forms of life. As a universal problem,
today’s ecological crisis endangers both human and nonhuman population and
violates joy and happiness of all beings (2005: 515–17). The self-realized human
is the one who grasps nature as the ultimate source of truth and beauty and who
recognizes that the self is the part of the whole.
Radical ecological movement embraces different ideological, activist and
political structures rather than concentrating on conventional environmental
issues merely and thus incorporates some distinct tendencies of which focal
point differ from each other. As already hinted above, in spite of the differences
in their central points, the movements included in radical ecology vocalize the
discourses opponent to the socio-cultural consequences of industrialism, cap-
italism, urbanization and mechanization brought by modernity. The thinkers
of Enlightenment, for instance, not only subjugate nature, but women as well.
For Rousseau whose ideas are opposed by Mary Wollstonecraft, women are
seen subordinate to men because they are weak and irrational and also they are
dependent on men. Accordingly, the status of women as mothers, in Hobbesian
social contract, is degraded to servants for fathers. The underlying intention
of the radical ecology is to deconstruct the anthropocentric assumptions and
established ideologies. Thus, along with ecological diversity, all alienated and
ignored objects are revisited through a radical approach.
 Radical Ecology Movement 57

1.2.2 Ecofeminism
The radical ecological movements emerging in 1960s coincide with the second
wave of feminist movement; hence, this causes both ecological and feminist
movements to find a common ground in their opposition to those otherizing
and alienating forces. Uniting ecological and feminist concerns for a common
purpose, the term ecofeminism is first coined by Françoise d’Eaubonne in her
1974 book Le Féminisme ou la Mort (Feminism or Death) in order to show
the parallelism between patriarchal suppression of both woman and nature,
which, at the same time, leads to environmental devastation. Ecofeminism then
popularizes the notion that the interaction among man, woman and nature
must be reconsidered. Women are not allowed to participate in public space
and they are forced to deal with care service and housework while men are
occupied with polluting nature. Ecofeminism prefers a sisterhood imbued
with green, not pink and focuses on the consequences of androcentrism much
more than those of anthropocentricism. Later on, even some theoreticians like
Ynestra King consider ecofeminism as the third wave of feminism.
Mary Mellor defines ecofeminism as “a movement that sees a connection
between the exploitation and degradation of the natural world and the subordi-
nation and oppression of women” (1997: 1). Peter Hay, on the other hand, simply
considers ecofeminism as “ecologically informed feminism” (2002: 72). It is impor-
tant to note that ecofeminism does not strictly abide by the assumptions of ecology
and feminism; it “brings together elements of the feminist and green movements,
while at the same time offering challenge to both” (Mellor, 1997: 1). Defining eco-
logical feminists as both “street-fighters” and “philosophers,” Ariel Salleh, in her
foreword to Ecofeminism, draws a wide range of framework of the movement:
Ecofeminism is the only political framework I know of that can spell out the his-
torical links between neoliberal capital, militarism, corporate science, worker alien-
ation, domestic violence, reproductive technologies, sex tourism, child molestation,
neocolonialism, Islamophobia, extractivism, nuclear weapons, industrial toxics, land
and water grabs, deforestation, genetic engineering, climate change and the myth of
modern progress (2014: ix).

The “connection” seems to come out as the key word for ecofeminist philos-
ophy. However, Karen J. Warren claims that ecofeminism differs from other
feminisms like liberal, socialist and Marxist feminism in terms of its argument
that nature is a feminist concern. Thus, philosophy of ecofeminism includes
naturism in its scope of criticism of domination along with sexism, racism,
classicism, heterosexism and ageism (1997: 4).
58 From Homocentrism to Ecological Enlightenment

Though a large-scale inequality, violence and environmental crisis do not

seem to be in ecofeminism’s field of interest, Greta Gaard and Lori Gruen
explain the reason why environmental crisis is a feminist issue rather than
a human issue concerning all people. They think that women and children
become the first to suffer the outcomes of inequity and environmental destruc-
tion. It may be absurd to make a connection between environmental pollution
and women among some first world feminists but when compared to the privi-
leged class of the industrial world including first world women rights defenders,
the women of third world living outside the powerful economies experience the
fatal consequences of environmental degradation immediately and deeply, like
famine, drought and infectious diseases (1993: 1–35). Here, the broad-based
position held by ecofeminism comes out as a criticism of Western eyes. The
problems that do not directly affect the privileged class of industrial societies
must not be ignored considering the consequences on the rest of the world.
It can be argued that ecofeminism is a constellation of ecology-oriented fem-
inist approaches in which many positions arouse disagreement while helping
grow the scope of the theory. Warren discusses that on one hand ecofeminists
come to agree on engagement of the unjustified subjugation of both nature and
women; on the other hand they are sceptical about the nature of this relationship.
She likens ecofeminism to an umbrella under which there are various positions.
The diversity of the theory, for Warren, stems from the richness of feminism,
like liberal, Marxist, radical and socialist feminism, which contributes not only
to the rise and development, but also to the solidity of ecofeminism. Warren
calls this diversity as interconnections and analyzes the philosophical issues
raised by woman-other human and others-nature interconnections: Historical
(typically causal), spiritual and religious, conceptual, empirical, socioeco-
nomic, linguistic, symbolic and literary, epistemological, political and ethical
interconnections (2000: 21).
Historical (typically causal) interconnections refer to the historical roots of
the domination of women and nature. The historical-causal discourses can be
found in the definition of ecofeminism made by some ecofeminists as Salleh
who accuses androcentrism as the reason for the environmental crisis: “Eco-
feminism is a recent development in feminist thought which argues that
the current global environmental crisis is a predictable outcome of patriar-
chal culture” (1988: 138). Likewise, Warren questions “the basis of these al-
leged historical-causal interconnections?” (2000: 22). For some ecofeminists
like Riane Eisler, it dates back to nomadic tribes who invade Indo-European
communities about 4500 B.C. According to Eisler, there are growing body of
evidences to support the fact that it is not the raw material but the way it is
 Radical Ecology Movement 59

used leads to the development of destructive technologies, which plays a crit-

ical role in domesticating animals, exploiting fertile lands and then dominating
women (1987: 46). On the other hand, Plumwood, who asserts that “the denial,
exclusion and devaluation of nature can be traced far back into the intellec-
tual traditions of the west, at least into the beginnings of rationalism in Greek
culture” (2003: 72), seeks woman-nature connections in patriarchal dualisms
of classical Greek philosophy. Other ecofeminists like Merchant consider the
scientific and cultural development model of the Enlightenment as a mascu-
line annihilator of woman’s identity and nature. For instance, along with his
occultist attempts and Neo-Platonic conceptualizations, Bacon regards nature
as female to be commanded. According to Merchant, “[t]‌he widely held belief
that nature itself was female underlies Bacon’s use of language and metaphor on
which much of his program for a new experimental science rests” (2008: 739).
This androcentric scientific tendency in re-imagining the cosmos leads to the
mechanistic and reductionist view of world rather than organic wholeness,
which initiates the subjugation of woman and nature. On the other hand, some
ecofeminists like Elizabeth Dodson Gray, Rosemary Radford Ruether, Spretnak
and Starhawk seek the traces of otherized women and nature in spiritual and
religious interconnections. They analyze the symbols and imageries which are
implicit in traditional religions, mythologies and pagan belief systems. The
most striking is one that is observed by Gray who draws the picture of hierarchy
of dominance in biblical view of creation: “Woman comes after and also below
man. Woman was created […] out of man’s body […] Then come animals […]
Further down are plants […] Below them is the ground of nature itself- the hills
and mountains […]” (1981: 3). Contrary to the traditional ecological evaluation
about the universal hierarchy, Gray, like a biologist, dissects human and non-
human in a deeper sense.
Conceptual interconnections are theoretical structures and notions through
which ecofeminists draw an overall framework to ground their philosophy on
a conceptual account. Defining conceptual interconnections as the core of ec-
ofeminist philosophy, Warren locates her account in patriarchy-based frame-
work what she calls “a logic of domination” while Plumwood, for instance,
locates it in a hierarchically situated framework or such value dualisms as
reason/emotion, man/woman, human/nature and culture/nature. (Warren,
2000: 24). Some ecofeminists like Salleh locate a conceptual ground on sex-
gender differences, which exist “in paradigms that are uncritically oriented to
the dominant western masculine forms of experiencing the world: the analytic,
non-related, delightfully called ‘objective’ or ‘scientific’ approaches” (1988: 130).
“A goal of ecofeminism then,” for Warren, “is to develop gender-sensitive
60 From Homocentrism to Ecological Enlightenment

language, theory, and practices that do not further the exploitative experiences
and habits of dissociated, male-gender identified culture toward women and
nature” (1987: 4).
Empirical interconnections are those that connect empirical evidence about
the environmental degradation and the experiences of women and also chil-
dren, people of color and the lower class. In this sense, Salleh emphasize the
influence of health problems due to the environmental factors such as radi-
ation, pesticide and toxins on woman’s reproductive system and children’s
development. Also, while ecofeminist animal rights defenders, according to
Warren, connect such activities like factory farming, animal experimentation
and hunting animals to male practices, some identify rape and pornography
with the experiences of abuse of women and nature (2000: 25). Susan Griffin,
for instance, in her Pornography and Silence: Culture’s Revenge against Nature,
elaborates the relationship between man, woman, nature and culture: “The idea
that the sight of a woman’s body calls a man back to his own animal nature, and
that this animal nature soon destroys him, reverberates throughout culture”
(1982: 31). As journalist, feminist and cultural critic Ellen Willis notes, Griffin,
in Pornography and Silence, finds the roots of pornography in the fear of nature.
Patriarchal ideology associates culture with man while identifying nature and
body with femininity. This is done consciously because man attempts to main-
tain authority over woman in order to suppress his anima. Thus, it causes
women who are identified with the so-called inferior body and nature to hate
her body. According to Willis, it results in “an erotic fantasy life that is essen-
tially sadomasochistic” (2012: 15).
Within the framework of an unequal socioeconomic structure mostly domi-
nated by patriarchy, ecofeminists like Vandana Shiva and Maria Mies reveal the
interconnections between the environmental destruction, resource depletion
and the exploitation of woman. In this context, Shiva focuses on the socioeco-
nomic development or the idea of the progress of Western world. For Shiva,
development equals to “maldevelopment” which is lack of the feminine and
ecological principle (1988: 4). She reveals the patriarchal belief on productivity
and profitability that “[t]‌he neglect of nature’s work in renewing herself, and
women’s work in producing sustenance in the form of basic, vital needs is an
essential part of the paradigm of maldevelopment” and this disorder in the
progress or development “sees all work that does not produce profits and cap-
ital as non or unproductive work” (1988: 4). Accordingly, Mies indicates how
capitalist patriarchy exploits not only woman’s body and labour but also the
resources of nature to strengthen and sustain his wealth and leader-position
power throughout the ages. The history of Third World women and Western
 Radical Ecology Movement 61

world presents that “direct violence was the means by which women, colonies
and nature were compelled to serve the ‘white man’, and that without such vio-
lence the European Enlightenment, modernization and development would not
have happened” (Mies, 2014a: xx).
Linguistic, symbolic and literary interconnections refer to the connection of
woman and nature that exists in language and literature. Ecofeminists argue
that the patriarchal system uses language as a means to describe women as infe-
rior by attributing them animal images. Joan Dunayer observes that “[a]‌pplying
images of denigrated nonhuman species to women labels women inferior and
available for abuse; attaching images of the aggrandized human species to men
designates them superior and entitled to exploit” (1995: 11). Thus, language
feminizes nature associating women with sheep, cat, bunny, chick, queen bee,
and butterfly (Warren, 2000: 27) as well as defining men with powerful pred-
atory animals like lion, wolf, stallion and bear. As for literature, Warren finds
ecofeminist and radical feminist philosopher Griffin’s writing “impactive” and
“testimony to the power of literature and language to convey basic attitudes
about women and nature” (2000: 29). In her prose-poetry book Women and
Nature: The Roaring Inside Her, which is considered as the initiator of American
Ecofeminism, Griffin composes a striking prologue handling with how men
regard and make use of women and literature:

We are the birds eggs […] flowers, butterflies, rabbits, cows, sheep; we are caterpillars;
we are leaves of ivy and sprigs of wallflower. We are women. We rise from the wave.
We are gazelle and doe, elephant and whale, lilies and roses and peach, we are air, we
are flame, we are oyster and pearl, we are girls. We are woman and nature. And he says
he cannot hear us speak.
But we hear (1978: 1).

Ecofeminist literary criticism or literary ecofeminism voices the silence of

women and nature in literature, as Griffin does above, sometimes by revisiting
the literary canon and sometimes by studying women’s literary works. Patrick
D. Murphy suggests that one of the approaches of ecofeminist literary analysis
“would be to use ecofeminism as a ground for critiquing all the literature that
one reads. For literary critics in particular this would mean reevaluating the
canon […]” (1995: 25). The critic, for him, is not seeking a mere ecofeminist
novel, yet s/he “is looking at an author’s work in terms of the extent to which it
addresses ecological and feminist issues in positive or negative ways” (1995: 25).
Upon epistemological concerns, ecofeminist Gruen questions the Western
objectivity of knowledge leading to the misconceptualization of nature and
woman. For ecofeminists, as she argues in terms of a postmodernist ecofeminist
62 From Homocentrism to Ecological Enlightenment

perspective, “facts are theory-laden, theories are value-laden, and values are
molded by historical and philosophical ideologies, social norms, and indi-
vidual processes of categorization” (1994: 124). The epistemological discussion,
thus, constitutes a basis for political interconnections because, as Stephanie
Lahar states, the ultimate political aim of ecofeminism is “the deconstruction
of oppressive social, economic, and political systems and the reconstruction
of more viable social and political forms” (1996: 15). However, among ethical
interconnections, mainstream ecological ethics, or shallow ecological ethics,
fail to cope with this ultimate goal of ecofeminism due its tendency to an-
drocentrism and anthropocentrism. King’s ecofeminist ethics, in this sense,
provide a strong ground regarding epistemological concerns and motivating
political intentions. She demands reconciliation between cultural and socialist
feminism within ecofeminist framework. This would be an anti-dualistic alli-
ance because “[t]‌ogether they make possible an ecological relationship between
nature and culture, in which mind and nature, heart and reason, join forces to
transform the internal and external systems of domination that threaten the
existence of life on earth” (1992: 132).
It is evident that there is not a unified theoretical content having certain
boundaries for ecofeminist theory. As Janet Biehl illustrates the diversified
vision of ecofeminists, some ecofeminists believe in the connection between
woman and nature but some regard it as a patriarchal deception. Some are spir-
itual while some ecofeminists are secular. Some ecofeminists consider that the
ecological crisis dates back to New Stone Age while some indicate the emergence
of Christianity and of scientific revolution. Some ecofeminists believe in whole-
ness and oneness but others tend to support multiplicity. Some ecofeminists
are closer to the doctrines of social ecology while others feel sympathy with
deep ecology (1991: 2–3). Though it is criticized that early ecofeminists hold
an essentialist view applying some certain aspects of nature to all women and
ignore that women and nature may own both masculine and feminine features,
women, for ecofeminism in general, are connected with nature because they
both experience the direct exposure to the oppression and exploitation by
patriarchal forces.

1.2.3 Social Ecology
For Bookchin, who develops the environmental philosophy of social ecology,
there is an attraction to social roots as an antidote to the modern ecological
crisis. “The social,” in his understanding of ecology, “can no longer be separated
from the ecological, any more than humanity can be separated from nature”
 Radical Ecology Movement 63

(1996a: 34). It is because of the impartibility of society and nature, as well as

mind and body, that he adds the word “social” before “ecology” (Bookchin,
1988a: 16). According to John Clark, social ecology embraces an overarching
holistic approach to the relationship among self, society and nature and he
defines it as “the first ecological philosophy to present a developed approach
to all the central issues of theory and practice” (1988a: 72) in radical ecologies.
Bookchin claims that “[s]‌ocial ecology ‘radicalizes’ nature, or more precisely,
our understanding of natural phenomena, by questioning the prevailing mar-
ketplace image of nature from an ecological standpoint […]” (1988b: 55). Thus,
in social ecology, the sense of nature not only refers to non-anthropocentric
ecological communities which cannot be classified as “blind,” “mute,” “cruel,”
“competitive,” “stingy” and “necessitarian” but also a collaborative world in
which the functioning of each interdependent life-forms is based on socio-
ecological ethics characterized by freedom rather than authoritarian domina-
tion (Bookchin, 1988b: 55). What lies at the core of social ecology is to question
the origins of ecologically turbulent societies and that how these societies can
be integrated into well-organized eco-communities in terms of a dialectical
method.
Bookchin, for the first time in 1962, invites society to be prepared for the
consequences of environmental pollution including chemicals, radiation and
pesticide use. Using pseudonym “Lewis Herber,” Bookchin publishes his book
Our Synthetic Environment just before the emergence of Carson’s striking
book Silent Spring. Until his death in 2006, he publishes many books in which
he deals with society, nature, anarchy, urbanization, citizenship, democracy,
corporation and regime. Compared to other environmental philosophers,
Bookchin may be labelled as more humanitarian due to his avowal of increase
in human population, goodness of human nature and development in tech-
nology to a tolerable extent within reason. Nevertheless, he more often than not
focuses on socio-environmental roots of hierarchy, domination and capitalism.
Regarding human interference as natural, he thinks that human is by nature
inclined to change nature; yet, the planet is at the crossroads and it is human
who is able to change the impending disaster. Thus, he suggests a reconciliation
of past and present to construct a free future.
In “An Appeal for Social and Ecological Sanity,” Bookchin asks how
human beings have arrived at this point: “Have we merely been mistaken in
our judgement of humanity as evolving moral and rational animals, moving
ever-forward toward the high liberatory ideals of the Renaissance and
Enlightenment?” (1988c: 112). He also questions the regressive essence of pro-
gress ideal of modernity imbued with “moral and intellectual trappings”: “Is
64 From Homocentrism to Ecological Enlightenment

‘progress’ itself a myth that, by its own self-development, turns into its opposite
as regression?” (1988c: 112). In his discussion of modern ecological and social
crisis, Bookchin emphasizes the misconception of nature as a demonic “realm
of necessity” rather than “realm of freedom,” which justifies the domination of
nature. Though the origins of this antagonistic imagery date back to Sumerian
society, Victorian Age is accepted as the milestone in environmental historical
process. He further states that what remains human being today is a historical
dualism rising from Platonic view that immortal soul and mortal body dif-
ferentiate, to the period including Descartes who believes in the split between
mind and body (1988b: 50–52). Then, contrary to the social ecological assump-
tion of mutual interdependence based upon “differentiation” and “fecundity,”
Darwinian orthodoxy proposes a model of survival grounded on “rivalry” and
“competition” (Bookchin, 1988b: 56). However, the incontestability of the con-
ventional reason and modern science and technology leads Bookchin to the
conclusion that human beings can find new ways remodeling them into an
ecological context. Namely, it requires new communities freed from hierarchy,
rivalry and autocracy and based on equality, complementarity and decentral-
ization (1988b: 75–76).
As an interdisciplinary field embracing a holistic approach, social ecology,
on the other hand, puts dialectical naturalism, first coined by Bookchin as a
contrast to “Hegel’s empyrean, basically antinaturalistic dialectical idealism”
and “often scientistic dialectical materialism of orthodox Marxists” (Bookchin,
1996a: 15), in the center of its philosophical discussions. Dialectical naturalism
is Bookchin’s ecosophical idea that reconciles biological “first nature,” which is
primal, wild and untouched, with human “second nature” which is man-made,
changed and damaged. This doctrine mediates between “Being,” as first nature,
and “Becoming,” as second nature. Thus, “Being” has to be transformed into
‘Becoming’ because second nature, though it is still incomplete, is a natural
consequence of first nature’s evolutionary process. In conventional Hegelian
terms, Bookchin takes first nature as “thesis” and second nature as “anti-thesis”
not in the sense of contrasting and opposing but complementary and cumula-
tive figures. Here, synthesis is, as Bookchin calls, “free nature,” or third nature.
At this point, Bookchin does not intend to say that first nature exists for men to
exploit and turn it into second nature in order to attain synthesis, free nature.
Free nature, as his ultimate utopian realm, is not only “a nature that would
diminish the pain and suffering that exist in both first and second nature” but
also “a conscious and ethical nature, an ecological society […]” (1996a: 33).
Bookchin believes that human beings, along with nonhuman participation,
can consciously construct free nature through their own methods without
 Radical Ecology Movement 65

completely refusing human effect, progressive technological apparatus and

scientific means. However, dialectic naturalism cannot be evaluated as a phi-
losophy allowing people to carry out arbitrary practices. Shannon Brincat and
Damian Gerber argue that “[d]‌ialectical naturalism does not therefore advocate
a hubristic ‘stewardship’ of nature at the hands of humanity”; instead, “through
a successively graded series of determinate negations, humanity- through the
development of its own ‘second nature’- gradually becomes conscious of its own
potentialities for reason and freedom” (2015: 885).
Though social ecology acknowledges the destructive dimensions of ram-
pant technologies and anthropocentric tendencies of scientific research, it does
not favour to dismiss the development of technology completely. Rather, social
ecologists ask for a renewal and reconstitution of environmentally friendly and
creative technologies developed by ecologically self-realized human. This is
directly related to social ecology’s understanding of ecological ethics on ac-
count of the fact that “[a]‌n ecological ethics of freedom cannot be divorced
from a technics that enhances our relationship with nature- a creative, not
destructive, ‘metabolism’ with nature” (Bookchin, 1996b: 90). Social ecology
tends to encourage alternative ecological technology rather than expansionary
industrial technology inherited by modernity. For social ecologists, society has
no other way to contribute to the sustainability because, as Bookchin warns,
“[e]ither revolution will create an ecological society, with new ecotechnologies
and ecocommunities, or humanity and the natural world as we know it today
will perish” (1986: 24). It would be inaccurate to claim that social ecology is in
favour of the extant technics which are designed for serving the needs of cap-
italist economy today, but rather, it is ecotechnology that “serves to enrich an
ecosystem just as compost in food cultivation enriches the soil, rather than de-
grading and simplifying the natural fundament of life” (Bookchin, 1996b: 91).
So, Bookchin’s ideal third nature, which is connected to the second nature using
ecotechnology as a scientific means, lacks of immoral and inorganic techno-
systems paving the way for the exploitation, hierarchy and domination through
its destructive force.
Besides, Bookchin, in his idea of dialectic naturalism, distinguishes con-
ventional reason from dialectical reason. Conventional reason, as opposed to
its modernist version, is not an ultimate goal on which human can trust by
accepting it as it is; yet, it is taken as a means to reach a more ideal one by
purifying it from the anthropocentric assumptions of modernity. According
to Bookchin, conventional reason omits the structure of becoming process and
cannot see the source and content of change: “It views a mammal, for example,
as a creature marked by a highly fixed set of traits that distinguish it from
66 From Homocentrism to Ecological Enlightenment

everything that is not mammalian” and also “a human being in terms of par-
ticular stages of the life-cycle” (1996a: 7). In contrast to the basic principle of
conventional reasoning as “A equals to A,” dialectical reason requires a premise
that “A equals not only A but also not-A.” As Bookchin points out, “[d]‌ialectical
reason grasps not only how an entity is organized at a particular moment but
how it is organized to go beyond that level of development and become other
than what it is, even as it retains its identity” (1996a: 8). In this sense, Bookchin
emphasizes the inevitability of the change of nature without losing its identity.
However, the conventional reason adopted by conventional ecology movements
are mostly labelled as simply what Blake calls it “meddlesome” (Bookchin,
1996a: 3) and filled with “what-ifs,” as in Diderot’s Jacques the Fatalist:
A hypothetical “if” that floats in isolation, lacking roots in a developmental con-
tinuum, is nonsensical. As Denis Diderot’s delightful character Jacques, in the pica-
resque dialogue Jacques le Fataliste, exclaimed when his master peppered him with
random if questions: “If, if, if … if the sea boiled, there would be a lot of cooked fish!”
(Bookchin, 1996a: 27–28).

To put it simply, Bookchin, as a radical ecologist, unlike mainstream

environmentalists that condemn the cosmological change with a shallow eco-
logical perspective, supports the notion of the evolutionary transformation of
nature. It is cumulative and epistemological, which contributes to the historical
progress. It cannot be explained with a meaningless what-if question because
it is causal as well as antithetic. This is a natural process in which the past is
related to now and then to the future. That’s why “what-if” is a nonsensical
determinist statement considering social ecology’s assumption that natural
realm is a development toward complexity.
Therefore, to re-read social ecology backwards, the planet earth is going
to come to a horrific end unless oppressive authority is replaced with indi-
vidual autonomy, hierarchy is demolished by interdependency of all beings,
ecotechnology is preferred to capitalist and destructive technology, collabora-
tion is valued over domination, dualism is overcome by holistic and organic
view of universe, centralized wild corporatocracy is ceased to govern world’s
future instead of ecocommunities living in bioregions, and finally the defence
economy aiming at nuclear armament is abandoned in favour of a productive
agricultural economy based on local ecocommunities. Though the solutions
suggested by social ecology seem utopian, Bookchin insists that it is necessary
if human beings want to keep surviving as a harmonious species in nature. In
his Remaking Society, he invites humans to make their choice or be prepared
to face the strikingly negative consequences. According to Bookchin, ecology
 Radical Ecology Movement 67

offers two sharp alternatives for humanity at this phase: “Either we will turn
to seemingly ‘utopian’ solutions based on decentralization, a new equilibrium
with nature, and the harmonization of social relations,” or else, “we face the
very real subversion of the material and natural basis for human life on the
planet” (1990: 185).