Social ecology
Encyclopedia
Social ecology is a philosophy developed by Murray Bookchin
in the 1960s.
It holds that present ecological problems are rooted in deep-seated social problems
, particularly in dominatory hierarchical (or more specifically kyriarchical) political and social systems. These have resulted in an uncritical acceptance of an overly competitive grow-or-die philosophy. It suggests that this cannot be resisted by individual action such as ethical consumerism
but must be addressed by more nuanced ethical thinking and collective activity grounded in radical democratic ideals
. The complexity of relationships between people and nature
is emphasised, along with the importance of establishing more mutualistic social structures that take account of this.
Social ecology is associated with the ideas and works of Murray Bookchin
, who had written on such matters from the 1950s until his death, and, from the 1960s, had combined these issues with revolutionary social anarchism
. His works include Post-Scarcity Anarchism
, Toward an Ecological Society, The Ecology of Freedom, and a host of others.
Social ecology locates the roots of the ecological crisis
firmly in relations of domination between people. In the framework of social ecology, "the very notion of the domination of nature by man stems from the very real domination of human by human." While the domination of nature
is seen as a product of domination within society
, this domination only reaches crisis proportions under capitalism
. In the words of Bookchin:
Beginning in 1995, Bookchin became increasingly critical of anarchism, and in 1999 took a decisive stand against anarchist ideology. He had come to recognize social ecology as a genuinely new form of libertarian socialism
, and positioned its politics firmly in the framework of a new political ideology which he called Communalism
.
Since the founding of Social Ecology its evolution has been considerable. Now it is involved in research and instruction and “Is informed by and contributes to knowledge in the social, behavioral, legal, environmental, and health sciences. Social Ecology faculty apply scientific methods to the study of a wide array of recurring social, behavioral, and environmental problems. Among issues of long-standing interest in the School are crime and justice in society, social influences on human development over the life cycle, and the effects of the physical environment on health and human behavior. While the field of ecology focuses on the relationships between organisms and their environments, social ecology is concerned with the relationships between human populations and their environments.”
Murray Bookchin
Murray Bookchin was an American libertarian socialist author, orator, and philosopher. A pioneer in the ecology movement, Bookchin was the founder of the social ecology movement within anarchist, libertarian socialist and ecological thought. He was the author of two dozen books on politics,...
in the 1960s.
It holds that present ecological problems are rooted in deep-seated social problems
Social problems
Social problems are problems and difficulties that people often face in society. These include:*crime*corruption*poverty*homelessness*hunger*disease*drug addiction*alcoholism*schizophrenia*depression*pollution...
, particularly in dominatory hierarchical (or more specifically kyriarchical) political and social systems. These have resulted in an uncritical acceptance of an overly competitive grow-or-die philosophy. It suggests that this cannot be resisted by individual action such as ethical consumerism
Ethical consumerism
Ethical consumerism is the intentional purchase of products and services that the customer considers to be made ethically. This may mean with minimal harm to or exploitation of humans, animals and/or the natural environment...
but must be addressed by more nuanced ethical thinking and collective activity grounded in radical democratic ideals
Radical democracy
Radical democracy as an ideology was articulated by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe in their book Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics, written in 1985. They argue that social movements which attempt to create social and political change need a strategy which...
. The complexity of relationships between people and nature
Nature
Nature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general...
is emphasised, along with the importance of establishing more mutualistic social structures that take account of this.
Overview
The philosophy's "social" component comes from its position that nearly all of the world's ecological problems arise from deep-seated social problems. Conversely, social ecologists maintain, present ecological problems cannot be clearly understood, much less resolved, without resolutely dealing with problems within society. They argue that apart from those produced by natural catastrophes, the most serious ecological dislocations of the 20th and 21st centuries have as their cause economic, ethnic, cultural, and gender conflicts, among many others.Social ecology is associated with the ideas and works of Murray Bookchin
Murray Bookchin
Murray Bookchin was an American libertarian socialist author, orator, and philosopher. A pioneer in the ecology movement, Bookchin was the founder of the social ecology movement within anarchist, libertarian socialist and ecological thought. He was the author of two dozen books on politics,...
, who had written on such matters from the 1950s until his death, and, from the 1960s, had combined these issues with revolutionary social anarchism
Social anarchism
Social anarchism is a term originally used in 1971 by Giovanni Baldelli as the title of his book where he discusses the organization of an ethical society from an anarchist point of view...
. His works include Post-Scarcity Anarchism
Post-Scarcity Anarchism
Post-Scarcity Anarchism is a collection of essays written by Murray Bookchin and first published in 1971 by Ramparts Press. It outlines the possible form anarchism might take under conditions of post-scarcity...
, Toward an Ecological Society, The Ecology of Freedom, and a host of others.
Social ecology locates the roots of the ecological crisis
Ecological crisis
An ecological crisis occurs when the environment of a species or a population changes in a way that destabilizes its continued survival. There are many possible causes of such crises:...
firmly in relations of domination between people. In the framework of social ecology, "the very notion of the domination of nature by man stems from the very real domination of human by human." While the domination of nature
Nature
Nature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general...
is seen as a product of domination within society
Society
A society, or a human society, is a group of people related to each other through persistent relations, or a large social grouping sharing the same geographical or virtual territory, subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations...
, this domination only reaches crisis proportions under capitalism
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
. In the words of Bookchin:
Beginning in 1995, Bookchin became increasingly critical of anarchism, and in 1999 took a decisive stand against anarchist ideology. He had come to recognize social ecology as a genuinely new form of libertarian socialism
Libertarian socialism
Libertarian socialism is a group of political philosophies that promote a non-hierarchical, non-bureaucratic, stateless society without private property in the means of production...
, and positioned its politics firmly in the framework of a new political ideology which he called Communalism
Communalism (Political Philosophy)
Communalism is a libertarian socialist political philosophy coined by author and activist Murray Bookchin as a political system to complement his environmental philosophy of social ecology....
.
Since the founding of Social Ecology its evolution has been considerable. Now it is involved in research and instruction and “Is informed by and contributes to knowledge in the social, behavioral, legal, environmental, and health sciences. Social Ecology faculty apply scientific methods to the study of a wide array of recurring social, behavioral, and environmental problems. Among issues of long-standing interest in the School are crime and justice in society, social influences on human development over the life cycle, and the effects of the physical environment on health and human behavior. While the field of ecology focuses on the relationships between organisms and their environments, social ecology is concerned with the relationships between human populations and their environments.”
Contrasting views
- Anarcho-primitivismAnarcho-primitivismAnarcho-primitivism is an anarchist critique of the origins and progress of civilization. According to anarcho-primitivism, the shift from hunter-gatherer to agricultural subsistence gave rise to social stratification, coercion, and alienation...
- Deep EcologyDeep ecologyDeep ecology is a contemporary ecological philosophy that recognizes an inherent worth of all living beings, regardless of their instrumental utility to human needs. The philosophy emphasizes the interdependence of organisms within ecosystems and that of ecosystems with each other within the...
- EcofeminismEcofeminismEcofeminism is a social and political movement which points to the existence of considerable common ground between environmentalism and feminism, with some currents linking deep ecology and feminism...
- Eco-socialismEco-socialismEco-socialism, green socialism or socialist ecology is an ideology merging aspects of Marxism, socialism, green politics, ecology and alter-globalization...
- Gaia philosophyGaia philosophyGaia philosophy is a broadly inclusive term for related concepts that living organisms on a planet will affect the nature of their environment in order to make the environment more suitable for life. This set of theories holds that all organisms on an extraterrestrial life-giving planet regulate...
- Inclusive DemocracyInclusive DemocracyInclusive Democracy is a political theory and political project that aims for direct democracy, economic democracy in a stateless, moneyless and marketless economy, self-management and ecological democracy...
- GreensGreen MovementThe Green Movement refers to a series of actions after the 2009 Iranian presidential election, in which protesters demanded the removal of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from office...
- Green syndicalismGreen syndicalismGreen syndicalism or eco-syndicalism has been used as a name for the philosophy of the green guild or sustainable trades movement.- Background :...
Related topics
- Dialectical naturalismDialectical naturalismDialectical naturalism is a term coined by American philosopher Murray Bookchin to describe the philosophical underpinnings of the political program of social ecology. Dialectical naturalism explores the complex interrelationship between social problems, and the direct consequences they have on the...
- Institute for Social EcologyInstitute for Social EcologyThe Institute for Social Ecology is an educational institution in the United States offering courses related to social ecology, an anti-capitalist and anti-authoritarian strain of ecology that is a form of libertarian socialism. It was founded in 1974 by Murray Bookchin and Daniel Chodorkoff...
- Peter KropotkinPeter KropotkinPrince Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin was a Russian zoologist, evolutionary theorist, philosopher, economist, geographer, author and one of the world's foremost anarcho-communists. Kropotkin advocated a communist society free from central government and based on voluntary associations between...
See also
- BiodiversityBiodiversityBiodiversity is the degree of variation of life forms within a given ecosystem, biome, or an entire planet. Biodiversity is a measure of the health of ecosystems. Biodiversity is in part a function of climate. In terrestrial habitats, tropical regions are typically rich whereas polar regions...
- Conservation movementConservation movementThe conservation movement, also known as nature conservation, is a political, environmental and a social movement that seeks to protect natural resources including animal, fungus and plant species as well as their habitat for the future....
- Conservation ethicConservation ethicConservation is an ethic of resource use, allocation, and protection. Its primary focus is upon maintaining the health of the natural world: its, fisheries, habitats, and biological diversity. Secondary focus is on materials conservation and energy conservation, which are seen as important to...
- Earth ScienceEarth scienceEarth science is an all-embracing term for the sciences related to the planet Earth. It is arguably a special case in planetary science, the Earth being the only known life-bearing planet. There are both reductionist and holistic approaches to Earth sciences...
- EcologyEcologyEcology is the scientific study of the relations that living organisms have with respect to each other and their natural environment. Variables of interest to ecologists include the composition, distribution, amount , number, and changing states of organisms within and among ecosystems...
- Environmental movementEnvironmental movementThe environmental movement, a term that includes the conservation and green politics, is a diverse scientific, social, and political movement for addressing environmental issues....
- Global warmingGlobal warmingGlobal warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...
- Natural environmentNatural environmentThe natural environment encompasses all living and non-living things occurring naturally on Earth or some region thereof. It is an environment that encompasses the interaction of all living species....
- NatureNatureNature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general...
- PanarchyPanarchyPanarchy is a conceptual term first coined by the Belgian botanist and economist Paul Emile de Puydt in 1860, referring to a specific form of governance that would encompass all others. The Oxford English Dictionary lists the noun as "chiefly poetic" with the meaning "a universal realm," citing...
- PolytelyPolytelyPolytely can be described as frequently, complex problem-solving situations characterized by the presence of not one, but several goals, endings.Modern societies face an increasing incidence of various complex problems...
- RecyclingRecyclingRecycling is processing used materials into new products to prevent waste of potentially useful materials, reduce the consumption of fresh raw materials, reduce energy usage, reduce air pollution and water pollution by reducing the need for "conventional" waste disposal, and lower greenhouse...
- School of Social Ecology
- SustainabilitySustainabilitySustainability is the capacity to endure. For humans, sustainability is the long-term maintenance of well being, which has environmental, economic, and social dimensions, and encompasses the concept of union, an interdependent relationship and mutual responsible position with all living and non...
External links
- The Institute for Social Ecology
- Libertarian Communist Library Murray Bookchin holdings
- Social Ecology London English study/action group exploring the philosophy of social ecology.