A problematic synthesis

"Revolutionary Ecology" is an article by Judi Bari, a well known left-wing activist and environmentalist. The article is also available free on-line on the Judi Bari website, maintained by her supporters after Bari's death in 1997.

The article is an attempt to combine deep ecology with left-wing political positions on social issues. Bari seems to have been broadly anarchist, and she also expresses support for ecofeminism in the article. Since deep ecology is often regarded as right-wing or even fascist, especially after social ecologist and anarchist Murray Bookchin criticized it, any attempt to synthesize deep ecology with leftism is bound to be controversial.

Personally, I found the article extremely unconvincing. It seems that Bari is simply projecting her own (human) philosophy on nature. Thus, she says that biocentrism is incompatible with patriarchy. But many animals are "patriarchal". Others, of course, are "matriarchal". Bari believes that values regarded as feminine, such as being nurturing, would lead humans to behave in a non-oppressive way towards animals, plantlife and nature. Perhaps, but a patriarchal society might also behave in a non-oppressive way towards animals or plants. Imagine a community of medieval, Catholic peasants. Or a Russian monastery. Or a patriarchal clan of hunters or pastoralists. In order to survive, such patriarchal societies would have to avoid destroying their living environment. Conversely, while it's natural for women to be nurturing to their children, it's not natural in the same way for a human female to nurture, say, trees or mountain lions.

But my main problem with "Revolutionary Ecology" is Judi Bari's dismissal of modern science as patriarchal, reductionist and oppressive. If modern science is patriarchal, does this mean that we should reject modern technology? Most inventors, until fairly recently, where "dead White males". So what? Their inventions can be used by women or people of colour, as well. What about the modern science of ecology? Premodern peoples did *not* necessarily have a better grasp of ecology, as detailed in Jared Diamond's book "Collapse". Even societies who wanted to live in balance with nature in order to survive sometimes made ecologically disastrous decisions, simply for lack of knowledge. For instance, while medieval peasants in Norway didn't destroy their living environment, Norwegian settlers on Iceland did - because they had no idea that the ecology of the place was vastly different. This took a lot of trial and error to realize, in other words "reductionist" methods. Modern ecology, obviously, makes the whole thing much simpler! Another example are Palaeolithic hunters, who exterminated most large land mammals in North America, Eurasia and Australia. They obviously had no idea that mammal populations, if hunted beyond a certain threshold, quite simply collapse.

Perhaps Bari would have argued that ecology is "holistic" rather than "reductionist". I disagree. Ecology is just as "reductionist" as any other science. Bari mentions some hypothetical example of ancient wise women knowing that placing a fish among the corn makes the corn grow better. But this knowledge (provided it is real knowledge, rather than a silly superstition) can only be gained by a process of trial and error, in which the question is indeed "reduced" to whether a certain kind of fish does make a certain kind of corn grow better. If the knowledge is real, it hasn't come about through a nebulous process of "holistic" flim flam. Bari is confusing two different things: reductionism as a scientific method, and reductionism as a philosophy about the world in general and humans in particular. Reductionism as a scientific method is often necessary. Reductionism as a philosophy about the human predicament is something else again. Just witness the misogynist ravings of the sociobiology faithful, dressed up as "science". But the one doesn't necessarily follow from the other.

Can deep ecology and leftism be synthesized? Perhaps they can. However, it seems that such a synthesis will remain forever problematic.