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Which Way for the Ecology Movement? Essays
In the essays that make up this book, Murray Bookchin calls for a critical social standpoint that transcends both "biocentrism" and "ecocentrism." A call for new politics and ethics of complementarity, in which people, fighting for a free, nonhierarchical, and cooperative society, begin to play a creative role in natural evolution. Bookchin attacks the misanthropic notion that the environmental crisis is caused mainly by overpopulation or humanity's genetic makeup.
He resolutely points to social causes—patriarchy, racism, and a capitalistic "grow or die" economy—as some of the problems the environmental movement must deal with. These ideas have to be confronted by environmentally concerned readers if the ecology movement is not to destroy its own potential as a force for social change and the achievement of a truly ecological society.
Murray Bookchin's writings have profoundly influenced ecological thinking over the last forty years. Now in his 80s, he has been a life-long radical, a trade union activist in the 30s and 40s, an innovative theorist in the 60s, and a leading participant in the anti-nuclear and radical wing of the Greens in the 70s and 80s. His ideas on social ecology have been important contributions to left libertarian thinking.
He resolutely points to social causes—patriarchy, racism, and a capitalistic "grow or die" economy—as some of the problems the environmental movement must deal with. These ideas have to be confronted by environmentally concerned readers if the ecology movement is not to destroy its own potential as a force for social change and the achievement of a truly ecological society.
Murray Bookchin's writings have profoundly influenced ecological thinking over the last forty years. Now in his 80s, he has been a life-long radical, a trade union activist in the 30s and 40s, an innovative theorist in the 60s, and a leading participant in the anti-nuclear and radical wing of the Greens in the 70s and 80s. His ideas on social ecology have been important contributions to left libertarian thinking.
75 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 1994
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About the author
Murray Bookchin
122 books644 followersMurray 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, philosophy, history, and urban affairs as well as ecology. In the late 1990s he became disenchanted with the strategy of political Anarchism and founded his own libertarian socialist ideology called Communalism.
Bookchin was an anti-capitalist and vocal advocate of the decentralisation of society along ecological and democratic lines. His writings on libertarian municipalism, a theory of face-to-face, assembly democracy, had an influence on the Green movement and anti-capitalist direct action groups such as Reclaim the Streets.
Bookchin was an anti-capitalist and vocal advocate of the decentralisation of society along ecological and democratic lines. His writings on libertarian municipalism, a theory of face-to-face, assembly democracy, had an influence on the Green movement and anti-capitalist direct action groups such as Reclaim the Streets.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 7, 2012
An interesting selection of essays by Murray Bookchin published by AK Press in 1994.
Essays: "The Future of the Ecology Movement". "Will Ecology Become "the Dismal Science?". "The Population Myth". "Sociobiology or Social Ecology?". These essays mostly date form the 80s and 90s.
The first essays I enjoyed and identified with, for Bookchin's uncompromising critique of the mysticism and misanthropy sometimes evident in the ecology and environmentalist movement at the time, and still existing today. This part of the book is very effective and it seems to me that his point is very definitively made.
What is Bookchin's standpoint? He calls it "Social Ecology" and to me it seems more appealing and sensible than the more outré factions and tendencies within the environmentalism movement, with their sometimes romanticised view of the natural world. Bookchin views mankind as a part of nature and environmental problems as being social in origin, and has a more realistic view of what constitutes the concepts "wilderness" and "nature".
Beyond that, I found the last chapter, on Sociobiology or Social Ecology, hard-going, and would probably need to re-read it in order to understand it completely. Broadly, it is a critique of the philosophical roots of sociobiology and an exploration of its potential reactionary implications, and an extrapolation of Bookchin's own philosophy of social ecology.
However, factionalism on the left, and among the anarchists, is always wearying and futile. It remains for the reader to make a synthesis of these disparate trends and distil what is good and useful in the ecology movement as a whole, beyond the divisive infighting between the arcane factions of the left.
Essays: "The Future of the Ecology Movement". "Will Ecology Become "the Dismal Science?". "The Population Myth". "Sociobiology or Social Ecology?". These essays mostly date form the 80s and 90s.
The first essays I enjoyed and identified with, for Bookchin's uncompromising critique of the mysticism and misanthropy sometimes evident in the ecology and environmentalist movement at the time, and still existing today. This part of the book is very effective and it seems to me that his point is very definitively made.
What is Bookchin's standpoint? He calls it "Social Ecology" and to me it seems more appealing and sensible than the more outré factions and tendencies within the environmentalism movement, with their sometimes romanticised view of the natural world. Bookchin views mankind as a part of nature and environmental problems as being social in origin, and has a more realistic view of what constitutes the concepts "wilderness" and "nature".
Beyond that, I found the last chapter, on Sociobiology or Social Ecology, hard-going, and would probably need to re-read it in order to understand it completely. Broadly, it is a critique of the philosophical roots of sociobiology and an exploration of its potential reactionary implications, and an extrapolation of Bookchin's own philosophy of social ecology.
However, factionalism on the left, and among the anarchists, is always wearying and futile. It remains for the reader to make a synthesis of these disparate trends and distil what is good and useful in the ecology movement as a whole, beyond the divisive infighting between the arcane factions of the left.
October 5, 2016
This book contains a ruthless takedown of all tendencies in the environmental movement that are rife with mysticism, and which are ultimately deeply misanthropic. I can definitely agree with Bookchin with his rational critique of such anti-rational elements.
The essay "The Population Myth" is a complete eye opener: "The “population problem” has a Phoenix-like existence: it rises from the ashes at least every generation and sometimes every decade or so. The prophecies are usually the same namely, that human beings are populating the earth in “unprecedented numbers” and “devouring” its resources like a locust plague."
But I am still not convinced that his critique of "social biology" is quite correct. While it is evident that Murray is well informed on the subject—and doesn't degenerate into the anti-rational mysticism he criticized in previous essays—his virulent rejection of concepts like "selfish genes" for reasons that seem to ignore the simple fact that they are just that: concepts. They are mere models to help explain how life could have self-organized into complex organisms, and definitely have valid explanatory power (the analog of which—free markets—don't, because nature has no agency, while human beings do).
While it is true that the fact that simple fact that the theory of the "selfish gene" is more preeminent in the minds of the public than that of mutual aid, goes to show the values of current society; no sane biologist (at least I don't know of any) ever discounts mutual aid as a valid model when trying to understand evolution. One simply has to acknowledge that the two models are complementary, both generating tendencies that influence each other in all possible ways.
The essay "The Population Myth" is a complete eye opener: "The “population problem” has a Phoenix-like existence: it rises from the ashes at least every generation and sometimes every decade or so. The prophecies are usually the same namely, that human beings are populating the earth in “unprecedented numbers” and “devouring” its resources like a locust plague."
But I am still not convinced that his critique of "social biology" is quite correct. While it is evident that Murray is well informed on the subject—and doesn't degenerate into the anti-rational mysticism he criticized in previous essays—his virulent rejection of concepts like "selfish genes" for reasons that seem to ignore the simple fact that they are just that: concepts. They are mere models to help explain how life could have self-organized into complex organisms, and definitely have valid explanatory power (the analog of which—free markets—don't, because nature has no agency, while human beings do).
While it is true that the fact that simple fact that the theory of the "selfish gene" is more preeminent in the minds of the public than that of mutual aid, goes to show the values of current society; no sane biologist (at least I don't know of any) ever discounts mutual aid as a valid model when trying to understand evolution. One simply has to acknowledge that the two models are complementary, both generating tendencies that influence each other in all possible ways.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews