Great Throughts Treasury

"What defines social ecology as social is its recognition of the often-overlooked fact that nearly all our present ecological problems arise from deep-seated social problems. Conversely, our present ecological problems cannot be clearly understood, much less resolved, without resolutely dealing with problems within society. To make this point more concrete; economic, ethnic, cultural, and gender conflicts, among many others, lie at the core of the most serious ecological dislocations we face today ? apart, to be sure, from those that are produced by natural catastrophes. If this approach seems a bit too sociological for those environmentalists who identify the primary ecological problem as being the preservation of wildlife or wilderness, or more broadly as attending to ?Gaia? to achieve planetary ?oneness,? they might wish to consider certain recent developments. The massive oil spill by an Exxon tanker at Prince William Sound, the extensive deforestation of redwood trees by the Maxxam Corporation, and the proposed James Bay hydroelectric project that would flood vast forested areas of northern Quebec, to cite only a few problems, are sobering reminders that the real battleground on which the ecological future of the planet will be decided is clearly a social one."

"What I find most worth emphasizing in Proudhon is his highly communal notion of confederalism. He was at his best, allowing for certain reservations, when he declared that ?the federal system is the contrary of hierarchy or administrative and governmental centralization?; that the ?essence? of federal contracts is ?always to reserve more powers of the citizen than for the state, and for municipal and provincial authorities than for the central power?; that ?the central power? must be ?imperceptibly subordinated it... to the representatives of departments or provinces, provincial authority to the delegates of townships, and municipal authority to its inhabitants."

"Without a democratically formulated and approved institutional framework whose members and leaders can be held accountable, clearly articulated standards of responsibility cease to exist."

"Without changing the most molecular relationships in society ? notably, those between men and women, adults and children, whites and other ethnic groups, heterosexuals and gays (the list, in fact, is considerable) ? society will be riddled by domination even in a socialistic 'classless' and 'non-exploitative' form. It would be infused by hierarchy even as it celebrated the dubious virtues of 'people's democracies,' 'socialism' and the 'public ownership' of 'natural resources,' And as long as hierarchy persists, as long as domination organizes humanity around a system of elites, the project of dominating nature will continue to exist and inevitably lead our planet to ecological extinction."

"You see something very important is happening. Personality is being eaten out, and with that the idealism that always motivated an anarchist movement?the belief in something, the ideal that there is something worth fighting for. I?m much more interested in developing human character in this society. And I?m much more interested in the social conditions that foster commitment to ideals, a sense of solidarity, purposefulness, steadfastness, responsibility?"