Deep Ecology Movements

Ecological Self

Deep ecology's purpose is to make human minds fit for the biosphere. Deep ecology sees the environmental crisis as a symptom of an anthropocentric delusion that imagines the world to be merely a resource for human use. Its aim is transformational, the creation of a new worldview, through ecological self-realization, a notion that owes much to Naess's work on the philosophies of Baruch Spinoza and especially Mahatma Gandhi's Hindu Vedanta.

Ecological self-realization is a three-step process by which one gains self-identity with nature; it is the pedagogical framework of deep ecology. Each step involves a transformation of self-consciousness, which may be linked, metaphorically, to human maturation. Step 1 is located in childhood, when the individual self recognizes its personal autonomy and individuality, including the will to contradict. Step 2 is adolescence, when this self redefines itself in terms of a place in a social group such as family, peer group, nation, and eventually, it is hoped, the whole of humanity. In this process, the “I-self” becomes subsumed within a larger “we-self.” This is the intuition that underpins anthropocentric ecosocialism and the doctrines of shallow ecology. Step 3, maturity, is recognition of the ecological self, where the self is redefined in terms of a role and a place within the community of all life. As Gandhi advises, all living beings are members one of another. Elsewhere, researchers discuss “egoistic” values that predispose people to protect environmental attributes that affect them personally, “altruistic” values that express concern in terms of the welfare of human society, and “biospheric” values that concern the welfare of the whole biosphere and all life, a position often criticized as antihuman or occult. Thus, ecological self-realization strives to shift the focus of the self from “ego” to “eco” and toward treating nature with the same consideration that is traditionally limited to one's own body or immediate family. Each step diminishes the amount of the universe that is external to the s/Self. Each step also contains the realization that a human is not alone or self-sufficient and that, ultimately, humans are merely a recent addition to a much larger, respectably ancient, organic wholeness, often called “Gaia.” Here, “Earth systems science” also demonstrates that human survival depends on a myriad other creatures, both macroscopic and microscopic, some of which have long played a more important role in the global environment.

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