By the way, just finished the Snow Leopard.  Good read!

-----Original Message-----
From: Discussion forum for environmental ethics.
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of David Orton
Sent: Monday, July 26, 2004 9:23 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: What is a Green?

Hello fellow list members:
The posting below, to the left bio discussion list, may be of interest
dealing as it does with Deep Green political theory and why the
left/right
distinction is really inadequate conceptually to classify green parties,
being intended solely for human cultures.  My posting is in part a
response
to an article by the Canadian green analyst John Warnock, who pointed
out
that in the English speaking world the Canadian Green Party of Canada,
which polled over 4 percent in the recent federal election, was the
"most
right wing" of Green parties.

Best, David Orton

******

The topic - "What is a Green?" - bears directly upon what should the
overall character of parties which call themselves Green, and advocate,
as
does the Canadian party, that the public should embrace them as a way
forward out of the Earth-threatening ecological crisis.

This posting is also meant as a contribution to a discussion of a newly
emerged "green" political force in Canada - represented in a federal
Green
Party, which polled over 4 percent of the votes cast - as to what is the
social base of the party and what policies should it be putting forth?
In
particular, I try to deal with the question raised by Bahro and Bateman
in
the quotations below, as to what should be the attitude of Greens
towards
conservatives who are sympathetic to ecological considerations? If one
accepts participating in electoral politics - which is another
discussion
in itself, then what the Canadian federal Green Party accomplished was
quite an achievement - that is, running candidates in all the federal
ridings; polling over 4 percent of the recorded votes cast; and
qualifying
for the federal electoral subsidy of $1.75 for every vote it won, each
year
until the next election is called. The federal Green Party has clearly
for
the first time become part of the federal political landscape in Canada.
The current leadership of the party and party activists must be given
credit for this achievement. Although, clearly, the emergence of the
federal party reflects a developing green consciousness and base in
Canadian society, to which many environmental and other non-party green
activists have long contributed.

I have copied out some quotations below, which I found very helpful
conceptually for myself, and I think others will find the same. The
quotes
are meant to illustrate various aspects of how I think left bios might
look
at the question raised by John Warnock.

I have some sympathy for John's analysis, considering myself as I do as
a
leftist, but it is clear to me by this article that John is oblivious
(or
disregards) the contribution of deep ecology to a deeper green
awareness.
He does not mention that the federal Green Party says it endorses deep
ecology in its Election Platform, even if much of the hurriedly thrown
together platform for the recent federal election goes against this
endorsement in practice and sucks up, in quite a disgusting manner, to a
corporate conservatism. For Warnock, ecology is an "add-on" to a general
leftism, which means he remains human-centered in basic orientation.
(Joan
Russow, the former leader of the Green Party, who defected to the NDP
and
became an attack dog for them against the Green Party, had a similar
consciousness.)

So Warnock does not yet get it, that what it means to be a dark or
deeper
Green, is the primacy of ecocentric consciousness, and that social
justice,
while very important, is secondary to such a consciousness. The quote by
which he closes his article, about history judging the Greens "by
whether
they stand with the world's poor" shows this. His viewpoint is one of
"human-welfare ecology", as it is called in one of the quotes below from
Judith McKenzie. One thinks of why this is not a "Green" quote, when
remembering the Dedication for the 1993 book _Clearcut: The Tragedy of
Industrial Forestry_, put out by The Foundation for Deep Ecology. This
book, with its pictures and text about clearcuts throughout North
America,
has armed countless opponents of industrial forestry. The book's
Dedication
has always moved me and put our own human environmental and social
struggles in a larger Earth context:
"This book is in memory of the plantlife, birds, insects, animals, and
indigenous cultures that have been driven to extinction by the greed and
delusion of human arrogance. All of us in the Industrial Growth Society
must take the responsibility for this condition and make it our duty to
halt the continuation of economic and social structures that perpetuate
this 'death of birth.'"

SOME BASIC QUESTIONS ABOUT GREEN ELECTORALISM:

- I have retained some, for me, rather fundamental questions about the
alleged green parliamentary road forward, which prevent me taking out a
party membership. Those who have fervently embraced green parties will
not
like it, but is a political party playing by rules set up to favour an
industrial capitalist status quo, within what is perhaps misleadingly
called or framed as "liberal democracy", doomed to eventual absorption
and
neutralization? (As Judith McKenzie, for example, points out in her
recent
book, _Environmental Politics in Canada_, "Canada's constitution is
silent
on the rights of non-human forms of life." p.22)

- Does green party activity become a deceit perpetrated against those
living in liberal democracies, because of the very rules of conduct set
up
for the participants? In such "democracies", McKenzie says, the "liberal
democratic tradition" encompasses: "anthropocentrism or domination over
nature, individual self interest and competitive lifestyle, capitalism
and
the primacy of science and technology, representative democracy, the
nation
state and centralization." (p. 17)  To this McKenzie counterposes
Ecologism/Deep Ecology/Ecocentrism: "ecocentrism (harmony with nature),
communalism/co-operative lifestyle, sustainability, grass-roots/direct
democracy, bioregions and decentralization." (p. 17) The historical
record
so far for green parties, and those parties of the Left which have
participated in parliamentary politics, is one of absorption to
industrial
capitalism and liberal democracy.

- How does one reconcile the "oversell" or exaggeration of electoral
politics, well shown by the leadership of the federal Green Party in the
last election, with speaking necessary ecological truths about the end
of
industrial society as we know it? The truth for example, that material
life, from a consumption of industrial consumer goods point of view,
will
be much worse in the future?

- If green parties claim to be a political arm of the green and
environmental movements, why is it, for example in Canada, that this is
just a verbal claim with no discussion of actual content?

- Why do green party members seem to believe that what has happened to
other green parties, e.g. the actual record of the German Green Party,
has
no seeming relevance for Canada and is basically ignored in policy
discussions?

- Why are long time green party activists often so intolerant and
dismissive of any criticism which call into question party activities?

I am a movement Green, never having been a party-member Green. I voted
for
the federal Green Party in the recent election and have been interested
for
many years in what would be the appropriate political vehicle for an
embryonic green movement in Canada. My problem, as other long suffering
left bios know, is that I feel that the history of social democratic and
green parties is one of ultimate absorption to the industrial status
quo.
Rudolf Bahro, one of our heroes (at least mine), showed this in the
early
80s with his resignation from the German Green Party.


SELECTED QUOTATIONS AND COMMENTS (The quotations below have been
gathered
to help in further considering the question "What is a Green?". Each is
followed by some comments by myself.)


"In its essence eco-politics is neither Left-radical nor
radical-liberal.
It cuts across all the traditional 'isms' of bourgeois society, from
Left
to Right...it would fit a radical conservatism best..."  Rudolf Bahro,
Avoiding Social & Ecological Disaster, 1994, pp. 164-165.

- Re Bahro. I think this quote needs to be taken into our consciousness.
Bahro made a similar point to me in a letter two years before his death
by
cancer, where he said that "I agree with the essential points" of the
concept of left biocentrism. Note the similar point in this quote from
the
Dec. 20, 1995 letter:
"The theory that the dynamics of capital and world preservation are
incompatible, and that without social justice throughout the world there
will be no solution to the ecological crisis, is not really left but
simply
true. Besides, there exists also a conservative anti-capitalism."

I have often thought about what Bahro is saying, about what a "radical
conservatism" or a "conservative anti-capitalism" means for a left bio
and
Green politics. A green political formation will therefore theoretically
draw from conservatives who truly want to "conserve" the natural world,
but
this does not mean the resolution of the ecological question is possible
within industrial capitalist society. For Bahro, it clearly was not. He
was
a founding member of the West German 'Die Grunen' and in 1980 was
elected
to the Federal Executive. For him, green politics was about capturing
people's consciousness, not accumulating votes. By 1985 he had resigned
from the Party. His resignation statement noted how the Greens did not
want
to get out of the industrial system: "Instead of spreading consciousness
they are obscuring it all along the line."  Bahro accused the Party of
merely cleaning the teeth of the industrial dragon.

The signals the federal Green Party is sending through their Platform
material, is that we can have "more" of everything - "increase
productivity
in the Canadian economy" and look after the environment. When the
national
business newspaper, the Globe and Mail, editorially speaks favourably of
the Green Party, as it did in the past federal election, it means they
correctly read the reassuring corporate signals being sent out.


        "I am a conservative. This is why I deeply resent the
neo-conservatives
who are not conservatives at all. They are the opposite: radicals who
are
destroying cherished institutions and wrecking havoc on our human
heritage
as well as our natural heritage. I do not consider destroyers to be
conservative."  Robert Bateman, wildlife artist, Comment: "I am a
conservative, I conserve", Globe and Mail, December 13, 2003.

- Re Bateman. His comment shows that there is a "Green" constituency
among
some conservatives in Canada. There are not only "Red" Tories, but there
are "Green" Tories as well. David Orchard had about one third of the old
Progressive Conservative Party mobilized behind him for an anti-free
trade,
pro-environmental platform, which was at least implicitly anti-economic
growth.


        "Until the ecology movement emerged, most large movements arose
from
social problems. In earlier epochs, in the industrial societies, most
social problems could be (at least partly) solved through economic
growth.
But with the emergence of the ecology movement, the situation has
changed
completely. Not only must the cake not grow, it must shrink....For the
first time in history, a social movement 'promises' a lower standard of
living."  Saral Sarkar, Eco-socialism or Eco-capitalism?, 1999, pp.
226-227.

- Re Saral Sarkar. If a green political party does not promise a lower
material standard of living, it is practising electoral deception, if
one
accepts Sarkar's point here, as I do. I do not, however, accept that the
choice is between eco-capitalism or eco-socialism. The shape of the
future
economic formation for an ecocentric sustainable society is yet to be
determined.


        "Most dark greens believe that there is an inherent
contradiction between
capitalism and a greener society. There is no doubt that large numbers
of
moderate environmentalists are sympathetic to this view. And many other
moderate environmentalists, though supporting the basic premises of
capitalism and the free market, believe that the state should regulate
more, enforce better, and be more prescriptive in addressing some
environmental problems. The natural result of a capitalist economic
system
has been the growth of a consumer culture."  Judith McKenzie,
Environmental
Politics in Canada, 2002, p. 20.

        "Whereas light greens support sustainable development, dark
greens see the
term as simply a buzz phrase that has been appropriated by liberals and
others espousing an anthropocentric view of nature and the environment.
The
sustainable society, as dark greens view it, calls for a retreat from
capitalism, economic growth, non-green technology and the consumer
society.
Before the sustainable society can be realized, fundamental changes in
behaviour and values will be necessary, which will require considerable
revision to our liberal democratic traditions."  Judith McKenzie,
Environmental politics in Canada, p. 29.

        "In the literature that emphasizes the political nature of green
theory,
there are two broad schools of thought. On the one hand, there are
political purists who believe that contemporary political discourse
continues to be best understood through the traditional left-right
spectrum. These theorists argue that green values can simply be added or
grafted to each of the 'big three' 'isms' - conservatism, liberalism,
and
social democracy - making them richer and more relevant to modern
political
times. In this world view, green values are thought of as new variables
to
be added to the collection of principles, ideals, and values that
characterize Canada's liberal democratic system. From this perspective,
green ideals do NOT challenge the fundamental tenets of liberal
democracies
in North America and elsewhere....This is the mainstream approach to
environmentalism, or what Arne Naess referred to as SHALLOW ECOLOGY, in
which the central objective is to maintain the status quo, try to be
more
environmentally friendly, and work for the health and affluence of human
beings. Others have described this current of environmental thought as
human welfare ecology because its central focus and beneficiary is
humankind. Furthermore, they are optimistic about the ability of
individuals to find technological solutions to environmental problems.

"For other green theorists, the values and political ideals implicit in
green political theory constitute a radical departure from the ideals of
our liberal democratic system. Most of the disagreement revolves around
the
principles of liberalism and not the ideals of democracy; therefore it
is
argued that the need exists for an entirely new 'ideological axis' that
has
a green or ecocentric world view at one pole and a non-green or
anthropocentric view of the world at the opposite pole. In other words,
rather than a liberal democratic model, dark greens propose a green
democratic model. This would replace the current liberal democratic
regime
- also referred to by dark greens as an anthropocentric or grey world
view....

"This new spectrum has little in common with the traditional left-right
categorization of life in the civil society. Naess refers to this vision
of
a green world view as DEEP ECOLOGY because it 'concerns itself with
whole-system values and with the well-being of people in the poorer and
developing countries.' By whole-system, he is including the welfare of
humans, animals, and other organisms in the environment. Clearly, this
is a
much broader spectrum than the shallow ecology current within green
political thought....Two broad visions of green thought -
environmentalism
as ideals and beliefs that can be accommodated within the traditional
liberal democratic tradition and environmentalism as new ideology,
commonly
referred to in the literature as ecologism, ecocentrism, or deep
ecology.
These visions are an important theoretical starting point because they
have
guided the policies and strategies of domestic green groups and
organizations, liberal democratic environmental policy regimes, green
political parties, as well as international organizations, including the
World Bank, the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, and the
International Monetary Fund."  Judith McKenzie, pp. 13-17.

Re Judith McKenzie. The above quotations from her book _Environmental
Politics in Canada_ are self explanatory. She describes herself as in
the
liberal democratic tradition, but what is so exciting for me is that, in
her book, she shows how a deep ecology consciousness, also called
ecocentrism or ecologism, is the heart of a deep or dark Green
democracy,
in opposition to shallow or light Green thinking which situates itself
within liberal democracy and a continuation of industrial capitalist
society. I really recommend chapter one of her book, which is called
"Green
Political Theory."

David



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