Another Politics

Adapted from Minding Nature Vol. 4. No. 3 (December 2011)

Available at www.humansandnature.org

Natural systems have functional limits; human actions have systemic consequences. What part of that don’t we understand?

Not much, actually. In truth, most human beings most of the time do understand this in a multiplicity of ways—cognitively, scientifically, experientially, ethically, and emotionally. They do so not only because of the advance of science, literacy, and education, but also because it is knowledge deeply ingrained in ordinary human experience itself, our fundamental encounter with the world as metabolic creatures. Anthropological studies of hunting and gathering cultures confirm the power of such knowledge and the essential humanity of ways of life that have been rooted in it.

Our phenomenological understanding of natural limits and the human consequences of ignoring them has been enlarged and enhanced in our time by a growing body of research and practice in ecological restoration and in the interdisciplinary field of conservation biology. Dangerous transformations in atmospheric, ocean, and polar and glacial systems have spurred massive efforts to increase our understanding of what is causing the (mainly deleterious and disruptive) changes, much as the AIDS pandemic prompted over the course of three decades a significant advance in the scientific understanding of the human immune system. Other symptoms of planetary illness have also given impetus to the search for an understanding of systemic effects on a large scale; such symptoms include alarming rates of biodiversity loss, the build-up of environmental toxins and chemicals with unknown long-term effects, and the depletion or pollution of fresh water sources.

Maybe the metaphors of the human immune system writ large and a kind of ecological acquired immune deficiency syndrome suggest some useful lines of thought. The planetary systems that support life in its most fundamental physical, chemical, and organic manifestations have boundaries and thresholds. And so do the biological and social systems that support flourishing, abundant, healthy life, with its capacity for evolutionary adaptation, its biotic diversity, its resilience.

What’s more, human beings do not stand apart from these systems of life by any means. We fully partake of, and depend upon, the systemic preconditions of life for our own survival. Yes. But, short of our very survival being at stake, a less noticed fact is that we also depend upon the systemic preconditions of flourishing life for our own humanity. What part of that don’t we understand?

Well, quite a lot, actually. We think of the human realm as set apart from the rest of the world as the only locus of meaning and value. Planetary systems, even when they are scientifically well understood, are seen as things we live off of, not as places we live within. The cultural concepts available to individuals in contemporary America to define a self-identity are growing increasingly thin and impoverished. People with a consumer’s sense of relationship and a tourist’s sense of place cannot grasp the notion that our humanity depends on healthy natural and social systems or that we have responsibility for preserving them. Aren’t most of us consumers and tourists now?

But these considerations do not get to the root of the problem for they are ideological and attitudinal. I think that the real root of our problem is properly called “political” although like our common parlance for expressing self-identity, our current language for talking about politics is deeply impoverished. Still, the problem is political in the following, fundamental sense: the problem of politics is not to seek power, but to resist it; and not to deny vulnerability and dependency, but to embrace them creatively. The problem of politics is to resist the kind of power and domination that actually render its agents impotent and enthralled. The problem of politics is to accept restraints on behalf of communal agency and relational freedom. Democratic politics says no to pride, anthropocentric narcissism, and desire, and says yes to the accommodation of natural limits in ways that are just and promote the beauty, health, and integrity of the political community.

In this formulation, I deliberately invoke the land ethic and appropriate it in the cause of what I am here calling democratic politics as the solution to the great challenge of our time. Leopold wanted human beings to think of themselves as, and to act as though they were, “plain citizens of the biotic community.” He used this democratic trope, with its classical pedigree and protestant resonance, to good effect. To be a citizen in fact is to be a plain citizen. And to be a citizen is to be just. Democracy calls for just, plain citizens. Aristotle well understood, I believe, this notion when he said that human beings were “political animals” (zöon politicon). By this he meant that humans could—and must—live in political communities if they are to live in accordance with their nature. And he defined politics in terms of creating a culture and social organization of individuals with a special kind of self-identity (citizenship), ruling themselves in common with equitable and just laws (isonomia), and seeking to achieve the human good together and the common good for all (politia or res publica). Citizenship for Aristotle was active, not passive. It consisted of ruling and being ruled in turn.

When viewed from this vantage point, it is clear that what we now call “politics” and “democracy” in the United States is quite far removed from structures and value systems that can be expected to lead toward creative accommodation and governance that is just in its trusteeship over the good of the human and the biotic community. Our current politics cannot be the crucible for the reconciliation of humans and natural systems nor of accommodation to the functional limits of those systems because it offers no counterpoint to the broader ethos and worldview of technological mastery of nature. What we call politics today is not a bridle on the orientation of mastery but a handmaiden or extension of that orientation. And this politics cannot really be a democracy in the normative sense because its values are the values of competition and mastery, not the values of citizenship and ruling and being ruled in turn. I say this despite the trappings we do have of democratic procedure, such as free and fair (i.e., purchased at exceedingly great expense and gerrymandered) elections.

What would another politics look like, and can one be devised that will govern us both for living once more within the safe operating margins of planetary systems and for controlling the consequences of our actions?

Here is a sketch of two possible answers, two available modes of another democratic politics in an Anthropocene age. The first involves a reorientation of our culture and worldview; a transformation of our “soul” as a political community, turning us from being a people of competitive consumption into a people of sustainable ecological responsibility, from “too big to fail” to “small is beautiful” (remember that?). 

The second kind of alternative democratic politics is about the institutionalization and empowerment of participatory and deliberative governance within a diverse and pluralistic society and culture, a “panarchy” as the Resilience Alliance scientists call it. This is the kind of democratic governance that grows directly out of what Hannah Arendt called “action in concert with others, shaped by debate and deliberation.”

There are some important similarities between these two types of democratic politics. They are both committed to the strategy of creating counter-publics in order to bring about change and to challenge the hegemony of mainstream culture and politics. They often share strategy and tactics and mix in real-world political activism and large-scale protest movements. I am not sure how useful this distinction is for understanding the popular protests that have taken place in many Muslim countries during the past year or recently in Russia. But they do seem to be definite elements of the Occupy movement here in the United States. Another politics does not have to supplant mainstream politics, it just needs to set cultural and social forces in motion that will alter perceptions and change the parameters of what is considered realistic in elite policy circles.

However, there are important differences as well. Worldview democracy strives to bring into being and to express deep cultural and ethical commitments. It offers not just a new direction of governance but a new form of life, a new understanding of human well-being, and a new story concerning nature, its laws, and its meanings. If this is a vision that leaders actually try to instill in the masses of people and if they can do so, then democratic change can bubble up in either the form of direct participatory democracy or via electoral mechanisms of representative democracy. If this cultural transformation of hearts and minds does not proceed well, however, leaders will be tempted to assume interpretative and expressive authority for themselves. They will become the guardians of the truths and values of the worldview and the agents of its enactment in the world. Democratic citizenship will become an unnecessary step in the process. The temptation to become a transformational leader/prophet in this more authoritarian sense is particularly strong when circumstances make one pessimistic about the willingness or the capacity of the masses to internalize new values and support change. A recent PEW survey found that 59 percent of Americans believed in global warming in 2010, compared with 79 percent in 2006.

The dilemma of deliberative democracy is rather different. It is designed to thrive on pluralism of belief and difference of opinion. But it must inculcate at lease a minimal set of value commitments to the procedures of “debate and deliberation.” Realism, reason, and integrity preserving compromise (the genius of mediation and getting to yes) are its creed. Toleration and diversity are its life-blood. Deliberative democratic governance has been shown to function well on a medium to small scale, in population units of 100,000 or less, and when its political relationships are closely embedded in non-political social or civic relationships within the community. Under these conditions, it is alert to natural, social, and historical place. It can be attentive to ecological resiliency and social justice at the same time.

On the other hand, deliberative democracy is extremely vulnerable to forces that disrupt the fabric of communities, are socially divisive, undermine trust, and drive people to close ranks into postures of defensive resentment. The global and domestic economic dislocations of the past twenty years, the sharply rising inequality in the distribution of wealth and income, the churning of the job market, and the marginalization of those without marketable skills are some of the many factors that tatter civic society, privatize self-consciousness, and undermine the possibility of the kind of citizenship that deliberative democracy in its proper form and function requires. Are these factors temporary aberrations, or are they becoming the normal institutionalized patterns of global capitalism? If they are, then we have a perfect democratic storm: humanity is exceeding the safe operating margins of planetary systems at precisely the historical moment when the political economy of the world makes it least likely that democratic governance, especially deliberative democratic governance, will be able to respond.

No one, I think—least of all me—has through-going answers to this dilemma. But many wise and dedicated people are tackling it one step and one bite at a time.

Can we find—or fashion—another economics and another politics? Just as it is imperative to become responsible, as Hans Jonas teaches us, so too it is imperative to sustain hope.