------ Pag(' 4 RAIN Apnl 1980 underpins our ecological crisis. Only insofar as a counterculture, an alternate technology or anti-nuke movement rests on the nonhierarchical sensibilities and structures that are most evident in the truly radical tendencies in feminism can the ecology movement realize its rich potential for basic changes in our prevailing antiecological society and its values. Only insofar as the ecology movement con sciolls ly cultivates an anti-hierarchical and a non-domineering sensibility, structure, and strategy for social change can it retain its very identity as the voice for a new balance between humanity and nature and its goal for a truly ('cological society. ~ This identity and this goal is now faced with serious erosion. Ecology is now fashionable, indeed, faddish-and with this sleazy popularity has emerged a new type of environmentalist hype. From an outlook and movement that at least held the promise of challenging hierarchy and domination have emerged a form of envIro nmentalism that is based more on tinkering with existing institutions, social relations, technologies, and values than on changing thcm. I use the word " environmentalism" to contrast it with ecology, specifically with social ecology. Where social ecology, in my view, seeks to eliminate the concept of the domination of nature by humanity by eliminating the domination of human by human, environmentalism reflects an "instrumentalist" or technical sensibility in which nature is viewed merely as a passive habItat, an agglomeration of external objects and forces, that must be made more " serviceable" for human use, irrespective of what these uses may be. Environmentalism, in fact, is merely environmental engineer!ng. It does not bring into question the underlying notions of the present suciety, notably that man must dominate nature. On the contrary, it seeks to facilitate that domination by developing techniques for diminishing the hazards caused by domination. The very notions of hierarchy and domination are obscured by a technical emphasis on "alternative" power sources, structural designs for " conserving" energy, "simple" lifestyles in the name of "limits to growth" that now represent an enormous growth industry in its own rightand, of course, a mushrooming of " ecology" -oriented candidates for political office and " ecology"-oriented parties that are designed not only to engineer nature but also public opinion into an accommodating relationship with the prevailing socil'ty. Nathan Glazer's " ecologIcal" 24-square-mile solar satellite, O'Neill's "ecological" spaceships, and the DOE's giant "ecological" windmills, to cite the more blatant examples of this environmentalistie mentality, are no more " ecological" than nuclear power plants or agribusiness. If anything, their " ecological" pretensions are all the more dangerous because they are more deceptive and disorienting to the general public. The hoopla about a new " Earth Day" or future "Sun Days" or " Wind Days," like the pious rhetoric of fasttalking solar contractors and patent-hungry "ecological" inventors, conceal the all-important fact that solar energy, wind power, organic agriculture, holistic health, and "voluntary simplicity" will alter very little in our grotesque imbalance with nature if they leave the patriarchal family, the multinational corporation, the bureaucratic and centralized political structure, the property system, and the prevailing technocratic rationality untouched. Solar power, wind power, methane, and geothermal power are merely power insofar as the devices for using them are needl e 5~l y complex, bureaucratically controlled, corporately owned or institutionally centralized. Admittedly, they are less dangerous to the physical heolth of human beings than power derived from nuclear and fossil fuels, but they are clearly dangerous to the spiritual, morol and social health of humanity if they are treated merely as techn iq ues that do not involve new relations between people and nature and within society itself. The designer, the bureaucrat, the corporate executive, and the political careerist do not introduce anything new or ecological in society or in our sensibilities toward nature and people because they adopt "soft energy paths;" like all "technotwits" (to use Amory Lovins' description of himself in a personal conversation 'with me), they merely cushion or conceal the dangers to the biosphere and to human life by placing ecological technologies in a straitjacket of hierarchical values rather than by challenging the values and the institutions they represent. By the same token, even decentralization becomes meaningless if it denotes logistical advantages of supply and recycling rather than human scale. If our goal in decentralizing society (or, as the "ecology"-oriented politicians like [0 put it, striking a "balance" between "decentralization" and " centralIzation" ) is intended to acquire " fresh food" or to "recycle wastes" easily or to reduce "transportation costs" or to foster "more" popular conrrol (not, be it noted, complete popular control) over social life, decentralization too is divested of its rich ecological and libertarian meaning as a network of free, naturally balanced communities based on direct face-to-face democracy and fully acnlalized selves who can really engage in the self-management and self- activity so vital for the achievement of an ecological society. Like alternate technology, decentralization is reduced to a mere technical strategem for concealing hierarchy and domination. The " ecological" vision of " muniei"pal control of power," " nationalization of industry," not to speak of vague terms like .'economic democracy," may seemmgly restrict utilities and corporations, but leaves lhl'ir overall control of society largely unchallenged. Indeed, even a nationalized corporate structure remains a bureaucratic and hierarchical one. As an individual who has been deeply involved in ecological issues for decades, I am trying to alert well-intentioned eeologicall¥ onented people to a profoundly seTious problem in our movement. To put my concerns in the most direct form possible: I am disturbed by a widespread technocratic mentality and political opportunism that threatens to replace social ecology by a neW form of social engineering. For a time it seemed that the ecology movement might well fulfill its libertanan potential as a movement for a nonhierarchical society. Reinforced by the most advanced tendenaes in the feminist, gay, community and SOCially radital movements, it •
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