Oct./Nov. 1983 RAIN Page 35 than not, these enemies are its "leaders" and "founders" who have tried to manipulate it to conform with the very system and ideologies that block any social or ecological reconciliation in the form of an ecological society. The lure of "influence," of "mainstream politics," of "effectiveness" strikingly exemplifies the lack of coherence and consciousness that afflicts the ecology movement today. Affinity groups, direct democracy, and direct action are not likely to be palatable—or, for that matter, even comprehensible—to millions of people who live as soloists in discotheques and singles bars. Tragically, these millions have surrendered their social power, indeed, their very personalities, to politicians and bureaucrats who live in a nexus of obedience and command in which they are normally expected to play subordinate roles. Yet this is precisely the immediate cause of the ecological crisis of our time—a cause that has its historic roots in the market society that engulfs us. To ask powerless people to regain power over their lives is even more important than to add complicated, often incomprehensible, and costly solar collectors to their houses. Until they regain a new sense of power over their lives, until they create their own system of selfmanagement to oppose the present system of hierarchical management, until they develop new ecological values to replace current domineering values—a process which solar collectors, wind machines, and Frenchintensive gardens can facilitate but never replace— nothing they change in society will yield a new balance with the natural world. Obviously, powerless people will not eagerly accept affinity groups, direct democracy, and direct action in the normal course of events. That they harbor basic impulses which make them very susceptible to these forms of activities—a fact which always surprises the "managerial radical" in periods of crisis and confrontation—represents a potential that has yet to be fully realized and furnished with intellectual coherence through painstaking education and repeated examples. It was precisely this education and example that certain feminist and anti-nuke groups began to provide. What is so incredibly regressive about the technical thrust and electoral politics of environmental technocrats and "managerial radicals" today is that they recreate in the name of "soft energy paths," a specious "decentralization," and inherently hierarchical party-type structures the worst forms and habits that foster passivity, obedience, and vulnerability to the mass media in the American public. The spectatorial politics promoted by Brown, Hayden; Commoner, the Clamshell "founders" like Wasserman and Lovejoy, together with recent huge demonstrations irt Washington and New York City breed masses, not citizens—the manipulated objects of mass media whether it is used by Exxon or by the CED (Campaign for Economic Democracy), the Citizen's Party, and MUSE. Ecology is being used against an ecological sensibility, ecological forms of organization, and ecological practices to "win" large constituencies, not to educate them. The fear of "isolation," of "futility," of "ineffectiveness" yields a new kind of isolation, futility, and ineffectiveness—namely, a complete surrender of one's most basic ideals and goals. "Power" is gained at the cost of losing the only power we really have that can change this insane society—our moral integrity, our ideals, and our principles. This may be a festive occasion for careerists who have used the ecology issue to advance their stardom and personal fortunes; it would become the obituary of a movement that has, latent within itself, the ideals of a new world in which masses become individuals and natural resources become nature, both to be respected for their uniqueness and spirituality. To ask powerless people to regain power over their lives is even more important than to add complicated, often incomprehensible, and costly solar collectors to their houses. An ecologically oriented feminist movement is now emerging and the contours of the libertarian anti-nuke alliances still exist. The fusing of the two together with new movements that are likely to emerge from the varied crises of our times may open one of the most exciting and liberating decades of our century. Neither sexism, ageism, ethnic oppression, the "energy crisis," corporate power, conventional medicine, bureaucratic manipulation, conscription, militarism, urban devastation, or political centralism can be separated from the ecological issue. All of these issues turn around hierarchy and domination, the root conceptions of a radical social ecology. It is necessary, I believe, for everyone in the ecology movement to make a crucial decision: will the eighties retain the visionary concept of an ecological future based on a libertarian commitment to decentralization, alternative technology, and a libertarian practice based on affinity groups, direct democracy, and direct action? Or will the decade be marked by a dismal retreat into ideological obscurantism and a "mainstream politics" that acquires "power" and "effectiveness" by following the very "stream" it should seek to divert? Will it pursue fictitious "mass constituencies" by imitating the very forms of mass manipulation, mass media, and mass culture it is committed to oppose? These two directions cannot be reconciled. Our use of "media," mobilizations, and actions must appeal to mind and to spirit, not to conditioned reflexes and shock tactics that leave no room for reason and humanity. In any case, the choice must be made now, before the ecology movement becomes institutionalized into a mere appendage of the very system whose structure and methods it professes to oppose. It must be made consciously and decisively— or the century itself, not only the decade, will be lost to us forever. □ □
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