Ecofascism: An Enduring Temptation
Michael E. Zimmerman
Environmental Philosophy: From Animal Rights to Radical Ecology, fourth edition, ed.
Michael E. Zimmerman, et al. (Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2004).
For several years, critics of environmentalism have charged that certain federal
environmental regulations, which prevent development of private property, infringe on the "takings"
clause of the U.S. Constitution’s Fifth Amendment, which prohibits uncompensated governmental
seizure of such property. Some of these critics, including Ron Arnold of the Wise Use Movement,
go so far as to describe proponents of such regulations as “communists,” or as irrational, natureworshipping
“ecofascists.”1
The "radical" ecology that Arnold has in mind adheres to biocentrism
or ecocentrism, according to which humankind is not a privileged species, but rather merely one
member of the biotic community. Arnold wants to polarize public opinion: either one is a citizen
loyal to the U.S. Constitution; or one is a radical ecologist favoring nature over humans, communal
over private property, and either communism or ecofascism over individualism.
Some environmentalists regard the takings issue as spurious, whereas others agree that it
has some merit. Almost all environmentalists, however, claim that the charge of ecofascism is the
ludicrous creation of anti-environmental corporations and extractive industries. Even though this
evaluation may be accurate, I argue that the threat of ecofascism cannot be dismissed out of hand.
True, ecofascism is unlikely to occur in the United States any time soon, but environmentalists need
to be aware that ecofascism was a component of German National Socialism, and that even today
neo-fascists and members of far right-wing groups in Europe and the United States put to dark
uses concepts drawn from the environmental movement. Twenty years ago, far right-wing groups
in Germany were already linking their anti-immigrationist platform to the mainstream concern about
the environmental impacts of human population growth and population density. These days, even
mainstream German politicians link immigration to environmental concerns, only now in the context
of the renewal of anti-Semitism.2
Far right-wing groups in the United States have begun to tie
public concern about urban sprawl and environmental pollution to immigrants from countries that
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allegedly fail to respect the natural environment. In the current global situation, environmentalists
should continue to promote their agenda, but should also be prepared to dissociate themselves from
those who might exploit aspects of it for their own ends.
Before beginning my discussion of ecofascism, let me make some comments about how I
depict positions on the political spectrum. I distinguish between right-wing and far right-wing. Ron
Arnold’s political views are right-wing, insofar as he strongly endorses limited government and
affirms the primacy of individual liberty. His views on these point are consistent with neo-classical
liberalism, which is often described as “conservatism” these days, and which is to be distinguished
from the “welfare” liberalism that most people now identity as liberalism. The latter favors some
state intervention to level the playing field and to provide a safety net for people with economic and
social problems. Most Americans, including welfare liberals, have strong commitments to some
variety of individualism, and most Americans also support a significant role for government in
many domains of life. Despite what right-wing commentators like Arnold may say, there is not a
strong left-wing presence in American politics, if left-wing is understood to mean socialist or
communist.
Far right-wingers demand that the state take very strong measures to save “the people”
from alleged danger. Upon taking power, far right-wingers would “temporarily” suspend
constitutional freedoms in order to have a free hand to destroy “the enemy within.” Limited
individual “freedom” may eventually be restored, but only to those who are sufficiently like those
who are in power. Whereas American right-wing individualists are suspicious of the state and its
coercive powers, many far right-wingers seek to use such powers to suppress or eradicate those
whose politics, economic status, race, class, religion, or national origin are regarded as unacceptably
“different.” The far right-wing becomes fascist when it describes the state itself in semi-religious
terms, for example, as the life-giving organism whose organs are constituted by the people. The
fascist state controls everything; individuals have no status apart from what the state permits. In
requiring that individuals sacrifice their own “selfish” interests for the higher interests of the social
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whole, fascism is similar to communism. This similarity explains why someone like Ron Arnold
describes radical environmentalists now as communists, now as ecofascists.
Communists agree with liberals, however, that nature has no inherent value, but instead is
merely raw material to be transformed by labor into human goods. Moreover, communists and
right-wing liberals adhere to human universalism, according to which all people share the same
essential humanity. Fascists, however, typically distinguish between different “races” or “stocks”
of people, some of who are ostensibly superior to others. Additionally, fascists often claim that
their people are "naturally" tied to their ancient landscape and have the right to expel foreigners who
threaten to pollute the indigenous people (by intermarriage) and the land (with whom they have no
"natural" connection). As offspring of the Enlightenment, liberals and communists often suspect
that radical, "nature-loving" environmentalists harbor reactionary tendencies, as found in the
German National Socialist notion of the interdependence of "pure blood" and "pure land.”
In what follows, after contrasting non-fascist ecology with ecofascism, I show that the
temptation of something like ecofascism is tempting enough to have garnered the short-term
support of important American environmental philosopher. I also examine the extent to which far
right-wing ecology is at work in Germany and the United States. I conclude by recommending that
environmentalists represent their movement in ways that explicitly resist the ecofascist temptation.
A Non-Fascist Ecosophy
Let us begin by examining the "ecosophy" (deep ecologist Arne Naess's term for a
"philosophical ecology") developed by noted European environmentalist, Dr. Walter Schoenichen.
Long before the Greens emerged in West Germany, he was instrumental in organizing the German
"nature protection" (Naturschutz) movement. Sounding like a deep ecologist, he writes that
ecological destruction ensues when industrial societies ignore nature's inherent worth, and treat it
instead as merely a "meaningless play of atoms."3
Manifestly, since we are a part of the natural
world, we cannot survive if we destroy the biological conditions that sustain us. Capitalism and
communism alike pollute air and water, annihilate farmland and forests, destroy the habitats
necessary for the preservation of species diversity, and exterminate native peoples. Though
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recognizing that humans must intervene in the natural environment to survive and prosper,
Schoenichen insists that high employment and a sound economy are consistent with
environmentally sound practices, whereas unsound environmental practices undermine social and
economic well being. Industrial planning should be informed by biological and ecological sciences,
which could warn people whether a proposed production method is ecologically destructive.4
Crucial for long term human and environmental health is to replace exploitative economics
(Raubwirtschaft) with sustainable economic development. (NDR, 13-14)
To protect nature from the pressures of industrial economies, Schoenichen urges that
national legislation be based on principles that acknowledge the importance of ecological integrity
and natural beauty. He adds that government and industry should prepare what today would be
called an environmental impact statement before undertaking projects that would significantly affect
the land. (NDR, 80) Anticipating contemporary American views about environmental
compensation, Schoenichen maintains that when someone profits at the expense of degrading the
land, some profits should go for preserving natural monuments, for establishing protected nature
regions, or for supporting the nature protection movement in general. (NK, 80) Moreover,
landscape specialists should have major input into the planning of large construction sites. (NK, 87)
Like Arne Naess, Schoenichen recommends dividing the land into three regions: urbanindustrial,
mixed use, and wilderness. Urban/industrial regions would be given over to heavy
human use, though even here pollution would be strictly limited to protect surrounding farmlands,
forests, and wild areas. In mixed-use areas, where some environmentally- sustainable human
intervention is permissible (e.g., forestry, farming, and light industry), environmental and aesthetic
planning would be involved. (NK, 16ff) Finally, nature protection regions would be located behind
a kind of "protective hedge" that would eliminate human intervention, apart from non-intrusive
activities such as hiking and scientific investigation. Nature protection areas should be of two
types: the first would be guided by the principle of "preservation," the other by the principle of
"conservation" (English in original). Preservation, "nature protection in the strict sense," involves
establishing regions that are "hermetically sealed," so that humans do not interfere with the "free
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play of natural forces." (NK, 3, 14) Conservation goes beyond mere protection by intervening to
assist endangered natural phenomena. Schoenichen warns, however, that conservation practices run
the risk of becoming so intrusive that the "natural" phenomenon being preserved virtually becomes
a human artifact. (NK, 15)5
Though eschewing a purely instrumentalist attitude toward nature, Schoenichen recognizes
that "The development of culture is bound up with the constantly increasing mastery of nature,"
which has reached such a point that today only climate, earthquakes, volcanoes, and cosmic events
seem to elude human control. (NK, 75) If self-interest has led to human domination of plants and
animals, however, enlightened self-interest has also helped to justify the U.S. national parks that
Schoenichen so admires. These parks not only protect wild nature from human abuse, but also
offer a place of recreation, refreshment, and aesthetic appreciation for urban families and workers
who are usually deprived of direct contact with nature. In addition to providing a site for the
scientific study of relatively undisturbed ecosystems, national parks also give voice to "the
boundless pride in the land, which is shared by every real American."6
(NK, 46)
Encounters with the beauty of nature help to counter the prevailing view that nature is
nothing more than an object for commercial exploitation. Like Paul Shepard in Nature and
Madness, Schoenichen suggests that Christianity's anti-naturalism, along with Western rationalism
and materialism, combined to disclose nature as something "other" than and inferior to humankind.
To overcome this dissociative attitude, Schoenichen recommends that all German children be
allowed to tend plants, so that "by witnessing all the wonder of growth and becoming--there can
arise the first, still not comprehended surmise of the mysteries of divine creation." (NDR, 88) In
referring to creation, Schoenichen emphasizes that the nature protection movement is motivated by
more than utilitarian and prudential concerns. Schoenichen tries to solve the thorny problem of
human duties to non-human beings by affirming that there is a principle higher than biological
survival. Whatever this principle may be called--Providence, the Almighty, God--, it has ultimate
responsibility for maintaining all of creation, especially species, which have worth in themselves.
(NK, 77) Though our capacity for science and technology shows that divine nature wills "that man
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be master of all its realms," nature also "sinks into his soul the feeling of responsibility" for that
over which man has gained dominion. (NK, 404) The moral law demands that the victor display
mercy toward the vanquished, including the natural world. (NK, 77)
For Schoenichen, the most senseless destruction involves annihilating an entire species:
"The downfall of a noteworthy type of animal or plant awakens man's soul the feeling of a deeply
deplorable loss," which is so painful because we sense that "all the different kinds in the realm
living things are linked to one another through secret bonds, all of which have the same origin and
which beget all new life..." (NK, 90) Like Aldo Leopold, Schoenichen writes that the land is an
organism whose parts are constituted by species. (NK, 16) Before the only species left on Earth
are cultivated plants and domestic animals, nations must join together to make sure that "in the
future never again will an animal species be made extinct or be brought near to dying out because of
the influences of civilization...."7
(NK, 405) Schoenichen also condemns Europe's shameful
history of subjugating primitive peoples, from whom we have much to learn. (NK, 405ff, 416)
Schoenichen's ecosophy is somewhat ambiguous, as are some versions of mainstream
environmentalism in contemporary Europe and the United States. On the one hand, he sounds like
a "weak anthropocentric,” someone who regards human life as more important than other life
forms, but who also affirms the inherent worth of all forms of life. Weak anthropocentrism is
consistent with the religious position discernible in Schoenichen's claim that humans should respect
Creation. On the other hand, his talk of human “dominion” and “mastery” go beyond weak
anthropocentrism and are more consistent with modernist, even anti-ecological views. Because
Schoenichen was trained as a scientist, not as a philosopher or theologian, and because the issues
involved here are complex, we can understand why some ambiguities may have cropped up in his
ecosophy.
An Ecofascist Ecosophy--The Dark Side of Dr. Schoenichen
The similarities noted above between Schoenichen's ecosophy and contemporary
environmentalism should give the reader pause when he or she learns the following: the good Dr.
Schoenichen explicitly portrayed his ecosophy as consistent with the Blut und Boden ("blood and
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soil") racism of German National Socialism. Indeed, one of his two books from which I have been
citing is called Nature Protection in the Third Reich (1934). Before showing how Schoenichen
made his ecosophy consistent with Nazism, I have tried to indicate that his ecosophy can stand on
its own. His postwar book, Nature Protection, Homeland Protection (1954), does not exhibit far
right-wing ideology.8
Before 1933, a number of branches of the nature-protection movement were
neither militaristic, territorially expansionistic, nor overtly racist in the way that Nazism was.9
As a
member of the highly-conservative völkisch branch of the nature-protection movement, however,
Schoenichen helped to move it toward a racist ecofascism consistent with Nazism.10
In 1928, he
took control of a leading conservation journal, Nature Protection, and changed its subtitle to the
politically provocative "Monthly for all Friends of the German Homeland (Heimat)." Soon after
the 1933 Nazi takeover, he published an issue whose cover shows German youth carrying a Nazi
flag on a country trail. In an article in the same issue, he states that "Between Aryans and nonAryans
there exist fundamental, unbridgeable differences, as for example especially in the areas of
worldviews, sexuality, the relationship to nature, etc."11
According to Schoenichen, nature-protection and National Socialism stand "in a tight
connection," because the Führer [German leader Adolph Hitler] wills a new German folkcommunity
(Volksgemeinschaft) whose foundation is drawn from "blood and soil, i.e., from the
primordial forces of life and soul that are proper to our race, and from the nature-willed bond that
subsists between us and the sod of the homeland." (NDR, i, 1) The German race draws its strength
from being rooted in its own native land. Because modern forces--including "the malicious poison"
of liberalism, capitalism, communism ("materialism"), democracy, and rationalism--uproot the
German people (Volk) and lead to racial degeneration (Entartung), such sinister foreign forces must
be expelled from the homeland. "Adolph Hitler," we read, "demands that man must understand the
basic necessity of the rule of nature and must also grasp how much his existence is subjugated
from above to these laws of eternal struggle and contest...." (NDR, 7) Like Hitler, the nature
protection movement wants to remind the people that “no technology, no rationalism can protect us,
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together with our civilization and our civilization, from going under [Untergang], if we detach
ourselves from the natural foundation of life.” (NDR, 7)
Although celebrating mystical union with nature, Schoenichen pointedly remarks that nature
protection is not "otherworldly rapture," but instead "shows full understanding of the practical
demands of life." (NDR, 15) Without sinking his roots into native soil, however, the German
worker may be ruined like workers in anti-natural liberal and Marxist countries. Having conquered
the socially disintegrating forces of party politics and class warfare, the Nazi movement will restore
to health the German people and land. In this process, the nature-protection movement can play a
crucial role, by helping to give the people a deeper "racial imprinting" by offering people the
necessary opportunities--such as hiking through forests and fields--to have a mystical, felt
experience (Erlebnis) of their native land. The German people’s sensibility was long shaped by its
experience within the ancient forests, now mostly extirpated by greedy capitalists. (NDR, 26ff)
Crucial for the re-rooting process is the Nazi version of "bioregionalism." Hitler Youth, we are told,
should be take part in festivals that remind them of the inner connection between the landscape and
customs of the various German tribes. In this way, young people will "envision the highest goal
and highest task of all being solely in this: to be allowed to live and die for Germany." (NDR, 90)
Schoenichen praises National Socialism for having passed such innovative nature protection
laws as the world's first comprehensive nature protection act (June 26, 1935), the law protecting
plants and animals (March 18, 1936), and the law protecting mother-soil (November 16, 1939).12
In addition to enhancing the people’s social and economic welfare, these nature protection laws also
help protect the spirit of the people (Volksgeist) from corrosive foreign influences and modernist
attitudes. The nature-protection movement is not sentimental nature worship, but "meditation on
our völkisch essence and on the springheads, from which it always draws new force and inner
quality." (NK, 35) Schoenichen recommends that the "primal landscape" [Urlandschaft) should be
protected against further human intrusion, since it generated the German soul. The way to such
protection was finally cleared "Only through the [Nazi] revolution of the year 1933, which once
again reached back to the essential foundations of the German people...." (NK, 45)
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According to the Nazi worldview, "the landscape is in the first place the Lebensraum [living
space] of the people." (NK, 83) Hence, even urban, industrial, and agricultural lands must be
protected, so far as is possible, from destructive human activities. Moreover, Germany's beautiful
nature areas must be protected not only from highway billboards and radios blaring "jazz music and
nigger noise," but also from the intrusion of hotels, gas stations, and other commercial ventures
(though, of course, small merchants can be accommodated). Just as there must be healthful,
beautiful, inspiring, and bountiful living space for the people, so living space is needed for
indigenous plants and animals. (NDR, 58) Citing Hermann Göring, Schoenichen asserts that the
animal world is "the living soul of the landscape." (NDR, 46)
The Nazis justified their aggressive foreign policy by saying that the German people had
been unjustly deprived of its native land either by other white peoples, or else by allegedly inferior
races. In Eastern Europe, the Nazis planned to exterminate the Slavs, so that German settlers would
gain needed living space. Postwar relations with the advanced white races of northern Europe (e.g.,
the French, English, Danes, Belgians, and Scandinavians) would be a different story, however.
Once historical territorial disputes had been resolved in Germany's favor, those peoples would be
encouraged to reestablish their roots in their own natives soils, thereby reinvigorating all the worthy
tribes of Europe's great white race. In this respect, Nazi Germany portrayed itself as the savior not
just of the German people, but of northern European civilization. Pointedly remarking that
Germany had been excluded from international meetings concerned about protecting endangered
species, Schoenichen envisages a time when cooperation people from northern European countries
would again be possible.
If endangered species need protecting, so do primitive peoples who represent humankind's
distant past. According to the French naturalist, Paul Sarasin, "The white man is the great destroyer
of creation, the meddler in earthly paradise...." (NK, 411) Money-driven liberal societies have been
particularly responsible for exploiting these peoples. To be sure, Schoenichen reminds his readers,
"The subjugation of the indigenous population--though certainly not the inhumanity with which this
was all too often accomplished--was in many cases surely a necessary consequence of the struggle
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for existence [Kampfes um das Dasein] and resulted from the expansionist strivings of the
European races." (NK, 411) European colonial practices differ from one another, however. For
example, the French act according to foolish universalist principles, including the "theory of human
rights, which bases itself on the supposition of the equality of all men. Although this [supposition]
has been long contradicted by biological research, the misguided French spheres hold fast to their
assimilation theory." (NK, 412) Supposedly seeking to assimilate native peoples to French
language, law, and custom, the French in fact turn them into cannon fodder. The English are at least
wise enough to reject assimilation, choosing instead to make use of native traditions and customs
whenever possible in the process of establishing British rule. Though recognizing "the fact of the
eternal differences of blood- and species-determined races, which can never be made equivalent by
education," the English unfortunately use this knowledge to justify their dominance over other
peoples and races, and only secondarily to justify a sense of responsibility for primitive peoples.
(NK, 413). Renouncing "the politics of subjugation and extermination" [!], as well as "foolish
ideals" of assimilation, Germany encourages the development of indigenous people according to
their own racial heritage. (NK, 413) For the Nazis, of course, some races were superior to others.
Though the “colored” races might develop skills needed for greater interchange with Europeans,
interracial marriages and extramarital intercourse must be prohibited. (NK, 413) Germans should
protect primitive peoples not because of "sentimentality," "compassion," or "in the name of a
deformed idea of humanity, which would like to throw Hottentots, Botekudes, Jews, and Aryans
into the same pot." (NK, 414, 408), but instead because of responsibility to science, which is among
"the highest and noblest spiritual goods which our culture has created." (NK, 414) Surely, he
insists, these primitive races ought not be treated with any less scientific responsibility than apes
and chimpanzees [!].
Schoenichen defends the Nazi Nature Protection Law (1935), which justified state seizure
of ecologically-important private property. Germany law should rid itself of Enlightenment
concepts, imposed during the Napoleonic invasion, about the right of individuals to use private
property however they see fit. The contrary Nazi worldview is expressed in the slogan "The
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Common Good Takes Precedence over the Private Good." A folk comrade owns something--
especially the land--not as an object over which he has unlimited authority, but rather as a common
good that he is duty-bound to manage according to the needs of the Volk and Reich. (NK, 84) The
claims of economy, trade, and settlement, then, must achieve a harmonious relationship with the
equally important claims of culture, particularly the ideal of homeland: "Hence, the individual is not
the major issue, but rather the great whole...." (NK, 30; my emphasis) Comparable to an organism,
this glorious whole--race and land, blood and soil--"assigns to every part of the landscape its
function and gives its form in such a way that for men the highest spiritual and economic values will
be achieved." (NK, 30) According to the Nazi worldview, then, biological considerations justify the
conviction that the Volk's collective needs and "original right" (NDR, 36; see also 80) always trump
individual rights.
Though compromises will sometimes be necessary in the complex process of natureprotection,
they must be made in accordance neither with egoistical private interests, nor with the
conflicting interests of political parties, but rather in accordance with the overall good of German
blood and soil. Of course, "only in states governed by authoritarian rule can there be fulfilled all
the presuppositions necessary for a really far-reaching organization of space [or land]." (NK, 85;
my emphasis) Hence, only leaders of the people--attuned to the organic needs of the people's
community and advised by scientific, economic, military, and cultural experts--can best dispose of
all German land. If preserving some forest area were deemed crucial for the well-being of the
people, for example, that area would be preserved, even if this involved expropriating it from a
private owner who hoped to develop it for private economic gain.
Ecofascism and Far Right-Wing Ecology in the Contemporary United States and
Germany?
To understand the contemporary status of ecofascism and far right-wing ecology in the
United States and Germany, some remarks about history are in order. There are significant
parallels as well as differences between the American environmental movement and the German
nature protection movement in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Influenced by John
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Muir and others, American environmentalists have long focused on protecting wild nature from
“development.” Having little wild nature left, in contrast, German environmentalists sought to
prevent destruction of the bucolic and forested landscaped that had been tended for centuries by
local people. Moreover, concern for environing nature (Umwelt) was usually tied up with concern
for the vitality, health, and well-being of human nature. German environmentalists often criticized
modern industrialism for desecrating non-human nature and for sapping human vigor by enslaving
workers to machines in polluted cities. As evidenced by the transatlantic success of Oswald
Spengler's book, The Decline of the West, many people were gravely concerned about the
emotional, physical, and spiritual decay of Western civilization.13
President Theodore Roosevelt
and English Boy Scout founder Robert Baden-Powell proclaimed that contact with healthy wild
nature was needed for a robust citizenry.14
At times, there was a racist dimension to such concern
about healthy bodies and healthy nature. Some social Darwinists proclaimed that "colored" races
would triumph if industrial practices and consumer goods "softened" the white race, made it less
"manly," and deprived it of contact with vital natural instincts. In Europe and the United States,
many people warned that floods of immigrants from countries with “inferior races” would lead to
national degeneration and destruction. Well before the Nazis rose to power in 1933, American
scientists had become the world leaders in eugenics research. Nazi officials closely consulted that
research in devising measures (including euthanasia, sterilization, and murder) designed to "purify"
and "regenerate" the German population.15
Though Nazi social horrors caused eugenics to lose
credibility in postwar America, most Americans do not realize that many Nazis combined eugenics
or “racial hygiene” with mystical ecology to form the perverted "green" ideology of blood and
soil.
In important respects, of course, Nazi green ideology was a nostalgic appeal to widespread
yearning for allegedly simpler times before Bismark’s push for German industrialization. Praise
for rural life and celebration of the countryside helped to bring Hitler to power, while concealing his
aim of total industrial mobilization and militarization. Nevertheless, National Socialism’s positive
attitude toward nature was by not merely an instance of cynical political propaganda, because many
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Nazis did in fact make a connection between healthy races and healthy land. Indeed, European
memories of the dark green side of National Socialism led liberals and Marxists alike to regard
environmentalism with such suspicion that a generation had to go by until the Greens could emerge
as a serious cultural and political movement.
Contemporary American environmentalism is certainly not guided by racist, ultra nationalist,
or far right-wing ideals. Like many of their fellow citizens, American environmentalists often
regard "wild" nature as a symbol for individual liberty, not as a symbol for instinctual bonds
between blood and land. Apart from native Americans Indians, the ancestors of most Americans
came to the North American continent so recently that talk of ancient blood ties to the land
generates little political traction. Instead, American environmentalists gained political ground in part
by proclaiming that individual liberty is assaulted by unhealthy water and air, harmed by the loss of
natural symbols of freedom, and diminished by the despoliation of natural beauty reminiscent of
individual self-expression. Moreover, environmentalism activists are typically welfare liberals,
rather than neo-classical liberals, although a large majority of Americans portray themselves as
“environmentalists” at least to some extent.
As social ecologists, liberals, and left-wing critics have been quick to point out, however, a
few American radical environmentalists have spoken in ways consistent with right-wing ecology.
Such environmentalists condemn modernity, liberal and socialist alike, as being materialistic, greedy,
anthropocentric, soul-less, abstract, arrogant, urban-oriented, and anthropocentric. Modernity is
contrasted with supposedly ecologically-benign premodern tribal societies, whose small populations
live simply on the land. We have seen such views expressed in Walter Schoenichen’s ecofascism,
though the latter includes explicitly racist and anti-Semitic views rarely found in American
environmentalism. Nazis ideologues maintained that modernity’s industrialism, urbanism,
cosmopolitanism, and universalism encouraged intermarriage among people from different races,
thereby degrading noble European stock and paving the way to power by races (e.g., Jews) who
would otherwise have been defeated by pure-blooded whites. These ideas reappear in
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contemporary neo-fascist tracts that demand forcible relocation of people to the lands of their
origins, with the purported aim of restoring vigor to all of the world’s racial types.
The French neo-classical liberal, Luc Ferry, argues that by sharing romanticism's
sentimental aestheticism, according to which "true nature" must be wild, pure, virgin, and irrational,
deep ecology and Nazism both regard modernity as a profound mistake that produced human
alienation and ecological destruction.16
In fact, many deep ecologists do believe that a revolution is
needed to save humankind and the planet from the evils of capitalist and communist modernity,
which are allegedly different expressions of the same acquisitive anthropocentrism. In the 1980s,
anti-immigrationist attitudes, occasionally mixed with racist and xenophobic sentiments, were
published by certain members of Earth First!, which is often associated with deep ecology.17
Deep
ecology theorists, however, and the great majority of Earth First!ers, typically condemn such views.
Although sometimes calling for global governmental intervention to save endangered ecosystems
and native peoples from destruction, and perhaps willing to override some individual property rights
in an "ecological emergency", deep ecologists typically prefer that urgent ecological matters be dealt
with humanely and in the context of democratic practices.18
Although labeling deep ecologists as
proto-ecofascists is unjustified, there are grounds for describing some of them as politically naïve
and historically ill-informed.
Deep ecologists are scarcely alone in suggesting that modernity, despite the glowing
promises of its proponents, encourages human population growth, over consumption, and
environmental degradation on such a scale that political dictatorships may eventually be required to
save humankind from its self-induced calamity. American environmentalist Garrett Hardin’s
controversial lifeboat ethics expresses views consistent with far right-wing ecology.19
In view of
coming competition for scarce resources, William Ophuls predicts “the revival of age-old political
evil” and asserts that "the golden age of individualism, liberty and democracy is all but over." 20
Tyranny inspired by an ecological emergency (real or imagined) might entail seizing private
property, harassment, internment, torture, deportation, and worse, in order to force people to comply
with centrally-imposed regulations. Such a regime might be draconian, but not necessarily
15
ecofascist. Fascism specifically promises to restore dignity, nobility, purpose, and privilege to
some unique people or race, whose members feel that their original mystical-organic unity and their
"natural" ties with the homeland are threatened by insidious influences of alien races and foreign
ideas. Moreover, fascism involves "an understanding of society in essentially military terms that
stress struggle, heroism, leadership, masculinity, and youth." Without using the term
“ecofascism,” economist Robert Heilbroner argues that in the future, wracked by overpopulation,
dwindling resources, and environmental catastrophe, nations will inevitably resort to authoritarian
regimes involving “quasi-military devotion and sacrifice.”21
An argument in favor of something like ecofascism may be found in early essays by a
leading American environmentalist, J. Baird Callicott. Having great respect for Callicott's
philosophical acumen and his contributions to environmental philosophy, I emphasize that he has
not only purged his writings of any "ecofascist" leanings, but also maintains that he was wrong in
claiming to be able to derive such ideas from Aldo Leopold's notion of the “land ethic.” Today,
Callicott maintains that individual human rights trump moral concerns about the land. Two
decades ago, however, Callicott derived from land ethic what he described as an environmentally
sound, collectivist, and even "misanthropic" social system. According to Leopold, “the land”
refers to the internally related complex of organic and inorganic elements--plants, animals, and
insects, as well as soil and water—that constitute a particular biome or bioregion. Leopold
sometimes described these elements as being analogous to the organs of an organism.22
To
survive, an organism's organs must cooperatively limit their behavior in ways that serve the higher
good of the whole organism. Individual organisms lack ethical importance, for they are merely
temporary instantiations of enduring species whose interlocking relationships constitute "the land."
Until now, Leopold notes, ethical consideration had been limited to human affairs, but now
consideration should be expanded to include the elements of the biotic community in which
humankind is imbedded, for our species will perish unless it establishes ethical constraints
regarding treatment of the land.
16
Callicott admits that because human society differs significantly from the ecological
community, "the term 'ecological community' has at best an analogical sense." Nevertheless, just as
we have the moral duties of self-preservation and social preservation, so too we have the moral duty
of helping to preserve the biotic community. (AL, 322) From the perspective of the biotic
community, individual needs, interests, and rights are secondary. Likewise, "For the sake of the
person taken as a whole, some parts may be, as it were, unfairly sacrificed." (AL, 323) Similarly,
the interests of society may not always coincide with the interests of its parts.
Discipline, sacrifice, and individual restraint are often necessary in the social
sphere to maintain social integrity as within the bodily organism. A society,
indeed, is particularly vulnerable to disintegration when its members become
preoccupied totally with their own particular interest, and ignore those distinct
and interdependent interests of the community as a whole. (AL, 323-324)
For moral individualists, Callicott concedes, a biocentric land ethic may seem misanthropic,
for it "does not exempt Homo sapiens from moral evaluation in relation to the well-being of the
community of nature taken as a whole."(AL, 326) Refusing to ascribe to humans "an ultimate value
essentially different from that of his 'resources'," Callicott speaks of the harsh measures that may be
needed to bring human population into line with the moral obligations imposed by the land ethic.
"The extent of misanthropy in modern environmentalism thus may be taken as a measure of the
degree to which it is biocentric." (AL, 326; my emphasis) Further, unlike the humanistic ethical
theories of modernity, “The land ethic manifestly does not accord equal worth to each and every
member of the biotic community; the moral worth of individuals (including, n.b., human
individuals) is relative, to be assessed in accordance with the particular relation of each to the
collective entity which Leopold called ‘land’." (AL, 327)
In the social holism of Plato's Republic, Callicott finds analogies to the anti-individualistic,
organic demands of the land ethic. Plato makes many "apparently inhuman recommendations"--
ranging from infanticide and destruction of the nuclear family, to "a program of eugenics" and "the
utter abolition of private property"--, because he "seems to regard individual human life and
17
certainly human pain and suffering with complete indifference." (AL, 328) Just as the separate
interests of the parts of the body had to be subordinated to the health and well-being of the whole
body, and just as some elements of the human psyche had to be subjugated by others for the good
of the whole psyche, so the separate interests of individuals had to be subordinated to the "wellbeing
of the community as a whole." (AL, 329) Given the formal parallels between Plato's ethical
system ("foreign" though it may seem to modern ethicists) and the land ethic, Callicott concludes
that it, too, is an ethical philosophy "in relation to environmental virtue and excellence." (AL, 329)
Implementing the land ethic, Callicott admits, would "require discipline, sacrifice,
retrenchment, and massive economic reform, tantamount to a virtual revolution in prevailing attitudes
and life styles." (AL, 338) Our currently selfish, wasteful, and unecological way of life would give
way to "a renaissance of tribal cultural experience" that would prize manly hardness, courage,
resiliency, simple diet, rigorous exercise, capacity for pain, and social responsibility. (AL, 334)
"Personal, social, and environmental health would, accordingly, receive a premium rather than
comfort, self-indulgent pleasure, and anaesthetic insulation from pain. Sickness would be regarded
as a worse evil than death." (AL, 334; emphasis mine)
Callicott was unaware that his diagnosis of and prescriptions for curing an ecologicallyunsound
society mirror, even more than do Schoenichen's writings, many aspects of Nazism's
military ethos of masculinity, hardness, courage, and ruthlessness. Callicott's contrast between the
healthy and the sickly is uncomfortably reminiscent of Nazi justifications for eugenic laws designed
to strengthen Aryan blood by sterilizing the insane, by killing Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, and
communists, and by putting to death the "sickly," since in the "struggle for existence" the "health"
of the organic whole--"blood and soil"--could only be won by repudiating the bourgeois and
Jewish-Christian values of mercy and compassion. In this context, Callicott's appeal to Plato's
thought is made more problematic by the fact that Plato’s Republic was greatly admired by Nazi
political theorists. Of course, Plato’s notion of harmony among different elements of society has
been and can be read otherwise than as fascist.
18
Years later, Callicott remarked ruefully that his attempt to derive such “monstrous” political
notions from Leopold’s work constituted “a reductio ad absurdum of the whole land ethic
enterprise.” Callicott’s experience, however, should remind us that dark green ideology is tempting
even to highly intelligent people. During a time of social, political, and ecological crisis, people may
abandon the messy, pragmatic, time-consuming, and unsatisfying processes of democratic politics,
in favor of the ecstatic promises of fascist leaders who appeal to widespread desire for an ethnically
unified, prosperous, and beautiful society living in harmony with the "laws" of nature. Even today,
as reported in National Resource Defense Council magazine Onearth, American anti-immigration
groups are far-right organizations that opportunistically seize upon environmental concerns, such as
suburban sprawl, resource consumption, and pollution, as another reason to halt immigration. In
“When Hate Goes Green,” Michael A. Rivlin describes an environmentally-inspired antiimmigrationist
position: Because immigrants from third world countries consume far less than do
Americans, those people should stay in their own countries and protect the planet. According to
Patrick Burns, members of far right-wing anti-immigration groups are “opportunistic” fighters:
“When unemployment was high the immigration reform movement tended to talk about
immigration reform as a jobs issue. If sprawl becomes a concern, they pick that up as their topic.
So a lot of the rationale for immigration reform [whether] illegitimate or legitimate—are flags of
convenience. Because this is the quickest way to sell it.”23
Human population growth, national population density, and immigration involve legitimate
environmental issues, but they are also the ripest breeding ground for far right-wing and neo-fascist
movements in America and Europe. In some European countries, even mainstream politicians now
call for a halt to immigration, although only the right-wing demands expulsion of aliens (principally,
but not only non-white), who allegedly threaten the nation's cultural identity, along with its social,
political, economic, and ecological well-being. As desperate people from developing countries pour
into Europe, environmentalists and Greens must be wary of the ecofascist temptation. Green
theorist Derek Wall remarks:
19
Fascism/Nazism is a surprisingly plastic fundamentalism, willing to change
ideological clothes to gain support and win power for a core philosophy. The
far-right, briefly […] recruited radical [European] Greens and successfully
presented their own arguments as part of an environmental agenda. Unless
Greens clearly define how they differ from the far-right, they will continue to
be ripe for reappropriation by softly-spoken Nazis, who articulate a rhetoric of
decentralization, justice, and the rural, while seeking to build insular
authoritarian communities based on atavistic notions of blood-and-soil and
anti-Semitic hatred.24
Though still only a disturbing marginal presence in American politics, far right-wing
ecology and even ecofascism might gain a foothold in Europe, if social, economic, political, and
ecological problems increase. To avoid going down such roads, environmentalists should renounce
blanket claims such as “Modernity is behind all our problems; hence, we must do away with it in
favor of a natural way of life.” Initially regarding modernity with suspicion and hostility, some
Greens emphasized that eco-calamity was being encouraged by the modern political movements,
communism and capitalism. Hence, only unconventional and dramatic changes could save the
planet. As their motto, they adopted the phrase “Neither Left nor Right but ahead,” coined by their
co-founder, Herbert Gruhl. In the early 1980s, Gruhl left the Greens to form his own far-right
wing Ecological Democratic Party (EDP). German National Socialism also portrayed itself as
“neither left nor right,” but instead as a revolutionary “third way” beyond the discredited political
alternatives of modernity. Hence, one can understand why some liberals and communists with
historical memory cringed upon hearing the Greens reprise this slogan. Fortunately, as they
became more sophisticated politically, the Greens distanced themselves from the far right-wing
views of their co-founder and are now a strong minority voice in mainstream German politics.
As Oliver Geden has demonstrated, however, neofascists and members of the far right-wing
continue to exploit environmental themes, especially potentially harmful ecological consequences of
population growth and immigration. Geden emphasizes that environmental organizations often
20
speak about how modernity is disrupting the “natural order of things,” without realizing how
important the idea of such a natural order is in far right-wing ideology, according to which it is
unnatural that Germany is being invaded by people lacking blood-ties to the land.25
Far right-wing
and ecofascist groups totally “biologize” humankind at all levels of social organization. In its
1993 platform statement, for example, the EDP asserted that the family must be “ecologically
rehabilitated,” because the family is “the smallest ecological and social cell, in whose safety man
completes the first years, which determine his later life.”26
Environmental pollution is linked to a
decline in moral values, which only a strong government can reverse. Indeed, far right-wing groups
call for an eco-dictatorship to save not only Germany, but also “spaceship Earth” itself from
destruction by a human population that is rapidly overshooting its resource base.27
The armed
forces must be called in to defend the border from invasion by foreigners who care nothing about
the environmental or social well being of the German homeland.28
To insure their survival, then,
Germany and other European countries must engage in eco-imperialism, designed to intervene in
other countries so as to insure stable European living standards.29
The German far-right also finds common ground with some “new age” critics of
modernity and of its religious origins in Christianity, which allegedly promotes anthropocentrism
by inserting humans into the mid-point of creation and calling on them to subdue the Earth.
Opposition to nature is unavoidable in Christianity and Judaism, according to many new agers,
because these religions ostensibly posit a strictly dualistic division between spirit and matter.
“Because God stands outside the earthly world, Christendom concentrates primarily on
otherworldly ‘eternal life,’ and until this day accepts the destruction of the condition of
life—naturally conceived as merely ‘dead matter’—or even pushes such destruction forward even
more actively.”30
An attractive alternative for many of the unchurched are varieties of pantheism
that conceive of “Mother Earth” not only as spiritualized matter that we must respect and care for,
but also as the guide for individual and social human affairs. According to Geden and other critics,
however, despite the peace-loving and nature-friendly attitudes of many of their adherents, such
“new thinking” may also involve “right-wing spirituality,” including elements of the new
21
paganism.31
The Thule Society, a version of the nature-oriented paganism that was so popular in
early twentieth-century Germany, was closely allied with National Socialism. Certainly not all new
paganism is reactionary, but far right-wing groups often conceal their racism, social Darwinism, and
reactionary views by aligning themselves with the comparatively innocent ideas of pagan ecology.32
In particular, depictions of Christianity as being both unecological and unsuitable for Germans
often disguise anti-Semitic views that are unpalatable to most new pagans.
Christianity and Islam certainly have an otherworldly component, and Christianity, Judaism,
and Islam all assert the “otherness” of God to creation. Many ordinary Christians, Jews, and
Muslims, however, also strongly support the idea that humans are obligated to care for that creation,
not destroy it. Moreover, a number of theologians from these traditions maintain that Jews,
Christians, and Muslims are obliged to respect and to care for creation, rather than to treat it with
contempt. Eastern Orthodox Christianity in particular has made a strong case in favor of the idea
that the Divine is immanent in creation, even while transcending it. It is possible to acknowledge the
divine presence in nature without calling for a return to premodern religious formations that are
incompatible with modern democratic institutions.33
It is also possible to acknowledge that humans
have capacities that distinguish them from other animals, without thereby justifying the kind of
arrogant anthropocentrism that environmentalists rightly criticize.
Attacks on Christianity and Judaism are often disguised attacks on modernity, which
secularized crucial elements of these religious traditions, for example, their idea of the uniqueness
and value of individual persons, and their notion that humans are uniquely endowed with creative
freedom. On the basis of Christianity and Judaism, modernity distinguished between nature and
history. This distinction helped to justify the exploitation of nature for human ends, but it also
underscored the fact that humans are more than complex organisms governed by law-like necessity.
Because much of human behavior is informed by social and cultural training, rather than being
guided by instinct, people can conceive of alternatives to the status quo. History shows that
significant change in human affairs is possible. Liberal capitalism and communism, despite
important differences, both claim to protect and to foster human freedom. Additionally, both
22
condemn fascism and other reactionary movements, which purport to restore some premodern
“natural” way of life, but which ultimately deprive people of important kinds of political and
economic freedoms. In my view, what is needed today is a constructive postmodernism, one that
recognizes and incorporates what is best about modernity, including its democratic institutions,
while criticizing and abandoning what is worst about it, including problematic treatment of nonhuman
beings.
Anti-modernists, in contrast, want to rid the world of modernity. Moreover, they often seek
to replace modern institutions with premodern social formations and attitudes. Far right-wing
movements trade upon the fact that human freedom, which includes moral responsibility, is difficult
to bear. Movements proposing to restore "natural" rhythms and ways of life, often by excluding
alien others, promise to end the anxiety experienced by and the moral responsibility imposed upon
modern historical agents. As humanity's technological power becomes ever greater, however, it is
imperative that people become more not less willing to accept responsibility for making the difficult
choices that lie ahead, including how to deal with widespread poverty and political oppression, how
far to go in protecting this or that species, how to balance the needs of humans and the needs of
non-human beings. Some environmentalists are insufficiently aware of the political implications of
how one defines "humanity" and "nature,” and the relationship between them.
To develop non-ecofascist solutions to environmental problems, environmentalists must
steer clear of two temptations. The first is romantic re-identification with nature in a way that calls
for organic recollectivization and retribalization. This is the potentially dark side of the new
paganism and multiculturalism, although most adherents to these movements are certainly not
neofascists.34
Religious tribalism and hatred of modernity are at work not only in highly developed
countries, but in developing countries as well. There is good reason for describing as antimodernist
and proto-fascist the forces responsible for the September 11, 2001, attacks on New
York City and Washington, D.C. As such forces gain access to weapons of mass destruction,
including bio-weapons, one can only imagine the horrendous ecological and social consequences.
Environmentalists must make intelligent distinctions between the noble achievements of
23
modernity—including separation of church and state, natural science, universal human rights, vastly
improved medicine, higher material living standard, democratic politics—and modernity’s
problems—including serious environmental problems, social alienation and atomism, inability to
account for human subjectivity, and elimination of spiritual planes of reality.
The second temptation is to conclude that centralized government is best able to deal with
environmental problems stemming from human activity. The ecologically devastating consequences
of state socialism in the former U.S.S.R. and in Mao’s China,35
the enormous contamination left
by U.S. government nuclear weapons facilities, and the unsustainable forestry and grazing
permitted on U.S. public lands, among many other examples, demonstrate that governments often
engage in terrible environmental practices.36
Government regulations are necessary to limit
environmental damage by public and private enterprise, but environmentalists are sometimes naive
in the confidence they display in government. Many environmental groups, while continuing to
emphasize the importance of well-crafted environmental legislation and regulation, now engage in
dialogue with or to form partnerships with various stakeholders—including ordinary citizens,
ranchers, farmers, hunters, government officials, and corporate leaders—to solve environmental
disputes in terms of market mechanisms.
Criticism of centralized government does not entail the conclusion that environmental wellbeing
will follow if markets are freed from regulatory constraints. Corporations often engage in
environmentally destructive practices. Moreover, corporations are often able to design, influence, or
ignore regulations aimed at curbing such abusive practices. Indeed, corporations and governments
are frequently in league with one another in ways that harm the natural environment. To deal with
enormous social and environmental challenges in the coming century, however, serious efforts must
be made to “green” corporate attitudes and behavior.37
Some critics maintain that even more
radical social and political changes will be necessary to evade environmental calamity. Others claim,
however, that even without such radical changes, environmental and social conditions have been
improving for decades and will continue to improve for many decades to come.38
Only the passage
of time will enable us to know which view is correct.
24
The epithet “ecofascism” is not applicable to most forms of contemporary
environmentalism, which does not speak in terms of a new racism or a dictatorial tribalism that
would dismantle modern democratic society while utilizing modern technology to accomplish the
preservation of precious "blood and soil." Indeed, many environmentalists warn that oppressive,
draconian, and authoritarian regimes of one kind or another, including ecofascism, will inevitably
arise unless people decide soon enough to make dramatic changes in their behavior and institutions.
Critics reply, however, that some environmentalists are already promoting such authoritarian
practices, even though the much-heralded ecological doom has not yet taken place. True enough,
environmentalists have often overstated their case, but in so doing they have contributed to political,
institutional, attitudinal, and behavioral changes that have helped to address some environmental
problems.39
It remains to be seen, however, whether humankind can deal with the environmental
challenges lying ahead, without succumbing to quasi-religious, authoritarian regimes claiming that
human freedom must be abolished to save the human species.40
25
1
Ron Arnold, cited by Jessica Matthews of World Resources Institute, International Herald
Tribune, February 25, 1992, 6.
2
Der Spiegel, the leading German newsmagazine, recently covered the return of political
anti-Semitism. The cover of the issue (No. 23, 2002) bears the title “Playing with Fire,” printed
below a portrait of Hitler, surrounded by smoke from a burning match.
3
Walter Schoenichen, Naturschutz im dritten Reich: Einführung in Wesen und Grundlagen
zeitgamässiger Naturschutz-Arbeit [Nature Protection in the Third Reich: Introduction to the
Essence and Foundation of Contemporary Nature Protection Work] (Berlin: Hugo Vermühler
Verlag, 1934), 5-6. Cited hereafter as NDR.
4
Walter Schoenichen, Naturschutz als völkische und internationale Kulturaufgabe [Nature
Protection as Popular and International Cultural Problem] (Jena: Gustav Fischer Verlag, 1942), 19-
20. Cited hereafter as NK.
5
American environmentalists use the term “conservation” and “preservation” in a slightly
different way.
6
Schoenichen condemns the huge hotels, advertising signs, and other such intrusive
phenomena that despoil American national parks and German national monuments. See NK, 48 ff.
7
In NDR 19, Schoenichen notes that already in 1853, Wilhelm Heinrich Riehl was
speaking of “the right of wilderness [das Rechtes des Wildes]….”
8
Walter Schoenichen, Naturschutz, Heimatschutz (Stuttgart: Wissenschaftliche
Verlagsgesellschaft, 1954).
9
On this topic, see Raymond H. Dominick, The Environmental Movement in Germany:
Prophets and Pioneers 1871-1971 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992). This is an
excellent book.
10
The word völkisch, which may be innocently translated as “people-oriented,” became
politically important in the late nineteenth century, when it was used by conservatives who criticized
26
Enlightenment universalists (liberals and Marxists) for diluting the particularity, strength, and purity
of each individual “people” (Volk), in particular the German people.
11
Cited in Dominick, The Environmental Movement in Germany, 99.
12
Scholars disagree about the extent to which National Socialism was “green.” Some
charge that ecological considerations were always subordinated to racism and militarism. The
German Reich’s decision to re-arm in 1936 occurred at the same time that the government was
passing environmental legislation. Perhaps such laws and the rhetoric supporting them were merely
ideological smokescreen designed to conceal the complicity of Nazi leadership with big industry
and the armed forces. For example, see Piers H.G. Stephens, “Blood, not Soil: Anna Bramwell
and the Myth of ‘Hitler’s Green Party’,” Organization and Environment, 14, 2 (June, 2001), 173-
187. Others argue that the “green” component of Nazism cannot be so easily dismissed. See
Peter Staudenmaier, ”Fascist Ecology: The Green Wing of the Nazi Party and Its Historical
Antecedents,” in Ecofascism: Lessons from the German Experience, (San Francisco: AK Press,
1995). Text is on line at: www.spunk.org/library/places/germany/sp001630/peter.html
13
See Arthur Herman, The Idea of Decline in Western History (New York: The Free Press,
1997).
14
In “Reflections on Baden-Powell, the British Boy Scouts and Girl Guides, Racism,
Militarism, and Feminism,” Weber Studies, Vol. 14, No. 2 (Spring/Summer 1997), Richard A.
Voeltz evaluates the debate about whether Baden-Powell was a right-wing racist and imperialist. On
line version: http://weberstudies.weber.edu/archive/Vol.%2014.2/14.2Voeltz.htm
15
See Stefan Kuhl, The Nazi Connection: Eugenics, American Racism, and German
National Socialism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994). See also Daniel J. Kevles, In the
Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity (New York: Knopf, 1985).
16
Luc Ferry, The New Ecological Order, trans. Carol Volk (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1995). In his informative book, Divided Natures: French Contributions to Political Ecology
(Cambridge: MIT Press, 2002), 229-236, Kerry H. Whiteside critically examines the claim, made
27
by Ferry and other French liberals, that the ecology movement in general and deep ecology in
particular are prone to ecofascism. Whiteside makes clear that the French understanding of nature
differs significantly from the North American understanding, because France—like Germany—has
had little “wilderness” for centuries, whereas most North Americans believe that their continent
was virtually “wild” when European settlers arrived. Such a belief, of course, completely neglects
the fact that native Americans were human and thus historical beings, who altered the landscape in
significant ways, although certainly less dramatically than did European settlers.
17
I discuss these remarks in Contesting Earth’s Future: Radical Ecology and
Postmodernity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 167-168. See 166-183 of that
book for a discussion of ecofascism.
18
For a defense of deep ecology, see Kev Smith, “Ecofascism: Deep Ecology Theory and
Right-Wing Co-optation,” in Rising Tide: Climate Justice Network, at:
www.risingtide.nl/greenpepper/envracism/ecofacism.html
19
Garrett Hardin, Exploring New Ethics for Survival (New York: Viking Press, 1972) and
Promethean Ethics (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1980).
20
William Ophuls, Ecology and the Politics of Scarcity (San Francisco: W.H. Freeman,
1977), 145; cited by Robert C. Paehlke, Environmentalism and the Future of Progressive Politics
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 74/
21
Robert Heilbroner, An Inquiry into the Human Prospect (W.W. Norton & Company,
Inc., 1974), 26. This chilling depiction of a grim future for humankind is a classic of its kind.
22
In Rechte Ökologie: Umweltschutz zwischen Emanzipation und Faschismus (Berlin:
Elefanten Press, 1996), 15-17, Oliver Geden claims that American ecologist Frederic Edward
Clements’s idea of “superorganisms” was consistent with far right-wing social views, according to
which individuals are subservient to the organic social whole.
23
Michael A. Rivlin, “When Hate Goes Green,” Onearth, 24, No. 2 (Summer, 2002).
Available on line at: www.nrdc.org/onearth/02sum/immigra1.asp. For more on the connection
between certain anti-immigration groups and far-right wing ecology, see Jonathan Olsen, Nature
28
and Nationalism: Right-Wing Ecology and the Politics of Identity (New York: St. Martin’s Press,
1999).
24
Derek Wall, “Darker Shades of Green,” p. 4, RedPepper website:
www.redpepper.org.uk/cularch/xdkgreen.html See also, Derek Wall, Getting There: Steps Towards
a Green Society (London: Green Print, 1990).
25
Geden, Rechte Ökologie, 28. See also Janet Biehl, “ ‘Ecology’ and the Modernization
of Fascism in the German Ultra-Right,” in Lessons from the German Experience (San Francisco:
AK Press, 1995). Text on line at: www.spunk.org/library/places/germany/sp001630/ecofasc.html.
26
Cited by Geden, ibid., 96.
27
Ibid., 75-77.
28
Ibid., 90.
29
Ibid., 78-82
30
Ibid., 168.
31
Ibid., 170-171.
32
Ibid., 173.
33
See Michael E. Zimmerman, “Ken Wilber’s Critique of Ecological Spirituality,” Deep
Ecology and World Religions, ed. David Barnhill and Roger Gottlieb (Albany, New York: SUNY
Press, 2001), 243-269, and Zimmerman, “Possible Political Problems of Earth-Based Religiosity,”
Beneath the Surface: Critical Essays on Deep Ecology, ed. Eric Katz, Andrew J. Light, and David
Rothenberg (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2000), 169-194.
34
Indeed, Gus diZerega, a pagan priest, is also a proponent of an “evolutionary liberalism”
that he believes is compatible with the best of deep ecology. See his very informative essay,
“Social Ecology, Deep Ecology, and Liberalism,” Critical Review, 6, Nos. 2-3 (Spring-Summer,
1992), 305-370.
35
See Murray Feshbach, Alfred Friendly, and Lester Brown, Ecocide in the USSR (New
York: Basic Books, 1993), Judith Shapiro, Mago’s War Against Nature: Politics and the
Environment in Revolutionary China (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993), and Dai
29
Qing, The River Dragon Has Come: The Three Gorges Dam and the Fate of China’s Yangtze River
and its People (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1998).
36
See Terry Anderson and Donald Leal, Free Market Environmentalism (New York:
Palgrave McMillan, 2000).
37
See Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, L. Hunter Lovins, Natural Capitalism: Creating the
Next Industrial Revolution (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1999).
38
See the controversy stirred by Bjorn Lomborg’s book, The Skeptical Environmentalist:
Measuring the Real State of the World (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
39
See Alan AtKisson, Believing Cassandra: An Optimist Looks at a Pessimist’s World
(White River Junction, Vermont: Chelsea Green Publishing Company, 1999).
40
My thanks to John Clark for making several helpful suggestions that improved this
essay. Any remaining shortcomings are attributable to me.