I’m not sure if I fully grasp what Social Ecology is all
about so I’m looking forward to class discussion. But, from what I gathered,
social ecology is about restructuring our current social paradigms to a system
where there is a more level playing field. Social ecology addresses the
demonization of nature and the separation of humans from nature for the sake of
dominating nature.
In terms of the readings I had a hard time with the “what is
social ecology” one because there were so many words in quotations and I just couldn’t
really follow the train of thought very well. But from that paper I liked the
idea of restructuring our view of nature and changing it so the natural world
is not viewed as something cold and separate and unimportant intrinsically. I
think the paper went too far when it was trying to counter the survival of the
fittest theory. I do believe that in nature survival of the fittest and
competition for resources is a main driving factor. Symbiosis is also
important, and maybe it should be more emphasized, but that doesn’t de-value
the instinctual need to fight for survival, especially in a world of dwindling
natural resources.
I enjoyed the paper about the third world countries. There
are obvious correlations between super consumerism in the developed world and
poverty and need in developing countries. It is a radical idea that their
misfortune is completely reliant upon our frivolous lifestyle, but I think it
would be good for people to read that at least to get them thinking. My only
problem with the paper is that it only talked about need in third world
counties but there is also plenty of instances in the US where people are going
without necessities.
I think you can find hierarchies just about everywhere. From
dynamics in a high school to developing vs. developed nations. I think that
within the story that we are all accustomed to, hierarchies are part of the
status quo. I don’t know how things would be structured without hierarchies, I
would be interested to hear other peoples’ ideas for different social
structures.
So Bookchin is a little long winded....I agree. If you read this before class, have a look at the video of him our group emailed out. He is still long winded, but i think it is more accessible. Social Ecology does seem very radical at first - but can you think of ways in which the social order has changed in the last 25 years? the last 10 years? I think - and I am just throwing this out there - that Bookchin was not really expecting this kind of change overnight. Maybe there are ways to slowly reform the social system from within?
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