mythologies of individual

access to individualism is highly prestigious.

for one, there are only certain types of individuality that are acceptable and even recognized as “legitimate” (natural, healthy, morally sound, intelligent). the majority of these recognized and accepted expressions of individuality are created through market choices.

Individuals Choose what to wear (within appropriate lines of sexuality, gender, class status, race/trends), which expresses their personal identity through the stores, brands, types of clothing and transportation that they have access to. Individuals Choose what products to consume, which demonstrates both their moral and intellectual character  (through their Health Choices, Environmental Choices, and good-budgeting), and becomes a measure on which to ascertain the cause of a failure (“if you hadn’t eaten x, and had instead eaten y, then z wouldn’t have happened to you,” “if you had spent time doing x, instead of doing y, then…”). at risk of listing every form of “individuality” that is expressed through the market, here are a few more: education, travel, lifestyle (spirituality, physical activities, family structure), land ownership….

our current economy and social order sees greater individual freedom of choice as the goal. the more “choices” we have, the greater ability we will have to make the “right” or “best” choice. this choice will serve us well, and will add to our collection of individuality. obviously those with the greatest resources will have the greatest purchasing power, opening the door to greater possibilities of individuality.

while no doubt currently, people have found the possibility for (some) liberation within market-defined individuality (especially through subversion of acceptable expressions), it does not change the fact that these economies are entirely dependent on the DENIAL of recognized and accepted individuality to the majority of the world. without the unrelenting and deliberate subjugation of third world people around the world (through policies and practices that continue to place countries of the global south in further debt to the global north), the ongoing production and rapid change that has been essential to the development of personhood in the “developed world” would not be possible.

colonial and now neocolonial “economic” practices deny many individuals the “rights” to individuality as defined through the market.

i need to think more about what individuality means. any feedback is welcomed

 

nature is subjective

A friend posed the idea of “natural” as “the slowest rate of change.” It seems to fit several ideas that are commonly held about natural while also removing some of the value ascribed to those qualities. For example, rocks and mountains have very slow rates of change, while rivers and human technology and thought have very high rates of change. I think this definition challenges positive associations for “natural” and negative associations for “unnatural.”For example: are thoughts worse than rocks or mountains because they change more rapidly?

The above concept of nature is subjective, and this is just one concept, that is attempting to be a suggestion for an alternative subjective conception. Mainstream mythologies of “natural” emerge from and exist within the same structures and systems that have functioned to perform violence in the form of prisons, pipelines, classrooms, job offices, lending offices, eviction, insurance companies, chemical-warfare-turned-into-necessary-daily-products, arrest quotas, nationalism, binary-segregated waste/wash facilities, and our conceptions of natural inform how we function, what we see as acceptable, what we see as healthy, what we see as moral, what we see as desirable, what we see as pure, what we see as good, what we see as a goal.

DarkMatter posted about the constant need for innovation, and how the focus on maintenance is often more important.

One of my biggest (widest, most easily blanket-able) criticisms of my school, is its (our) use of the word “sustainability.” It is listed as one of the core values of our institution, and it is often brought forward by administrators, and demonstrated through funding, as something that the college values. Students use the word itself both as a matter of pride, and as a dig at the school for its devotion to sustainability. We have a group on campus that has functioned for several years, where students are encouraged to approach the group with an idea or a project, and the group will help them get the funding and set up the logistics to create their innovative idea. This group is highly lauded as an active participant in “sustainability”, and many members of the group represent “sustainability” on campus. I was part of this group for 1.3 semesters, after meeting a senior who told me he thought I would like it (which I later realized was recommended to me because of my first year small town naivete). As the leader of the community outreach team, we were encouraged to reach out to many different groups on campus to bring in new ideas and get new projects started up.

Maybe this focus on innovation is not the same as sustainability? What does it mean to sustain and what are the forces that allow sustaining? How are these forces valued?

This week I spoke with my professor about the midterm paper I turned in. She helped me clarify the direction of my paper. I explained that a large part of my personal and political goals is to redirect the focus of study when looking to understand power dynamics and oppression. Oftentimes when we identify an injustice in the world, we focus on the subjects of this injustice. While this is very important, (we must centralize lived experience in order to have a clear and realistic understanding of larger issues) it also has the potential ability to allow inaction and neutrality to continue to occur. Liberal ideologies allow for pity, sympathy and even compassion for disadvantaged and oppressed groups. Like a picture of a starving dog, we intake “glimpse[s] of suffering” that allow us to “pay our dues” to issues that we feel that we have no control over. “This kind of pity [i]s not compassion, for it [i]s useless and coma-inducing whereas compassion is active and equalizing” (Tara Sophia Bhana-James, “Journey Toward Compassionate Choice” from Sistah Vegan). When we study racism in the US, it is common to look at Black rates of imprisonment, poverty statistics, and access to resources. What is not as commonly examined is how those with white privilege also receive structural benefits from these racist systems and participate in upholding these systems. While ethnographers frequently enter Black, urban, impoverished spaces to find “the cause,” few researchers enter white wealthy suburban spaces looking for “the cause” for racial discrimination and oppression, even though people emerging from and existing within the latter spaces have the highest proportions of power out of any other group, with high representation in policy-making, high business positions, and control in media industries. It seems that if there is a structural problem, we should examine the structure that upholds it, rather than those who are suffering as a consequence of it, in order to find the root of the problem.

My professor also challenged me to move beyond a search for a monolithic explanation that will attempt to make sense of a variety of systems. She said that although a view of the earth from space may allow the viewer to view the entire earth and form an idea of the earth as a unified object with a common theme or truth, it will also prevent the viewer from seeing the complexities and realities of life. This sentiment is also echoed by Noel Sturgeon, who urges environmental movements to move beyond attempts to create a grand narrative, and recognize that although all actions and consequences can be connected to one another, a variety of histories, efforts, and ideologies have uniquely shaped each interaction, and there is no one theory to explain all interactions.

Using all of this to inform my direction, I am currently focused on using an analysis of appeals to the natural, which have been identified as laden with value and power, to understand how oppression and power dynamics play out in relation to disease.

Because I would like to centralize my understandings on real experiences and movements, I have chosen to begin studying disability justice activism and movements. I want to add that I am on a process of learning and am appreciative of being corrected, challenged or redirected. I first watched a one-hour webinar created for the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) that gave a history of disability rights movements from the 1940s to the present day. I did this to give me a background and basic understanding of recent history regarding conceptions of the natural or proper body. I will include some of the things that I found below. Beware that very outdated language is used, which I have partially censored with stars.

The point is this, ladies and gentlemen, the r*****ed child is a human being … And for reasons for which neither he nor his family are responsible, he is r*****ed. He has the same rights that children everywhere have. He has the same right to happiness, the same right to play, the right to companionship, the right to be respected, the right to develop to the fullest extent within his capacities, and the right to love and affection … We cannot discriminate against this child, deny to this child the rights other children have because of the one thing that neither he nor his family can help, because he is retarded … He has a right to these things and his parents have a right to know that he has these rights. For they, too, are entitled to peace of mind about what is happening to a retarded child separated from them.–Minnesota Governor Luther Youngdahl from the first national conference advocating for people with disabilities, 1950.

An activist from a 1977 sit-in for disability rights said that they are fighting for “institutions in our society that would serve us all.” Earlier, Judge Earl Larson made the landmark decision in favor of a case of unjust treatment for individuals with developmental disabilities, saying “everyone, no matter the degree or severity of disability, is capable of growth and development if given adequate and suitable treatment.” This reflects a narrative that prioritizes development, and followed a movement centered around the theory of normalization that says that “people with disabilities should have the same patterns and conditions of every day life as other people.” This includes the ability to socialize, attend events and form community in age-appropriate ways, as well as live independently, work, and have the option to make mistakes and act as an agential individual like anyone else.

Current disability justice movements, started by and centralized around PoC, women, queer, and working class people with disabilities, challenge these individualist and productivist notions. Patty Berne quotes Aurora Levins Morales:

“There is no neutral body from which our bodies deviate. Society has written deep into each strand of tissue of every living person on earth. What it writes into the heart muscles of five star generals is distinct from what it writes in the pancreatic tissue and intestinal tracts of Black single mothers in Detroit, of Mexicana migrants in Fresno, but no body stands outside the consequences of injustice and inequality…What our bodies require in order to thrive, is what the world requires. If there is a map to get there, it can be found in the atlas of our skin and bone and blood, in the tracks of neurotransmitters and antibodies.”

I will purchase the book which this quote comes from, as it takes a deeper look at how bodies are expected to function.

Disability Justice activists, organizers, cultural workers understand that able-bodied supremacy has been formed in relation to intersecting systems of domination and exploitation. The histories of white supremacy and ableism are inextricably entwined, both forged in the crucible of colonial conquest and capitalist domination. We cannot comprehend ableism without grasping its interrelations with heteropatriarchy, white supremacy, colonialism and capitalism, each system co-creating an ideal bodymind built upon the exclusion and elimination of a subjugated “other” from whom profits and status are extracted. 500+ years of violence against black and brown communities includes 500+ years of bodies and minds deemed dangerous by being non-normative – again, not simply within able-bodied normativity, but within the violence of heteronormativity, white supremacy, gender normativity, within which our various bodies and multiple communities have been deemed “deviant”, “unproductive”, “invalid.”

http://sinsinvalid.org/blog/disability-justice-a-working-draft-by-patty-berne

naturalizing the family

This week, I finished Woman on the Edge of Time and read two more chapters, “‘Forever New Frontiers’: Extraterrestrialism and U.S. Militarism in Space,” and “‘The Power Is Yours, Planeteers!’: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Children’s Environmentalist Popular Culture,” from Noël Sturgeon’s Environmentalism in Popular Culture.

During my discussion with my independent study advisor this week, she asked me to write a critical reflective essay on the themes that I have been working with this semester, analyzing how they do or do not coincide. I have also been working towards a potential project for the Women’s and Gender Studies Symposium later in the semester, and a final research project for this class. With all this in mind, this week I would like to focus on childhood, family and environmentalism within Piercy’s idyllic Mattapoisett, with analysis from Sturgeon.

In Marge Piercy’s utopian future, children are raised by a set of three “mothers” (the gender neutral term for parent) until age 13 (or whenever they find it appropriate) at which point they go off by themselves and have three months of mutual silence between former mother and child, so that the young person can effectively and independently transition out of childhood. They can choose to pursue a healthy relationship with their parent after that time, should they desire. Children are born in “brooders,” which are wombs outside the body programmed to produce genetically random (although the genetic conditions are decided democratically by the community) babies, who are then accepted as the child of the three mothers. Although the three mothers have the more formal responsibility for child-care, everyone in the community is responsible for the children, and all participate in the education, feeding, and social raising of all children.

This family structure alone poses a serious challenge to all current mainstream notions of what a “natural” family is. As it is currently defined and legitimated in a variety of ways, legally, socially, and scientifically, the family has three main qualities: a romantic pairing, biological relations, and socially designated roles that remain static throughout the lifetime of all members. To be more specific, it is assumed that families are created either through a romantic pairing (more specifically, marriage, although liberalization of sexuality has complicated this), or through the biologic birth of a child. Both of these scenarios create a family in “natural” (unquestionable, reasonable, obvious, predetermined) ways. This family is a permanent organizing feature in individual’s lives (medically, in education, job access, location, travel, immigration, family status, wealth), which then creates lifelong dependence on a romantic or biological occurrence. Current mainstream policies and social truths do not allow for choice in family beyond who to engage in a romantic partnership with. Even within this “choice,” there are economic, social, and legal incentives to romantically and permanently pair with another individual, particularly one with whom you can be privately biologically reproductive.

Piercy’s utopia is very deeply imaginative in the ways that it diverges from our current truth of a natural family. Every aspect of the family is based on choice–mothers choose to become mothers, and choose their co-mothers. Their choice is not based on romantic attraction, but is often based on complementary skills or qualities. They choose when to begin the gestation process, and when the baby is born, they again choose to mother that child. In Mattapoisett, Jackrabbit transitioned between mothers, even before per transition into post-childhood. One mother no longer felt able to adequately care for and provide love for their child, as young Jackrabbit was too free-spirited, which frustrated that mother. Another person stepped in to fill that role. After the transition into responsibility, individuals may choose their continued role with their mothers, as well as the community within which they reside. Economic structures that depend on community work and equality of resources make it possible for individuals to choose where and how they live, uninhibited by restraints imposed by familial resources, citizenship, education levels, and status (currently all determined by the romantic/biological family).

Noël Sturgeon points out the ways that current liberal environmental messaging to children relies on the “natural” nuclear patriarchal family structure as a solution to the “unnatural” environmental destruction and degradation, which is also associated with deviancy from gender roles. She points out the ways that the Lion King, relying on the feel-good high-production music and animation, creates the villainous Scar, who is both feminized and racialized throughout the movie, which she illustrates creatively and clearly in a variety of ways. Scar also works to separate young Simba from the patriarchal path of his father, by blaming him for the death of his father, creating conditions in which he would no longer become king (fulfilling his father’s role.) In the movie, it is obviously natural that Simba would take up his father’s social, economic, and political position due to their biologic relation. That his uncle would take the position queers the idea of a nuclear family–younger brother, Scar, is not tied to Mufasa except through their (biologically) absent mother, thus they have no reason that they should be connected politically, while Simba is an obvious candidate as the biologic son of Mufasa’s romantic pairing. This queer idea is obviously unnatural and villainous.

Sleek, cunning, and feminine Scar is associated with poor morals, and is painted as an environmental monster in his disregard for the life and resources of the animals under Mufasa’s patriarchal kingdom. His followers are the heavily racialized and mentally-handicapped hyenas, who with indiscriminate violence and lust, fulfill his villainous mission of domination. Who is to save the naturally functioning kingdom? The natural son, fulfilling his father’s position in the world. He is able to make a difference in the world (saving the land and resources of his constituents) by replacing his father as the patriarchal leader, and beginning his own family. Thus, the “natural” patriarchal nuclear family is offered as a solution to the “unnatural” environmental threat (as Lisa Sturgeon states explicitly).

Sturgeon also points out the ways that environmentalist media for children encourages children to engage their parents about their consumption patterns. While this gives a semblance of agency (“the power is yours, planeteers!”), it also de-agentializes children, making their only available path to creating change one of consumption–either their parent’s consumption, or their future consumption as they fulfill their parent’s social, political, and economic roles. In contrast, children in Piercy’s utopia work on problems themselves. Children learn through play and work, following community members into the field, laboratory, etc. to learn about how to create, operate, build, and grow. While current liberal environmentalism tells children that they have the power to make a difference, Piercy gives children the opportunity to create change. Children can contribute to scientific discoveries, agricultural techniques, and technological advances. They are part of decision making, and are given responsibility over their homes and work. They are taught extensively, and also given the opportunity to learn within that knowledge. Their path to creating change comes from within themselves, not through following patriarchal family structures.

I would like to continue exploring these issues, particularly how the family has been naturalized, creating it as an accepted norm, rather than a site that can perpetuate or promote violence in its very structure, by reducing the ability to create change, and creating dependence on arbitrary social constructions that determine the opportunities and resources of an individual.

I am also interested in utilizing some of these themes to create a final research project. As a current and future educator, I am very interested in the ways that ecofeminist theory can be utilized to disrupt the naturalization of racist, colonialist, and cisheteropatriarchal forces in childhood and education, particularly in homogenous areas. I am interested in potentially exploring and creating a lesson plan or in-depth analysis of how naturalization of family and homogeneity functions to reinforce global power dynamics through an environmental justice/ecofeminist lens.

suppression

This week I read Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy. The protagonist, Consuela or Connie, is a Chicana woman living in New York City who has repeatedly been institutionalized in mental hospitals by her remaining biological family and the state. She is also a catcher, as described by her friend from 2137, who shows her the utopian world which person is from. In this world, gender has been eliminated, aided by the “brooders,” technically advanced baby-makers that allow for a complete equality of the sexes, by virtue of no designated sex roles (nobody carries babies in their bodies.) A set of three parents are mothers to a child, although all children are under the responsibility and care of all those in the village. The future also includes very careful resource allocation, with only menial, uncreative, and repetitive jobs such as dish-washing and clothes production done by machines, using precious resources that the village most vote and be unanimous in their decision in order to use.

From my reading on different ecofeminist perspectives, and understanding a history of femininity and nature, the future described in Piercy’s book is idyllic, and I have yet to find major flaws. There is conflict in the future, and it is dealt with openly and with love. The rules that exist are constantly under scrutiny and subject to change, rather than being totalitarian. I enjoy the future’s blend of hyper-advanced technology, such as the encyclopedia-like kenners that they wear on their wrists and floating transportation methods, with pre-colonial lifestyles (the township that Luciente is from utilizes the cultural identity of Native Americans) such as sustainable agricultural practices and respect and communication with nature. I think that they embody some of the ideas that Lisa Sturgeon brings up. Rather than remaining fixated on what is “truly natural,” we should emphasize life first, and organize resources around what is most beneficial for life.

What is particularly interesting about the author’s methods is their use of juxtaposition between the mental institution and the future. In the mental institution, Connie and her fellow inmates are constantly drugged, and beaten at any sign of resistance. Any undiagnosed symptom or feeling they bring up is written off as a result of their sickness, and therefore not “real.” Consuela describes only one person that she knows there as being mentally ill. The other people are those who are no longer wanted by their friends and family, such as herself. She was reentered into the institution after breaking a wine bottle on her niece’s abusive pimp’s face, after he had broken into her house, hurt her and beaten her niece, Dolly extensively. The pimp then entered her into the hospital, and threatened Dolly into saying that her beaten body was Connie’s doing.

Many of the other patients have similar stories. Those who are there defy expectations for how they should act based on their gender or social position. Those in the future continuously defy Consuela’s expectations of gender and social position. The people in the mental institution in the 20th century are not at all different from the people in the future besides the constant oppression that they face for existing as they are.

I wonder about the presence of femininity in this utopian future. Below is a quote from Alok Vaid-Menon, one-half of the trans South Asian Duo that makes up the poetic and political group, Dark Matter.

Stop telling trans women & trans feminine people that we “wear too much makeup,” “look like caricatures,” and that we “shouldn’t do so much,” if we want to be “taken seriously” or “pass.” This is transmisogyny. In our cisheteropatriarchal society we’re taught that femininity is funny, that femininity is weakness, that femininity is always “excessive,” “unprofessional,” “disrespectful,” and that the default body is already always masculine. The reason trans women & trans feminine people experience so much policing of our appearance is because of society’s collective hatred of femininity. What is so threatening and so destabilizing about seeing people who celebrate, affirm, and fight like hell for femininity? What feminine part of yourself did you have to destroy in order to exist in this world? How is that grief motivating you to police, hurt, and judge others? Please, move aside! Allow trans women & trans feminine people to dress, paint, present, celebrate ourselves as we want to! 

From my reading of The Death of Nature, I can see how femininity and nature have been systematically suppressed over centuries. The future described in Woman on the Edge of Time seems to eliminate many aspects that we associate with femininity today, such as consumption and aesthetic focus. I am conflicted on this point because many of the people that we meet do spend a considerable amount of time on their appearance, and work to make beauty in the world. In addition, ways of relating to one another are emotion and community based. However, many of the women are described as unfeminine in their assertiveness and boldness.

I have read over half the book but I look forward to finishing it this weekend. More to come.

week of reflection

This week has been extremely busy and, unfortunately, I have not had time to read a complete book this week.

However, I have had time to reflect on the texts I have been working on and evaluating their application, especially as it relates to the work I am doing on campus. I will also attempt to answer some of the questions I posed after last week’s blog post.

I began college as an Environmental Science major before switching to Women’s and Gender Studies my sophomore year. Much of the reason that I switched majors was the ethical gap that I found between a department that claimed that they were looking out for the greater good, and the unwillingness to understand complexities that would contribute to their understanding of what a better future could be.

My sophomore year, I attempted to start a student activist group called Common Ground focusing on environmental justice, particularly as it pertains to environmental racism and sexism. The group arose from a discussion at the Feminist Collective, where we discussed environmental justice. Later, we invited members from environmental groups on campus to participate in creating a group of social justice activists and environmental advocates to find a “common ground” in recognizing the ways that global capitalism and climate change disproportionately negatively affect women of color.

The result was less than productive–environmentalists stuck to their arguments about overpopulation and ethical consumption, and social justice advocates were just beginning to learn about widespread environmental racism. Although we were able to research extensively and create a series of informational posters, the group quickly fell apart. This week, I discussed the failure of this group with a friend of mine who works at the Center for Sustainable Education and was heavily involved with creating Common Ground two years ago. We discussed fundamental beliefs within environmentalism that threaten any real support of environmental justice practices and advocacy, and how our school prioritizes creating change.

This week I also had a project due about the demographics of my home town. In a 2014 survey, the median income in my census tract was over $106,000, and the “Black or African American alone” population was 0%. Over 98% of the residents are registered as white. My public school partakes in a variety of “environmentalist” activities, from growing our own produce, donating compost to local farms, and implementing an extensive recycling system, to building gardens built to clean run-off water and encouraging “ethical” consumption. We were raised to have a strong commitment to the environment and understand our responsibility to future generations in preserving the planet. Our collective commitment to a better future also extended to issues such as marriage equality and equal pay for women–the majority scorned “backwards” ignorance embodied in overt racism, sexism, or homophobia.

However much we may have collectively denied our racism, there were definite distinctions and hierarchies created around worthiness, trustworthiness, and value. These were manifested in interpersonal ways, (“I’m not racist but…”) as well as structural ways (high barriers to entry into “public” resources). When we learned that it is better to buy organic or local, bike instead of use machines, shop at local stores, use reusable materials, and support “earth-friendly” brands, not just for ourselves, but for the COLLECTIVE BENEFIT of the planet, and that to not do so was not just personally unhealthy, but also immoral as it was a direct violence against ourselves and our future, we also learned that certain ways of being are BETTER than others, by virtue of being less harmful and more forward thinking. Following this train of logic, those who were acting and existing more within the “better” ways of being (defined as being more conscientious, thoughtful, and kind) have some level of superiority (usually related to moral character or intelligence) than those who do not participate.

I do not wish to go through each recommendation and point out how the environmental “betters” are problematic. However, the majority of the “betters” 1. include activities (almost entirely) exclusively available to a privileged class (especially economic/geographic/gender/ability privileged) 2. do not challenge capitalist growth-oriented goals/power dynamics/commodification, and 3. do not identify causes of environmental degradation, choosing instead to cause further isolation through individualist environmentalist competition and resentment.

The book I am working on this week introduced me to the term “immanence” which Starhawk defines as “the awareness of the of the world and everything in it as alive, dynamic, interdependent, interacting, and infused with moving energies: a living being, a weaving dance.” This highly spiritual definition translates on a more practical level to me as an understanding that all actions have consequences, and since everything is connected, your consequences often extend far past yourself. Feminism might understand this through the lens of intersectionality–everyone is connected structurally and individually through power dynamics and norms–you cannot separate yourself from your social identities. Luisah Teish, the author of Jambalaya, recognizes that personal health is connected to collective health, and cannot be achieved without racial, gender, sexual, and class liberation. She teaches about spirituality, but also makes it distinct that unlearning racism and other oppressive senses of reality is crucial to truly having a positive investment in your own wellbeing, as well as the wellbeing of your community and the world.

If we are invested in a healthy, just future, we must also be invested in constantly learning what constitutes health and justice.

ignoring the burdens of benefits

This week I read selections from Toxic Struggles: The Theory and Practice of Environmental Justice edited by Richard Hofrichter. The main message I received is about consequences.

“The federal government not only provides industry with subsidies and tax breaks but increasingly seems unwilling to regulate corporate action effectively. Communities are held hostage through either the offer of jobs or the threat to remove them unless corporations receive immunity from liability for their environmentally destructive practices. The social forces responsible for ecological destruction, embedded deep in our economic and cultural institutions, support waste, destructive competition, consumption, and the treatment of every material resource and human being as a commodity. Perhaps most important is the requirement, in a capitalist society, for endless, unlimited growth that results in the depletion of natural resources, the pollution of our habitat, and the organization of urban and rural space to suit the demands of commerce. This unsatiable demand for growth is not an abusive practice that can be mitigated by reform; it is endemic to the capitalist model of development. The social costs are borne by the communities at risk and by the public. Until people challenge the fundamental principles guiding the conditions and uses of our resources and labor, ecology will remain just another policy issue.” (Hofrichter, 8)

Our multinational economy depends on constant growth. New products must be innovated, more money must be made, and new scientific “discoveries”must occur. When growth stops, our economy stops. Need does not regulate the economy beyond promoting it through further growth. In our current economic (and political) system, there will never be a point where consumers have “enough,” and production can stop. Nor will there ever be a point where making sure that everyone has enough will be prioritized over profit or growth.

Because achieving environmental justice demands major restructuring of the entire social order, a beginning point for considering basic change is a challenge to absolute property rights and the logic of industrial capitalism’s emphasis on growth without limit. That is, society’s productive resources and facilities cannot be permitted to be used for any purpose, regardless of the consequences, merely because of legal rights of ownership. Second is the recognition that everyone has a claim to a clean environment, not just those who can afford it. Third, the idea of security means maintaining a sustainable ecological system rather than military or economic superiority. Achieving environmental justice will require incorporating ecological issues into a larger social-justice agenda for change and considering alternative forms of economic development. Fourth is the creation of a collective bargaining process for citizens as a means to develop democratic approaches for decisions that affect everyone through the production, investment, and use of resources. (Hofrichter, 5)

Vandana Shiva and Maria Mies criticize technology as a weapon of destruction and evil, cut off from the wisdom  of the “natural” world. Noel Sturgeon questions what it means to be “natural,” and recognizes the ways that technological advances have brought liberation into our lives by reducing labor and allowing for greater choice and agency within our bodies. Both of these assessments have truth to them. Our idea of what is “natural” has been shaped by our knowledge of the world, which is shaped by power–(up until the internet/still) the knowledge that is readily available to us does not contest dominant ideologies. Therefore perceptions of what is “natural” is just as much influenced by dominant ideologies as our perception of what deserves violence or control. In addition, the gradual then exponential destruction of the earth is the result of changing ideologies that move from regarding the earth as a living sacred being to an inanimate but dangerous object in need of conquest, and designed for human use.

The tragedy of the commons occurs not just because each individual tries to secure their self-interest but because they know or fear that everyone else is doing the same. It is not the presence of individual self-interest but the absence of a sense of commonality that is most crucial. If we are to prevent someone fishing the last fish, they must be assured that no one else will do so. We must secure the commons, that is, those resources essential for our mutual sustainability. The only way that the commons can be secured is to persuade individuals that their needs will be met, and they need not grab and hoard for themselves. Security of resources cannot be separated from a commitment to equity in securing basic needs. (Mellor, 43)

Wherever along the spectrum one falls ideologically (and the two are not necessarily mutually exclusive or comprehensive for an understanding of ecofeminism), the reality is that that there are consequences to our current economic/political/social system. Widely, in US neoliberalism, we reject that fact that we are benefiting from the under or unpaid labor of Third World people in our country and around the world. We reject the fact that we are benefitting from the direct and deliberate placement of toxic waste facilities, garbage disposal sites, and dangerously pollutive factories in the Third World of our country and beyond. We reject the fact that our benefits–our comforts, health, sustenance, and daily functioning, are the direct result of others’ suffering.

Environmental racism disadvantages people of color while providing advantages (i.e., privileges) for whites. A form of illegal extraction forces people of color to pay costs of environmental benefits for the public at large. Determining who pays and who benefits from our current urban and industrial policies is central to an analysis of environmental racism. Exclusionary zoning and unequal protection have created environmental sacrifice zones where residents pay with their health. (Bullard, 26)

“All communities deserve to be protected from the ravages of pollution. No one segment of society should have to bear a disparate burden of the rest of society’s environmental problems. (Bullard, 33)

Joni Seager encourages us to  move beyond assessments of the environment that rely solely on physical evaluations free from causality and passive of nature. She says that “the environmental crisis is not just a crisis of physical ecosystems.”

The real story of the environmental crisis is one of power and profit and the institutional and bureaucratic arrangements and the cultural conventions that create conditions of environmental destruction. Toxic wastes and oil spills and dying forests, presented in the daily news as the entire environmental story, are symptoms of social arrangements, and especially of social derangements. The environmental crisis, more than the sum of ozone depletion, global warming, and overconsumption, is a crisis of the dominant ideology. (59)

This dominant ideology finds its power in secrecy, according to Seager, which is used to “privatize access to knowledge”(60).

Winona LaDuke illustrates social derangements through her explanation of Anishinabeg people’s practice of reciprocal relations and understanding of cycles, where resources are recognized as animate gifts, and the “understanding that you take only what you need and leave the rest”(100).

thoughts

I am curious how these ignored or relocated consequences manifest in cultural knowledges and functions. How do we become complicit in ignored consequences?

“Political correctness” fails to address how oppression is integral to current economic, political, and social function WHILE eliminating vocabulary and phrasing that recognizes these power dynamics, therefore eliminating tangible references to/examples of oppression. While it is known that industry creates waste and toxins (it has always been known), neoliberalism hides these negative consequences from those who are granted the privilege of a near-democratic voice (middle class/upper class whites) and relocates dangers to those who can be blamed for the conditions in which they find themselves. In addition to hiding and relocating consequences, ignoring the burdens of benefits, cultural myths are created to reinforce the process of assigning unfavorable consequences to groups that are already oppressed. Violence becomes an output attributed to certain groups without recognizing the many violent inputs that have created conditions of violence in every day lives. As all of the authors in Toxic Struggles mention, dangerous environmental factors are disproportionately (exclusively) assigned to neighborhoods with People of Color, leading to disproportionate health problems, which further plunges individuals and communities into poverty, and increases the likelihood of further manifestations of violence. In this way, not only are the consequences of capitalism ignored or hidden and relocated in oppressed communities, but the source of disorder is identified as stemming from the communities themselves, rather than as the result of corrupt policies.

I am interested in how this is manifested in privileged communities. Is this the only way that privileged communities ignore consequences? Is the deliberate segregation of class and race another way of escaping the “consequence” of privilege? Do homogenous environments create consequence-free self-expression?

 

questions for the week–Environmental Justice

1. what are borders? For whom do borders exist? What is a nation?
   • what is relationship between borders or nations and corporations, trade, workers, consumers and resources?
2. how do we negotiate capitalism’s “insatiable demand for growth” (Hoffrichter, 1993) and structural obstinance against change?
   • inconsistent symbolism–> for whom does change happen? what types of change are desirable?
3. what does democratic decision making look like? who does democracy include?
   • distribution of resources–who decides?

The Death of Nature

Before Reading

Earlier this week, I met with my professor to discuss the previous week’s readings. We discussed coercive trade, inconsistent symbolism, travel, genetic “manipulation” and what it means to “prioritize life.”

I began this week at odds with the slide to nihilism introduced by Sturgeon’s piece (despite her intentions), and the desire for a consistency of truth and a recognition of reality. From last week’s reading of Vandana Shiva and Maria Mies, I gained a large scale criticism of technology and science–two mechanisms that both authors identify (in different ways) as generators and assistants of and to violence, and therefore directly opposed to life. Noël Sturgeon, on the other hand, ctitiques the very idea of “natural,” recognizing that our understanding of what has been affected or changed by technology or science is just as socially constructed and therefore dictated by power structures as technology or science itself.

So there IS world-wide environmental degradation that disproportionately affects people of color and people living in poverty, particularly women. And our current medical, spiritual, and physical (scientific) understandings DO fall along a linear world-view that places humans (particularly white men) at the top of a hierarchy, enabling us to “utilize” (exploit) those “below” (ordered lower than) us for our purposes of progress, profit, and domination.

But where is there alignment between recognition that all knowledge is entrenched within power structures, and finding a truth to express the oppression and domination imposed upon life?

Summary of The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology and the Scientific Revolution, Carolyn Merchant, 1980

Chapter 1: Nature as Female

This chapter presented a social, cultural, and spiritual history of perceptions of the “natural” world, women, and the earth. Merchant recognizes what she portrays as a general trend (focusing on Greek and Roman civilizations) that controlling images of nature, and actions and systems created based on perceptions began to shift quickly or in unprecedented ways in the 16th and 17th centuries.

The image of the earth as a living organism and nurturing mother had served as a cultural constraint restricting the actions of human beings. One does not readily slay a mother, dig into her entrails for gold or mutilate her body, although commercial mining would soon require that. As long as the earth was considered to be alive and sensitive, it could be considered a breach of human ethical behavior to carry out destructive acts against it. (3)

She also references specific cultural or religious understandings of nature, such as Shakespeare’s Cordelia, daughter of King Lear, who Merchant explains, “represented utopian nature, or nature as the ideal unity of the opposites…She was strength and gentleness hewn as one: ‘passion and order, innocence and maturity, defenselessness and strength, daughter and mother, maid and wife.’ She represented simplicity in unity and balance of the contraries (Merchant, 7).

Slow shifts in attitudes based on increasing technological and economic change often allowed controlling images to remain the same while the implications and meanings began to change. For example, nature still remained aligned (in the cultural understandings referenced by Merchant) with notions of femininity. While the first quote (in short: we cannot harm the earth like we cannot harm our mother–both are important forces of life) demonstrates how earlier understandings of femininity and the earth reflected strong respect (and therefore nonviolence) for worthy and valued life, later understandings created associations that enabled violence. Earlier moral necessities to protect the earth were undermined by socially-constructed hierarchies (such as Aristotelian hierarchies of form and matter) and associations of passivity and inherent selflessness to femininity.

While the pastoral tradition symbolized nature as a benevolent female, it contained the implication that nature when plowed and cultivated could be used as a commodity and manipulated as a resource. Nature, tamed and subdued, could be transformed into a garden to provide both material and spiritual food to enhance the comfort and soothe the anxieties of men distraught by the demands of the urban world and the stresses of the marketplace. It depended on a masculine perception of nature as a mother and bride whose primary function was to comfort, nurture, and provide for the wellbeing of the male. (9)

As the above text demonstrates, economic demands, where men increasingly independently provided for their increasingly privatized, dependent families through non-communal market endeavors, had a strong influence over the “purposes” and values ascribed to femininity and “nature.”

Aristotelian philosophy, while unifying matter and form in each individual being, associated activity with maleness and passivity with femaleness. Form reigned superior over dead, passive matter. Socially, Aristotle found the basis for male rule over the household in the analogy that, as the soul ruled the body, so reason and deliberation, characteristic of men, should rule the appetites supposedly predominant in women. (13)

Merchant outlines other associations based on this active/creation=masculine, passive/matter=feminine principle: sperm and egg, sun and moon (or earth), mind and body, etc.

She also outlines gnostic (from a body of potentially early Christian texts written in the first three centuries AD) understandings of God which contained both male and female selves, and was a mother and father to women and men created in their image (Merchant, 17). Some understandings viewed the earth as a human body with veins and internal organs, while others saw the earth as a collection of parts, each specifically designed for a purpose (23). “In general, the Renaissance view was that all things were permeated by life, there being no adequate method by which to designate the inanimate from the animate” (27).

Merchant cites “the Roman compiler Pliny (AD 23-79), in his Natural History” as he warns against “mining the depths of Mother Earth” (30). Merchant says that Pliny understood earthquakes to be expressions resulting from being violated, and that “the earth had concealed from view that which she did not wish to be disturbed,” referencing the bountiful and life-giving world that humans existed upon (30). Later, Georg Agricola (1494-1555) agreed, and referenced the very real environmental impacts, such as deforestation and pollution of air and water, of trying to take what mother earth had hidden for a purpose.

Chapter 2: Farm, Fen, and Forest

This chapter gives a deeper ecological history of Europe. Merchant describes general sentiments of cooperation between individual or shared land, communal land, and the needs of the plants, animals, water, air, and soil that also occupied that space. Later, Merchant describes trends that favored the dominant and wealthy groups, such as draining the fens (58). Many residents protested against such changes, by deliberately destroying projects meant to benefit wealthy groups by “fill[ing] in newly dug channels, demolish[ing] dikes” et cetera (60). Fen drainers responded by advocating for a cleanliness and efficiency created by removing the fens, which were labeled as unhealthy and troublesome.

As in the case of soil improvement, the draining of the English fens primarily benefited the landed and moneyed classes. The disruption of natural ecological balances also upset human ecology. Improvements in the productivity of the land were shared neither by the poor nor by the original occupants of the marshes–the fish, fowl, and marsh plants that over thousands of years had evolved a complex set of ecological interdependences. (61)

In this way, nature began to be something that could be manipulated for the benefit of a dominant, removed class. Those who lived on and with the land were no longer able to interact with the land and resources, as they were under the private ownership of forces outside the ecologic system.

In France and England, wooded areas were initially preserved as monastery lands and as hunting grounds for aristocracy, the legal term forest being used to designate lands where game was reserved for kings and the nobility. Wooded lands were also cultivated and settled by monasteries, which then sold the wood for tithes. (62)

Land was no longer something to exist with, but rather to own and control for private (elite) purposes. People who did not have land often fled to the forest, only to be kicked out.

Another subject of this chapter was increased industrialization and use of non-renewable resources. While renewable resources used in production processes such as physical labor, wind, water, and wood, were accessible to most on individual or communal levels, working with metals required large and expensive infrastructure (64). This further separated worker from their work, as they no longer owned the means of production, or were responsible for extracting resources. Mining and creating tools out of metals created separation between extraction or creation, production, and completion.

Chapter 3: Organic Society and Utopia

This chapter discusses relationships of philosophies to society and nature, including concepts of interdependence, ordering of the household, and collective versus individual. Merchant discusses different holistic perceptions of the body, society, and ecology.

Chapter 4: The World an Organism

Mechanism, which superseded the organic framework, was based on the logic that knowledge of the world could be certain and consistent, and that the laws of nature were imposed on creation by God. The primacy of organic process gave way to the stability of mathematical laws and identities. Force was external to matter rather than immanent within it. Matter was corpuscular, passive, and inert; change was simply the rearrangement of particles as motion was transmitted from one part to another in a causal nexus. Because it viewed nature as dead and matter as passive, mechanism could function as a subtle sanction for the exploitation and manipulation of nature and its resources. (103)

This chapter illustrates various theories about the world–some see that life is in everything, others see life as separate.

I was interested in Merchant’s discussion of what she labels as Neoplatonic natural magic, originating in the Florentine Platonic Academy in the late fifteenth century. Neoplatonic magic, as she describes it, is based on a hierarchal cosmic understanding, which attempts to manipulate the universe to the favor of the aristocracy through manipulation of earthly representations of cosmic elements. My friend says that Neoplatonic magic originated much earlier than this, and that the described sect, heavily sponsored by the Medici family, is misnamed by Merchant.

Condemned by the Catholic Church in the sixteenth century as heretical, natural magic was based on assumptions such as the manipulation of nature and the passivity of matter; these assumptions were ultimately assimilated into a mechanical framework founded on technological power over nature for the collective benefit of society. The Renaissance magus as an operator and arranger of natural objects became the basis of a new optimism that nature could be altered for human progress. (109)

Hence, manipulation of nature by elites, even when it followed understandings of the interconnectedness of all things, still was exploited for profit.

The process of mechanizing the world picture removed the controls over environmental exploitation that were an inherent part of the organic view that nature was alive, sensitive and responsive to human action. Mechanism took over from the magical tradition the concept of the manipulation of matter but divested it of life and vital action. (111)

I liked Paracelsian understanding of nature, which utilized similar principles as what Merchant classifies as Neoplatonic, but with different intentions.

In the organic world, magicians, metallurgists, and healers viewed themselves as the servants of nature, assisting, mimicing, and perfecting natural processes through art (techné) for human benefit. (119-120)

He also challenged economic and social inequality, and resisted “the orthodoxy of the establishment” by advocating for “the freedom of ordinary people to study nature for themselves and believed in a self-active natural world and individual liberty. The bulk of his knowledge was obtained from lay people; his sources were women healers, barbers, bathkeepers, miners, and his own empirical observations, in addition to those of learned physicians; he visited universities only as a wandering journeyman scholar”(Merchant, 120). These beliefs and behavior got him chased out of many towns.

Questions and Connections

I decided to read half of this book instead of finish it entirely this week. It is difficult for me to read large amounts of text and process, remember, and ask questions, as I normally do during the learning process.

The remaining chapters from The Death of Nature can be read in future units. So far, I am enjoying the historical context and thoroughness of Carolyn Merchant’s book. I also find it lacking in scope (almost all of her theory and history is drawn from European contexts) and relevancy (she wrote several decades ago, and the relevant issues have changed form and context).

Thoughts for next week: I am not sure if I want to stick with my reading schedule for next week. I am beginning to feel like I want to move now into texts that are more relevant. I am not sure if I should move forward to the readings for week 4 on environmental justice and “western” development (I will review those texts this weekend), or if I should move forward to weeks five and six on spirituality. I am eager to read texts that provide knowledges beyond Europe, especially after reading so much European philosophy in Merchant’s book.

Topics I am inspired to pursue: reproduction as a sphere. How does the production of life influence attitudes?

 

why blogging?

I am using this space to summarize, analyze, make connections, and theorize based on the assigned readings for my independent study.

I chose to use a blog to:

1.  hold myself accountable to my ideas–they are accessible to my friends, family, professor(s), and strangers, therefore I must put conscious thought into them and own them as mine.
2. allow continuity in my work–I will be constantly looking back at what I have written, reevaluating its relevance, and changing based on what I see. The format of a blog allows all of my reflective work to be in one space.
3. allow interaction between knowledge sources and knowledge production. The internet allows those with relatively unregulated internet access to have access to and share their knowledge, creating a knowledge production that is (in some ways) more accessible, and (in some ways) less regulated by dominant power dynamics.
4. allow my methods of study to match the values of the content and learn more experientially, with context and consequences. (Especially as I transition to post-graduation) I would like to step outside barriers between “legitimate” (academically certified) knowledge, and “illegitimate” (experiential, personal, intuitive, or community or individually gained) knowledge.  Based on my current understandings, I see this as reflective of an ecofeminist perspective that values the latter forms of knowledge just as much as those that are validated in academic, economic, social, and political ways. Blogging allows individuals to share the knowledge of their lives, and I would like my blog to be a space where I can reflect on the questioning and learning process as well as the content.