Greg Garrard's Synthesis of Ecocritical Approaches

Garrard's Critical Approach - 

Garrard leaves us with the notion to 

associate the ecocriticism of the future with Eden's inflection of the Earth: attuned to environmental justice, but not dismissive of the claims of commerce and technology; shaped by knowledge of long term environmental problems, but wary of apocalypticism; informed by artistic as well as scientific insight; and committed to the preservation of the biological diversity of the planet for all its inhabitants. (182)  

 

After  taking his audience through the history of positions on ecocriticism, such as Deep Ecology, Ecofeminism, and Social Ecology, how pastoral discourse (classical, romantic and American) has been used to reconcile anthropocentric and ecocentric attitudes, as well as presenting cultural constructions of wilderness, dwelling, and the apocolypse, Garrard attempts to form a synthesis of both ecocentric and anthropocentric exigencies while also giving his audience a thorough background on the history of eco-discourse.

The ways we can use this text as we go forward in the course will probably unfold as we go on, but I can see how we can use it a a reference for future texts to peruse and interrogate (i.e., Silent Spring, Erin Brockovich, On Deadly Ground, Davion, Descartes, etc.). I am especially interested in how apocalyptic discourse and Judeo-Christian perceptions have shaped how we relate to and justify the exploitation of animals, habitats and resources. Furthermore, the image of Earth from the Apollo and it's effect on the ecocentric/anthropocentric split is interesting material for discussion and inquiry--just what effect has that had on how humans perceive the longevity of Earth and our species? Does the image make us feel that the fate of the world is out of our hands and all ecocentric exigencies are pointless?

I must say the last chapter had me thinking of Andrew Revkin's Web site "Dot Earth." He has a video of a camera looking upon Earth from space. My cultural influences move me to read the image as romanticizing and dignifying the Earth, asking me to use my strength to preserve it along with its biodiversity. However, my cultural influence is as varied as the 6 billion others who share this planet.

DOT EARTH

BEGINNINGS: POLLUTION (1-15)

• Moral cases for ecological and anthropological reconciliation in competition with scientific or logical cases.
  

The rhetoric of Silent Spring by Rachel Carson (1962). 

Peter Coates - "Disempowering postmodernist logic"

• He considers the issue of environmental threats being "socially constructed and culturally defined" (14).

POSITIONS (16-32)

Deep Ecology

“Deep Ecology identifies the anthropocentric dualism humanity/nature as the ultimate source of anti-ecological beliefs and practices” (23). 

Concerned with how "Anthropocentric Managerialism" is in conflict with "Ecocentric promise" (23). 

Ecofeminism

As in the anthropocentric dualism that is criticized by Deep Ecology, Ecofeminism “also blames the androcentric dualism man/woman” (23).

“Women have been associated with nature, the material, the emotional, and the particular, while men have been associated with culture, the nonmaterial, the rational, and the abstract” (Davion qtd. in Garrard 23).    

“The desire to reverse the androcentric priority of reason over emotion leads to a striking anti-scientism” (24).   

Descartes – his philosophy was influential in the cultural body/mind split

“he saw animals as radically different from, and inferior to, humans. They were bodies without minds, effectively machines” (25).  

Val Plumwood – Critiqued “the gendered reason/nature dualism”

Social Ecology and Eco-Marxism (Social Ecologists)

Concerned with power of globalization and impact on communities working for sustainability. Reminds me of farm co-ops and local food subscriptions (28-30).

Martin Heidegger –

“among the most profound critiques of industrial modernity because it combines a poetic awe before the earth’s being with a savage deconstruction of the death denying project of world mastery that we are taught to call progress” (30).

(counter-culture—to unlearn values ingrained by cultural forces)**Indeed culture is not all a bed of roses.

Ø  Was "an enthusiastic Nazi" (32).

Ø  We are Sheppards of the being.

PASTORAL – Said to be entrenched in Western Tradition, but problematic for environmentalism

(Classical, Romantic, and American)

Classical Pastoral precedes the perception of a general crisis in human ecology by thousands of years

Ø  Hellenistic Greece realized great scale urbanization (312-260). Distinctions in poetry about town and country, and past and present.

Ø  Christianity produced a dualism between humans and nature (secular political reasons) Thom Carew's "To Saxham" about animals willingly coming to the slaughter to serve man.

Ø   

Romantic Pastoral (at a time of mass urbanization making the contrast for people immense). Featured "modern advertisements for wholewheat bread featuring idyllic, rolling fields of grain in the sunshine . . ." with Ruddy farmers and classical music in the background (34).

American Pastoral takes on imagery and rhetoric suited to issues in America.

Silent Spring – Rachel Carson (1962)

Regarding the pesticides used by humans, especially DDT, and how they affect birds.

Pastoral in America:

Hemmingway and Faulkner have a more patriarchal attitude toward a feminized nature.

. . .  but then Walden comes (Thoreau and Emerson), who have a more Taoist approach to nature, letting it take its course and observing it.

WILDERNESS

The wilderness was seen as a threat to agrarians working the land for food. Wilderness meant land of beasts

Poet Laureate of Deep Ecology and Zen Buddhist, Gary Snyder, seeks to bring "the great Mother back to life in a postmodern world"

David Robinson – He cites Snyder's promotion of a new cultural ethic of the wild" (82).

1. The necessities of a commitment to the potentialities and limits of place

2. Wild as the best teacher for humanity

3. The wild as sacred

4. Use of wild as a guide for diverse and democratic society

Human civ is the locus of chaos while nature is free self-organization (the wild sustains civ. too).

APOCOLYPSE

Ø  Apocalyptic narratives since 3K years ago.

Ø  1200 BCE – Iranian Poet Zoroaster

Ø  Major influence (methods) on environmental discourse

Ø  Both responds to and creates crisis

*Only if we see a future in the earth are we likely to take responsibility for it.

DWELLING

Ø  We have explored the claim that Judeo-Christian monotheism has provided modern Euro civ. with ecologically damaging attitudes (Apocalyptic visions)

Ø  Biblical justification for exploitation of wild and wildlife

Ø  The Ecological Indian – in harmony with dwellings

*A society bound by a spiritual nature philosophy holds no guarantee of ecological well-being, the powers at be hold the access and use of natural resources (135).

ANIMALS

Ø  Jeremy Bentham – Humans share the capacity to suffer with animals

Ø  The Utilitarian "principle of equality" (137).

Ø  "We are rarely enjoined to prevent the suffering of wild animals (road-kill dilemma) because our moral responsibility principally applies to the animals we use for food, transport and companionship" (149).

Ø  Zoo as a place to distort our perception of animals, and to assert neocolonial power. –feel-good eco-activism to protect endangered species.

Ø  Wildlife programming – overemphasis on violence and sex – how does this restrict our understanding of animals?

Ø  Flipper (1963) – empathy for dolphins – new tuna fishing standards.

*Issue of Genetically Engineered Organisms – biopiracy

FUTURES: EARTH

"The Planet on the Table" by Wallace Stevens *-reminds me of dot earth by Andrew Revkin

Ø  1969, view of Earth from moon circulated and its impact on people.

Ø  Jean Baudrillard – we have simulated worlds which now function to supplant the real world

Ø  For Gaia to support life, the geenhouse effect must be regulated (173).

*Key Challenges for the future – reconciling ecocriticism and globalization

*Gaia – unpredeictability of nature, but it does self-maintain equilibrium