The Green Light: A Self-Critique of the Ecological Movement

Description

The Green Light ('Le Feu Vert') offers an original and profound exploration of the roots of environmental philosophy and the Anthropocene. Bernard Charbonneau situates the wellspring of the ecological movement in the dialectics of Nature and Freedom, and their needful but uneasy joining against the totalizing system of technological society that threatens them both. Using this paradoxical tension as a yardstick, he probes the ways in which concepts of Nature have developed as industrialization became second nature and jeopardized the original, taken for granted until its advent. This allows Charbonneau to explain how movements and policies claiming to deal with this issue have gone wrong. A spirited critique of how the environmental movement has taken shape in relation to philosophy, politics, theology and contemporary culture, this book written in 1980 is representative of an oft-overlooked strand of French environmentalist thought, as a look back on its first decade in the public eye by a man who had originated political ecology half a century earlier. Charbonneau can be said to have prepared the way for many current concerns within environmental thought: the tension between liberalism and ecologism in green political theory; the wider question of the compatibility of ecological imperatives with supposedly foundational freedoms under capitalism; the discussions over how to balance existing democratic structures with environmental goals; the tensions between radical and reformist strategies within green movements; the controversy over the core values of ecological politics in a world transformed by climate change and peak everything; and the proper attitude of environmental movements to institutional science. This ground-breaking work should be front and centre of the debates that he anticipated, while giving a timely perspective on the interconnected questions of nature and human freedom. This first English translation of a work by Bernard Charbonneau provides not only a vivid account of environmental philosophy, but an introduction to this important author's thought. Cover......Page 1 Half Title......Page 2 Series......Page 3 Title......Page 4 Copyright......Page 5 Contents......Page 6 Foreword......Page 10 Introduction......Page 22 Preface......Page 32 Part One Seeds: The origins of the ecological revolt......Page 40 Prehistory of the ecological movement......Page 42 A great silence......Page 47 Chapter Two Ecology, Year One......Page 54 Where the thesis, that is, science and America, generates its own antithesis......Page 55 The Green Light in France......Page 61 At the centre and on the margins of the maelstrom......Page 68 Where Nature switches from Right to Left......Page 73 Communal microcosms and silent majority......Page 77 Part Two Roots: Foundations of the ecological movement......Page 82 Chapter Four Nature or freedom?......Page 84 Nature......Page 85 Freedom......Page 87 The contradiction between nature and freedom......Page 89 Nature and man united in the human environment: Town and country......Page 94 Nature and freedom united in the existence of each human being......Page 96 Nature and freedom associated in history......Page 99 The rupture of Creation......Page 104 Incarnation......Page 108 Christianity and the ecological movement......Page 111 Part Three Diseases and poisons: Contradictions and shortcomings of the ecological nebula......Page 116 The temptation of naturist fundamentalism......Page 118 A critique of ecologism......Page 123 The libertarian temptation......Page 125 A critique of the ecological movement’s anarchistic and non-violent strand......Page 127 Beyond the ecological right and left......Page 131 Ecology without a doctrine......Page 134 Weak points of ecological thinking......Page 136 Shortcomings in economic and especially social reflection......Page 144 Creation or recyclable social by-product?......Page 152 Recycling through fashion and fashionistas......Page 154 Recycling through technostructure......Page 157 Recycling through spectacle......Page 161 Chapter Ten Recycling through politicization–depoliticization......Page 164 From political commitment to withdrawal from politics......Page 165 Recycling through depoliticization......Page 168 Recycling through politicization......Page 172 Part Four Fruits: Sketch of an ecological politics......Page 178 Ecological conversion......Page 180 A mediation between opposites......Page 185 A revolution for that which exists......Page 187 The personal basis......Page 194 Language and ecological reason......Page 198 Ecological society and meetings......Page 200 The ecological order......Page 206 Ecology and power......Page 210 Elements of ecological tactics in politics......Page 215 A non-economist economic policy......Page 218 Self-management and ecological self-sufficiency......Page 222 Agricultural policy and the dis-organization of leisure......Page 225 Envoi......Page 232 Index......Page 234