MURRY BOOKIN ON COVID
The outbreak of the coronavirus (COVID-19) implicates capitalist societies which pivot upon domination. Our relationship with the natural world is interdependent, and we are currently suffering the consequence of poisoning that crucial bond. At this critical point in environmental and social history, what can Murray Bookchin’s revolutionary model of Social Ecology provide to us?
The emergence of zoonotic diseases can nearly always be attributed to human behaviour. The destruction of habitat for farming, mining and rises in global temperatures draws humans and animals closer together. Given that 75% of emerging infectious diseases come from wildlife, driving us into closer contact with animals, makes another, potentially more deadly, pandemic only a matter of time. The UN’s environment chief Inger Andersen stated last month that “nature is sending us a message with the coronavirus pandemic”. But the message has been clear for decades: Ebola, Mad Cow disease, SARS, Swine and Bird flu have all evidenced that a manipulation of the environment, and the animals within it, equates to the death of human-beings. Extinction Rebellion demonstrate on behalf of this idea — their very name expounding that a destruction of ecosystems is a destruction of our life-system. They appeal to our identification with self-preservation, but these groups fail to properly elucidate that ecological devastation arises from societies which organise themselves hierarchically — those societies yoked to capital which batten their growth upon a domination and exploitation of the natural world. An ethical or moral appeal to the powers that be, who are in the business of greed, is destined to be futile.
50 years ago, social theorist and political philosopher Murray Bookchin wrote his work Ecology and Revolutionary Thought, in which he developed his eco-anarchistic model of Social Ecology. His ideas vibrate loudly with our society today, and offer a lens through which to figure a sustainable emergence from this pandemic. Social Ecology is ‘based on the conviction that nearly all our present ecological problems originate in deep-seated social problems, and that the destruction of nature stems from the social domination of people.’ Capitalist societies order humans along economic, ethnic, cultural, and gender lines, creating divisions which inform our conception of privilege. This ‘hierarchical chain of being’, enforced through pervasive codes of domination and competition, is transmuted into our relationship with nature. Social Ecology is not anthropocentric, nor does it align itself with Gaia theorists who believe that Earth ‘Gaia’ is one living organism: instead it is naturalistic. Social Ecology recognises humanity as baring the potential to be ‘highly creative and ecologically-oriented beings’. Yet without the elimination of hierarchical mentalities, which block the actualisation of these qualities, both human and non-human life will perish.
The natural world, says Bookchin, is imagined by humans as static: a postcard picture of an evergreen landscape. [This illusion is dangerously reinforced by nature documentaries which go to lengths to create a false impression of a perpetual, pristine world.] The natural world does not operate in our minds as a living organism which exists creatively alongside human-beings, but as something which we place ourselves against. Separate, it is objectified — for millennia humans have projected emotion onto its screen — and by the same token, it is an object to be owned, farmed, mined: dominated. Our destruction of the natural world, and the diseases which emerge as a result, is symptomatic of a society which is stained by neoliberal values of individualism. Our rat-race to the top relies upon ruthless competition, always at the expense of other people, and other species. The guise with which businesses [and this word also implicates countries] mask their environmental impact is evidence enough that corporations necessarily pivot upon a callous disregard for the well-being of the planet. The idea of ‘green capitalism’ is one such masquerade, the colour — and it is only a colour to business — functions only to placate environmentalists, oiling a machine which never intends to stop.
Attitudes towards the ‘animal kingdom’ which invoke ‘the food chain’ extend from this ideology as well. Our place at the top of the food chain, at this point in our evolution, is moot. While a carnivorous diet was imperative for our ancestral brain development, this cognitive development should now be used to exercise compassion towards, not only animals, but humanity as a whole. Because, as Social Ecology argues, ‘like it or not the future of life on this planet pivots on the future of society’ and the future of humanity relies upon the realisation that we must adapt, and continue to evolve beyond the idea that we exist in competition with the natural world — it has been ‘conquered’ long ago. We have, Bookchin argues ‘an ethical responsibility to function creatively in the unfolding of evolution, and play a supporting role in perpetuating the integrity of the biosphere.’
The nexus between ecological problems and social oppression means ‘a challenge must be mounted to the entire system of domination itself’, argues Bookchin. Our economy’s enslavement to GDP means infinite growth is a ‘necessity', but in a world of finite resources, flagrant deregulation of economic life - which capitalist systems rely upon - can only lead to our extinction. However, political and environmental regulation will function only in societies which are not insatiably propelled by competition. Blaming the symptoms of hierarchical societies, such as technological advancement or population growth, for ecological issues occludes an understanding that the root causes are in fact unregulated industrial expansion for its own sake and corporate self-interest. So, just as we implement measures to flatten the curve of disease, so we must erode the hierarchical edifices and flatten the curve of capitalist endeavour to prevent the emergence of zoonotic diseases, ecological catastrophe and humanity’s eventual extinction.
The kind of return to normality which has followed previous pandemics would, this time, not only be unsustainable but dangerous. Collectively we need to search further. Beyond even Kate Raworth’s model of ‘doughnut economics’ — which is a relatable framework and collapses the linearity of our present mentality, but remains to be centred around human consumption — to find a methodology which allows our cities, and our communities to be figured as part of nature itself: creatively and developmentally evolving alongside, and for the benefit of the whole.
Examining the gilded cage in such a way may seem trite, but the unprecedented worldwide pause has created space for newness; both literal green and clear environments and within the minds of many. As Bookchin wrote, ‘such a goal of Social Ecology remains mere rhetoric unless a movement gives it logistical and social tangibility. [This] would mean the free time to be artful and to fully engage in public affairs.’ Our time in quarantine, suspended from our every-day lives and characterised by many rediscovering artistic and horticultural pursuits, qualifies as just that. As George Orwell’s novel 1984 enjoyed a renaissance in 2016, hopefully the pause in the machine will engender a re-discovery of Murray Bookchin’s ideas, and allow them to be given new life: to germinate in this newly fecund and potentially receptive environment.
WORDS BY MASHA THORPE PUBLISHED IN EYESORE MAGAZINE April, 2020.
CALL YOUR FOLKS
The pandemic has put a strain on relationships and shifted the focus onto older members of society: the relationships with our grandparents suddenly cast into relief. Our old habit of telephoning them once a month, or even once every couple of months, shifted too: updated. But is the expectation that we should now call them once a week? Every day? With both sides of the phone governed by opaque expectations which neither party can satisfy, of course your grandparents think you never call them enough. Last week, my friend tells me that she calls her grandmother every three weeks, her partner calls his twice a year. “Once every three weeks is a lot,” she says confidently. The idea stays with me for days afterwards, is every three weeks a lot? I bring it up in conversation with my grandma when I, on time for my triweekly slot, call her. I repeat the conversation and slip in defensively my friend and her partner’s conclusions. My grandma, ever stoical, accepts the younger generations’ verdict on ‘what is enough.’
But of course it’s not. Three weeks without checking on someone? You wouldn’t do that with your friends, they’d think you’d died. Obviously for the most part, our grandparents are not our friends; an intimacy hindered by huge divides in mentalities. How often has someone told you that their grandparents are racist, how often do we curb our behaviour around them, siphon off parts of our personalities to make ourselves seem good-er, more innocent? As if we’re perpetually sentenced to be infants, a grandchild, playing at being a minor, inhabiting the character we know they want to see. Of course, some of us happily accept the reversion, saying thank you profusely for birthday cheques for being good this year: to spend on something nice. We don’t use that money for rent, we spend it immaturely, it is money for a child, to be spent childishly. But, if you’re lucky enough to get a cheque, and after you squeeze your grandparents tightly, or call them up to say thank you, you’re also aware its not enough: they’re gesturing for attention, longing for more of you. Call me back. Come and have lunch. Somehow, activities you abstain from: why should you, just because they gave you money! I can’t be bought!
It’s difficult to have an honest relationship with our grandparents because they seem so separate from us. To our generation, who are so versed in talking about our feelings, our desires, asking for what we need from each other, it’s often unacceptable to experience someone so shut off from what, we can see with our trained eyes, is trauma. Our therapised generation, who had access to Childline, who had school nurses who listened, who post and push for men to talk about their feelings, have come to understand that all trauma needs to be treated. But in your later years, do you really need to be re-traumatised by rehashing old relationships, re-staging old situations? What good can come of that. Wouldn't that trigger something similar to lying awake at night, re-playing embarrassing moments from the last 10 years, curated cringey moments? Our desire to treat our grandparents is bound up in how they’re affecting us: how they project their past traumas onto the shared relationship. It’s unpleasant, yes. It’s a symptom of the stiff-upper lip mentality that we now vilify. But it’s also symptomatic of peoples who are strong; no matter what you think of burying emotion, it takes a lot of power to suppress trauma, a stoicism which our generation has lost somewhat. There is strength in swallowing embarrassed tears, or arguing with a co-worker without crying, or having a panic attack and carrying on. I am in no way advocating for burying trauma or vanquishing emotion from society, emotion is beautiful and powerful, but our elders practised something altogether more measured, often harnessed through hard lives; ones marked by war, illegitimate children and navigating families trained by shame. When generations of the same family used to live under one roof, did traumas — shared in silence — become diluted? Is that true. I don’t know, I’ve never asked. Separating ourselves from our grandparents exacerbates the differences between us — the stretched space is governed by respect, and is one which quickly becomes polluted when there is a lack of. But it can also become a conduit for greater understanding of oneself. I was struck recently by Helena Bonham-Carter’s description of a film she had made of her great-relatives speaking about their lives. How amazing that she captured the story of her family on film. How different their lives were to ours, and how soon these stories will be lost. Indeed, with few Holocaust survivors remaining, an anxiety surfaces — one inconceivable 30 years ago — will future generations forget, even, refuse to believe the genocide happened. The difference in experiences means we have so much to learn, so much to become the gate-keepers of. By making an effort to share our lives and offer up our experiences, we extend an invitation that our grandparents do the same. They do not have to be mutually intelligible at first, and they shouldn’t. It would be foolish to think that we — separated by two generations — would understand each other fully, when I cannot even understand my boyfriend. Our desire to engage in nuanced conversations around race or intersectional feminism is great, but it is also true that our grandparent’s resistance to these ideas is also okay. Different realities can exist simultaneously, one does not lessen the validity of the other. In fact, seeing them side-by-side acts as a magnifier to your own truth. Something that can only ever be good and facilitate personal growth. Our responsibility, as grandchildren, is to respect our grandparents, accept them as whole people, who have lived more whole lives than we. “Advice is a form of nostalgia, be careful with those who dispense it.”
The government’s current attitude toward the elderly is unforgivable. Perhaps a somewhat pedestrian statement at this point in the conversation, yet politicians have implicitly accepted that the death of the elderly is an inevitability, an inevitability which needs to hurry up so business can resume. The discharge of out-patients into care-homes wasn’t an over sight, it was a plan. Dominic Cummings’ advocation for herd immunity and ‘if that means some pensioners die, too bad’, solidifies into fact that the governing attitude of the establishment is one of cruelty. As if we didn’t already know. The Tories’ unforgivable abandonment our elders will be deadly, but not for all. In time, this virus will pass: we will survive both this pandemic, and the Conservatives. But for now, whilst we still have our grandparents, let’s call them.
WORDS BY MASHA THORPE PUBLISHED IN EYESORE MAGAZINE June, 2020.