There are three words we have heard very often in
the 20th century, which are all derived from a common Greek root
oikos, meaning household, dwelling, home.
-
ecumenical > oikumene = the inhabited world [civilised
home]
- economic
> oikonomia = household management.
-
ecological > oikologia = the study of [the interrelationships
of] the planetary household where we dwell.
During this century we have become concerned with
each one of these, and roughly in that order.
In the first half of this century the word
"Ecumenical" became important to refer to the attempt to regain the
essential unity of the whole Christian world. In the last few
decades "economics" has asserted its importance as the art of
managing the material affairs first of our national household and,
more recently, of our global household, as in macroeconomics. The
ecumenical Christianity of the first part of this century has been
partly replaced by the emergence of a common economic concern.
Leading church spokespeople have found themselves in a collision
course with current political ideology which promises free
competition, individualism and user-pays but ignores social justice
and communal responsibility both nationally and
internationally.
Now we are being challenged to catch up with an
even wider horizon, one which particularly concerns our
responsibilities to the whole planet. "Ecology", by its title,
means the study of our planetary home. The word ecology was
invented as recently as 1873 to refer to the study of the mutual
relations which exist between all living organisms and their
environment. It has led us to awareness of at least three things of
vital importance.
The first is that the destiny of any living
species is completely dependent on the particular environment in
which it has evolved. Take away that environment, and the species
dies immediately. A species and its environment have to be viewed
as a living whole, a symbiotic life-field. If the environment
changes too radically the species declines and becomes extinct. We
humans are rapidly destroying the environment on which many forms
of animal and bird life depend, and many species are already
extinct.
The same ecological principle applies to the
human species itself. We too can live and thrive only in an
environment of a particular kind, the kind which has enabled us to
evolve both biologically and culturally to be what we are. Even
though the human species may possess greater powers of adaptability
than many other species, our destiny still depends on a
lifesupportive environment. If we change our environment too
radically, we too go the way of the other already extinct
species.
The second important aspect of ecology is an
extension of the first. Just as a species and its environment must
be treated as a whole, a life-field as it were, so all life-fields
are inextricably joined to one another by a complex set of mutual
interrelationships. All forms of life from the virus to the human
species, including the fish of the sea, the birds of the air and
everything which moves on the earth, form a living whole. The
biosphere, or thin layer of life enveloping the globe, is a unity.
We are part of it. It is at our peril that we interfere with it in
any drastic way. The nature and destiny of the human species must
be seen in relation to the ecology of all life on the planet.
All this implies, thirdly, that to understand the
nature and destiny of the human species we must see it in full
relation with a living whole and not as something apart from it.
Since the nature and destiny of the human species is what all
religious traditions are concerned with, then no religious
tradition remains adequate any more which does not embrace
ecological concerns.
The more we understand the implications of
ecology the more it becomes clear that we have entered a radically
new age both for humankind and for all life on this planet. It has
been called the ecological age, or even better the Ecozoic
Age.
The predicament addressed by Ecohumanism is aptly
summarized in a short phrase by Thomas Jefferson
characterizing the perennial dilemma of man's place in the larger
world, simply:
"nature assigned us [head and heart] the same
habitation."
Thereafter, this interplay of man and nature, and
man's "head" and "heart", clearly defines ecohumanism as a movement
to address the failures in society, which are not the fault of our
knowledge, our ethics or even our politics, but failures of
presence, of personal connection with the all planetary
systems.
The labels 'ecologist' and 'humanist' each represent a series of
unique attributes brought to bear on the integrity of the human
scientific enterprise itself, Knowledge of the human
condition is a keystone of humanism therefore it is important for
humanists to understand the larger system in which we exist,
regarding interdisciplinary issues, such as population growth,
globalization, sociobiology, the distinction between preservation
and conservation, global warming, and complex political, cultural
and intergenerational issues.
The modern environmental movement has a short history, but one
where the tension between various strategies, goals, and tactics
has delayed coherency and coordinate action. This highlights the
question what humanism is and, therefore, what "ecohumanism"
is. It is obvious that humanists are not of one mind about
either the problems or the solutions. Humanism maintains that all
our values including environmental ones come from human needs and
concerns and this warns us that we are always biased toward self-
interest in the humanist approach to environmentalism.
Process humanism corrects this bias by taking a
cosmic view of human evolution in the context of the development of
the universe. It locates the basis for life's intrinsic value
not in its fragility, but in its beauty In a
manner consistent with traditional philosophy's identifying beauty
as one of the so- called 'transcendentals' (along with being, unity
and truth), we may see the beauty of nature as intrinsically
valuable, and therefore as an end in itself.
Process humanism states that role of humans
in the universe is to participate with all of their moral and
political energy in the maximization of the evolution toward wider
cosmic beauty. Indeed the meaning of our lives, both individually
and collectively, is to participate and promote the cosmic
adventure toward beauty. We do so proximately, of course, through
our cultural and political activities. But a cosmic process
perspective encourages us not to lose sight of the fact that these
activities are ultimately not just phenomena that take place on the
face of the earth, but happenings that the earth and the cosmos are
now seeking to accomplish through us.
Consequently, we may say that what gives our
earth's ecology its inherent value is neither its precariousness,
nor simply our own human valuations (though these too belong to the
cosmic process). Rather, it is the objective fact that our
eco-systems are unique and unrepeatable instances of intensely
ordered novelty, or of delicately harmonized diversity, that is, of
beauty. Certainly eco-systems are always in great danger of
disintegrating, but it is not this instability that renders them
inherently precious. For, like all instances of beauty, living
beings and eco-systems are comprised of an exquisite balance of
order and novelty, harmony and contrast, pattern and nuance.
Whenever we encounter such syntheses we are intuitively
appreciative of the fact that the novelty, complexity and nuance
could easily have overwhelmed the order, harmony and pattern, and
thus reduced them to the ugliness of chaos. And, at the same time,
we sense how easily the order, harmony and unity may have flattened
out all the nuance and subtlety, reducing things to the banality of
homogeneity. There is always a degree of tension in any concrete
instance of beauty, and it is this aesthetic tension that gives to
our ecosystems the inevitable delicacy that renders them forever
subject to disintegration. But, once again, it is not their
precariousness as such that grounds the value we see in them. The
precariousness is a derivative of the beauty. Thus, our ecological
concern can best be situated within an aesthetic rather than a
pessimistic vision of the universe as meaningless.