Leftist Criticism of "Nature": Environmental Protection in a Postmodern Age

...They seem to see no need to heed the voice of the nonhuman, no reason even to assume that, in the vast world of rivers, chimpanzees, rainstorms, and whales, anything is being said...

...Consequently, it is blind, as philosopher Albert Borgmann says, to nature's nonhuman "commanding presence...

...Postmodern critics should find this particularly disturbing...

...Nonetheless, I can't see how postmodern critics can do otherwise than accept the value of preserving the nonhuman world...

...In understanding the constructed quality of human experience and the dangers of reification, postmodernism inherently advances an ethic of respecting the "other...

...Neither are most cultural critics nihilistic or amoral...

...This involves turning down the volume of our own pronouncements about the world and listening to others—or providing them with the opportunity to express themselves so that we can listen...

...Over the past decade or so, however, some parts of the left have launched their own attacks on environmentalism, and, although these are more philosophical in character, they threaten the movement every bit as much as those coming from the right...

...Simply rejecting eco-criticism and reasserting a modernist narrative doesn't reckon with the intellectual weight of contemporary attacks on "nature...

...As Christopher Manes puts it, "It is as if we had compressed the entire buzzing, howling, gurgling biosphere into the narrow vocabulary of epistemology, to the point that someone like Georg Lukacs could say, 'nature is a societal category'—and actually be understood...

...In human history, we have learned (I hope) that the conqueror role is eventually self-defeating...

...But I will try to build my answers on (or out of) the ontological debris created by postmodern criticism...

...Postmodernism is a natural ally of the left in that it deconstructs existing conditions and shows that, although they may appear natural or necessary, they are really contingent...

...We are less familiar with leftist criticism...

...But isn't mastery exactly what postmodernism is exerting as it captures the nonhuman world within its own conceptual domain...

...And all of us should be wary of those who claim to speak on nature's behalf (including environmentalists who do that...

...They counsel ecological stewardship, of course, but maintain that our vision of stewardship need not be hindered by any preconceived notion of what is genuinely natural...

...For example, as we estimate the number of people that a certain area can sustain, consider what to do about climate change, debate restrictions on ocean fishing, or otherwise assess the effects of a particular course of action, we must think about the lives of other creatures on the earth—and also the continued existence of the nonliving physical world...

...The ethical dimension of this insight comes into view when we recognize the danger of forgetting the constructed quality of human experience...

...What doesn't exist can manifest no character...

...If we think it is in our interest, we can freely choose to pave the rainforest, wipe out the last panda bear, or pump high levels of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere...

...What happens when critics call this backdrop into question...

...IWOULD LIKE to present a third response to contemporary eco-criticism, accepting the intellectual insights of postmodern critics and, at the same time, providing some guidelines for protecting the nonhuman world...

...I will ask instead how we want to live in the world and what kind of people we want to be...

...As I have argued, leftist critiques of "nature" are compatible with broader postmodern sensibilities that currently animate much of our intellectual life...

...The ethical alternative is respect for the "other...

...PAUL WAPNER is associate professor and director of the Global Environmental Policy Program at American University...

...We often assume that everyone concerned with a particular environmental issue shares the same understanding of the problem...

...Yes, the postmodernists are right: we can do what we want with the nonhuman world...

...Speaking of his proposed "land ethic" (which he hoped would serve as a general principle for thinking about and acting in the natural world), Leopold wrote: In short, a land ethic changes the role of homo sapiens from conqueror of the land community to plain member and citizen of it...

...Postmodern cultural critics look at the nonhuman world and think that they are looking in the mirror...

...A sensitivity to eco-criticism requires that we go further and include an ethic of otherness in our deliberations...

...Noting the ungrounded character of the idea of nature, Walter Truett Anderson suggests that we see ourselves for what we, in fact, are: ecoartists— designers and builders of the nonhuman world...

...Because everything we call "nature" is relative to our ideas, they argue, we should accept (indeed, embrace) our role as creators of "nature" and assume full responsibility for governing the so-called natural world...

...The eco-artists clearly represent a position compatible with postmodern sensibilities...

...At the very least, respect must involve ensuring that the "other" actually continues to exist...

...This same point was made, though in a very different idiom, a half century ago by Aldo Leopold...

...They have no ground on which to argue for this set rather than that set of ecological conditions...

...Nature" is thus not simply a physical entity that is "out there" or given...

...It implies respect for his fellow members, and also respect for community as such...

...OW, WHAT does this mean for politics and policy, and the future of the environmental movement...

...For a long time, many people on the right have faulted environmentalists for wanting to curtail free enterprise, limit private property, and abridge individual freedom in the service of environmental well-being...

...While postmodern cultural critics are comfortable giving voice to other people, they stop short at the nonhuman world—the paradigmatic "other...

...Whether one worries about climate change, DISSENT / Winter 2003 n 7 CRITICISM OF ”NATURE" loss of biological diversity, dwindling resources, or overall degradation of the earth's air, water, soil, and species, the nonhuman world is the backdrop of concern...

...DISSENT / Winter 2003 n 75...

...As we wrestle with challenges of global climate change, ozone depletion, loss of biological diversity, and so forth, we need to consider the economic, political, cultural, and aesthetic values at stake...

...Raymond Williams expressed this understanding when he wrote, "The idea of nature contains, though often unnoticed, an extraordinary amount of human history...

...But dispensing with the category of "nature" means that there are no reigning guidelines for valuing one set of arrangements, or one artistic creation, over another...

...So far, there have been two responses from traditional environmentalists to postmodern eco-criticism...

...Environmentalists in this camp call for fully utilizing technology to confront environmental problems and ask that we be content with human-made landscapes and artificial substitutes for natuCRITICISM OF "NATURE" ral resources...

...And when we do that, we are not rendering an objective view of reality so much as constructing a certain understanding of the world...

...There is nothing out there with its own authentic voice because, as soon as we imagine it expressing itself, we recognize that we are speaking, and therefore making up, its words...

...The claim to know how the world really is expresses a hegemonic ambition...

...To postmodernists, "nature" is not something the mind discovers but something that it makes...

...They point out that our notions of nature—the nonhuman world that environmentalists care so much about— are themselves social constructions and thus subject to various interpretations, none of which can provide absolute guidance for environmental policy...

...Even more troubling, now that the critique is out of the bag, it is being coopted by people on the right...

...What happens when they claim that one understanding of "nature" is at odds with another and that there is no definitive way to judge which one is better...

...But this is far from being the case...

...This is not to say, of course, that physical objects are figments of our imagination or that there is no substratum to reality, but simply that we endow the objects of our experience with particular meanings that determine how we think and act in the world...

...What would it mean to be a post-nature environmentalist...

...When it comes to preserving wilderness areas or protecting biological diversity, one person's wilderness is another person's neighborhood...

...How can a movement dedicated to protecting nature operate if the very identity of its concern is in doubt...

...Although many thoughtful scientists, activists, and writers take this position, and, while it remains an important response to eco-criticism, it fails to recognize the eco-critics as serious adversaries...

...THESE MAY seem like academic questions, but they go to the heart of environmentalism and have begun to worry even the most committed environmentalists...

...What else could it mean to assert that there is no such thing as nature...

...Eco-critics must be supporters, in some fashion, of environmental preservation...

...Certainly, their environmentalism would make most traditional environmentalists very uncomfortable...

...Eco-critics are not intellectual hacks...

...In fact, if there is one thing they vehemently scorn, it is the idea that there can be a value that stands above the individual contexts of human experience...

...The whole notion that nature is constructed is simply intellectual sophistry practiced by those who either spend too much time indoors or who work at such high levels of abstraction that they never engage the phenomenal world...

...We can't ascribe meaning to that which doesn't appear...

...Postmodernists expose the constructed quality of those things we take for granted...

...But we need not doubt the simple idea that a prerequisite of expression is existence...

...This second response calls for dispensing with the category of nature altogether and fashioning an environmentalism along other lines of interest and concern...

...Their inability to do so in a decisive and persuasive manner has further damaged the environmentalist position...

...Yes, they say, there is a social dimension to how we think about nature, but 72 n DISSENT / Winter 2003 nature is fundamentally a physical entity, and our understanding of it can be based on cleareyed observation, direct experience, and scientific description...

...Indeed, nature doesn't speak...

...This is a doctrine that has helped people look critically at their society and consider the possibility of other arrangements...

...This is an ambition—a kind of "violence"— that many postmodernists find unacceptable...

...I have already suggested the postmodernist response: yes, recognizing the social construction of "nature" does deny the self-expression of the nonhuman world, but how would we know what such self-expression means...

...Doesn't this position make a mockery of the long tradition of environmental concern...

...Yes, environmentalists favoring this second response can advocate certain environment-friendly actions, but how do they make their case...

...This becomes an ethical failing insofar as it silences the views of others...

...It comes from people who agree with the critique of "nature" and, by way of response, advocate a post-nature environmentalism...

...We never experience nature directly but always through the lenses of our own values and assumptions...

...We construct our experience, fail to hold onto the idea that we've done just that, and then assume that our constructions are somehow "real...

...But postmodernists are also right that the only ethical way to act in a world that is socially constructed is to respect the voices of the others— of those with whom we share the planet but with whom we may not share a common language or outlook...

...This understanding of "nature" is helpful in guarding against insensitive environmentalist projects...

...Eco-criticism places human beings at the center of all phenomena and then is overly impressed with the self-referential character of human experience...

...Leftist critiques of environmentalism start from this same premise...

...What one person values as an endangered species is potential income, a threat, or dinner to someone else...

...According to activists such as Gary Snyder and Dave Foreman, eco-criticism is at odds with common sense and contemporary science...

...Even the most radi74 n DISSENT / Winter 2003 cal postmodernist must acknowledge the distinction between physical existence and nonexistence...

...As political theorist Leslie Thiele puts it, "One can't argue for the diversity of views of 'nature' without taking a stand for the diversity of nature...

...Such a value would present itself as a metanarrative and, as JeanFrancois Lyotard has explained, postmodernism is characterized fundamentally by its "incredulity toward meta-narratives...

...When anti-environmentalists claim that, because there is no authentic entity called "nature," we can choose to use trees, animals, canyons, and rivers as we see fit, staunch environmental modernists have little to say...

...It always turns out that he knows neither, and this is why his conquests eventually defeat themselves...

...One of the hallmarks of postmodernism is the understanding that whenever we reflect upon, talk about, or act in the world, we represent it to ourselves and others...

...In fact, much postmodern thought acknowledges purposeful elements in human life and attempts to make judgments about the different purposes...

...A second, more engaging, response goes in the other direction...

...Postmodernism prides itself on criticizing the urge toward mastery that characterizes modernity...

...If they don't, they deny CRITICISM OF `‘NATURE" their own intellectual insights and compromise their fundamental moral commitment...

...This acknowledgment of physical existence is crucial...

...Put differently, yes, the postmodernist should rightly worry about interpreting nature's expressions...

...There is, in other words, a limit or guiding principle to our actions...

...I have been using postmodern cultural criticism against itself...

...But it must be a central part of our reflections and calculations...

...All attempts to listen to nature are social constructions—except one...

...As I have said, postmodernists accept that there is a physical substratum to the phenomenal world even if they argue about the different meanings we ascribe to it...

...When it comes to nature, postmodernists are happy to do all the talking...

...THE THIRD response to eco-criticism would require critics to acknowledge the ways in which they themselves silence nature and then to respect the sheer otherness of the nonhuman world...

...What is critical to notice in both cases is that criticisms of "nature," whether they come from the left or are co-opted by the right, are playing an increasing role in structuring the confrontation between anti- and pro-environmentalists...

...Hence the many efforts by postmodernists to "give voice to the other": from academic campaigns to expand the literary canon to popular efforts to embrace and celebrate multiculturalism...

...Instead, however, we are running roughshod over the earth's diversity of plants, animals, and ecosystems...

...How could an Emerson, Muir, Leopold, Carson, or Brower sign on to such a viewpoint...

...The first comes from those who dismiss postmodernism out of hand and simply reassert a modernist narrative of nature and its imperatives...

...The two responses that I've just described ask whether a postmodern sensibility has the right epistemological or ontological "take" on reality— with the first denying and the second defending the rightness...

...Postmodernists reject the idea of a universal good...

...They unmask the given and show that "what is" is not necessarily "meant to be," but rather is a consequence of particular decisions and socio-historical conditions...

...Environmentalism is fundamentally about conserving and preserving nature...

...We must do so not because we wish to maintain what is "natural" but because we wish to act in a morally respectable manner...

...they can be changed...

...it is an idea that takes on different meanings in different cultural contexts, a social construction that directs us to see mountains, rivers, trees, and deserts in particular ways...

...rather, some person always speaks on nature's behalf, and whatever that person says is, as we all know, a social construction...

...In our day and age, this requires us to take responsibility for protecting the actuality of the nonhuman...

...There is nothing essential about the realm of rocks, trees, fish, and climate that calls for a certain type of action...

...it asserts authority in a way that delegitimizes others' perspectives on human experience and the world in general...

...Leftist environmental criticism is the work of a group of postmodern intellectuals and professors...

...Michael Soule and Gary Lease MOST OF us are familiar with rightist attacks on environmentalism...

...Anti-environmentalists such as Charles Rubin and Alston Chase, for example, now claim that, if there is no such thing as "real" nature, we need not treat the nonhuman world with unqualified respect...

...Because it is implicit in such a role that the conqueror knows (ex cathedra) just what makes the community clock tick, and just what and who is valuable and what and who is worthless in community life...

...We are subscribing to a particular discourse or set of discourses about the "way things are," and this "way" shapes our experience...

...They can disagree about first principles, complain about ontological and epistemological premises, but beyond this they have little to say...

...Many of them offer useful insights about human experience...

...The postmodern argument also poses challenges for anyone concerned with environmental protection...

...Doesn't postmodern cultural criticism deepen the modernist urge toward mastery by eliminating the ontological weight of the nonhuman world...

...Society is constantly being asked to address questions of environmental quality for which there are no easy answers...

...They rightly acknowledge the difficulty of identifying a common value given the multiple contexts of our value-producing activity...

...Leftist criticism has been important in reminding us that "nature" is not a single realm with a universalized meaning, but a canvas on which we project our sensibilities, our culture, and our ideas about what is socially necessary...

...The aim is to proDISSENT / Winter 2003 • 73 CRITICISM OF ”NATURE" mote the expression of the marginalized and disadvantaged...

...And they are re-setting the fault lines within the environmental movement itself...

...Many critics see themselves involved in a moral enterprise...

...This in turn suggests that preserving the nonhuman world—in all its diverse embodiments—must be seen by eco-critics as a fundamental good...

...it stands in contradistinction to humans as a species...

...The nonhuman is the extreme "other...

...That is, we need to be moved by our concern to make room for the "other" and hence fold a commitment to the nonhuman world into our policy discussions...

...Those making this argument see postmodern attacks on nature as simply the latest manifestation of a long tradition associated with what David Ehrenfeld calls the "arrogance of humanism...

...After scholars such as William Cronon, Timothy Luke, and J. Baird Callicott introduced "ecocriticism" to the scholarly and popular publics, various environmental activists and thinkers have struggled to articulate a response...

...The position I want to defend joins the intellectual and moral dimensions of postmodern cultural criticism by working through what is often called an "ethic of otherness...

...I don't mean that this argument should drive all our actions or that respect for the "other" should always carry the day...

...These considerations have traditionally marked the politics of environmental protection...

...My argument will focus less on the fundamental character of reality—an endless debate—and more on the ethics of environmentalism...