The Ecology of Freedom

In his major work, The Ecology of Freedom (1982), he elaborated the historical, anthropological, and social roots of hierarchy and domination and their implications for our relationship to the natural world in an expansive theory that he called “[[social ecology]].”

– [[The Next Revolution]]

The Ecology of Freedom

Key claims I’m thinking with

Bookchin argues that its not hard or soft, high or low, technologies that are ultimately distructive to our ecosystems. Rather, its domination and hiearchy.

I think Bookchin makes a great analysis of hiearchy and domination and I think we have a lot to learn from his proposed cure - social ecology. I really enjoyed how he takes the time to dismantle the idea of darwinism and show that we projected hiearchies onto animals to make it seem more natural. I think his careful distinction between first nature and second nature helps clarify discourse. Just like in Towards a Liberatory Technology, I fond him incredibly articulate. One thing that I didn’t expect to be challenged on, and appreciated, was the idea that we as humans are in a battle against a stingy nature. Actually growing up, this idea that we had to overcome this scarcity from above was one of the driving forces of my humanism. But Bookchin challenges this idea pretty effectively and made me realize that the pursuit of "post-scarcity" isn’t one where we are primarily trying to dominate a cruel nature. Although, with sufficient climate change, this may become the case.

My main criticisms are that he overgeneralizes some of his examples of "organic society", although I reckon he did better than other "anthropologists" of his time and he actually forthcomingly seems to admit he’s doing it, so props for self-awareness I guess. I also think his heavy criticism of [[convivial technology]] and [[Whole Earth Catalog]] could have been more friendly. But maybe at the time their differences felt more pronounced and urgent. I agree with his assessment that we cannot solve the world’s problems by DIY alone or putting limits on technology, and that domination can exert itself with low technology as much as with high technology.

"Unfortunately, a preoccupation with technical size, scale, and even artistry deflects our attention away from the most significant problems of technics — notably, its ties with the ideals and social structures of freedom. The choice between a libertarian and an authoritarian technics was posed by Fourier and Kropotkin generations ago, long before Mumford denatured the word libertarian into the more socially respectable and amorphous term, democratic."

And I mean maybe he was right about Whole Earth Catalog in some ways - I mean, the silicon valley people haven’t seemed to be saving us yet. But he seemed to accuse Illich of tooling his way out of dystopia, but I didn’t really see Illich’s ideas that way at all.

Concepts it feeds

• [[social ecology]]
• [[first nature]]
• [[second nature]]
• [[techne]]
• [[critical theory]]
• [[duree]]
• [[organic society]]
• [[post-scarcity]]
• [[Libertarian Municipalitanism]]
• [[freedom]]