Date: 	Tue, 17 Mar 1998 13:23:50 -0500
Subject: Re: biography as social history-And reading suggestions


On Tue, 17 Mar 1998 08:45:42 -0500 Adam van Sertima wrote:

> What's wrong with "ecofeminist" stuff? (why does it float?).

Usually it has a bit of an anti-humanist tone.  Carol Christ was 
at a conference once and talked about taking spiders you find 
inside your house and putting them in your garden...  The 
conference was in Chicago (I think), in one of the ritz hotels - 
surrounded by thousands of homeless people (which you 
needed to step over to get in the doors).  In her talk on 
ecofeminist human beings were not discussed once... this 
seems to me to be a fairly glaring oversight.  The animal 
world is granted a certain kind of privilege at the expense of 
the human world.  Generally ecofeminism (and I have 
specific theorists in mind here) doesn't address the layers of 
domination that are entwined to make the domination of nature 
NECESSARY for human survival.  It is often just out of touch 
with the concrete human situation.  Sometimes the economy is 
discussed but usually with a high degree of abstraction.  
Simply complaining about profit and monopolization hardly 
constitutes a critique of the conditions which make the 
exploitation of the environment necessary....  Furthermore - 
the association of women with nature tends to promote a kind 
of essentialist thinking which lends itself to the domination of 
nature and women.  Quite often the feminine is celebrated as 
being closer to nature - an essentialism which glorifies 
women's subordination (you are oppressed, this oppression 
makes you closer to nature, being closer to nature is a good 
thing, better keep oppressing you).  Of course my exposure to 
ecofeminism is fairly limited - I'm thinking here mainly of 
religious thinkers (Ruether, Christ, Shiva, Primavesi, Gross, 
Soelle....).

Bookchin's idea of social ecology places a humanist agenda 
within issues of the environment.  He is keenly aware that the 
oppression of nature is necessary given the current hierarchy 
of human relationships.   Until human relationships are 
pacified then any discussion of fixing the environment will 
inevitably perpetuate the domination of nature.  Just think 
about the profits that are made by "green shops" or "organic 
foods."  Fixing the environment has become a big business.  
Virtually the entire ecological movement has been coopted (at 
least from where I stand).  Corporations are able to produce 
environmentally safe products, and charge more for them, 
while issues of poverty, homelessness, abuse, medical 
distrubution, etc. remain undiscussed.  The prime reason I'm 
not wild about a great deal of this stuff is precisely because it 
doesn't provide a strong enough critique of capitalism.  It just 
begs to be colonized, systematized, and integrated into the 
prevailing economic structure.

ken