Random Variable

A new category of my blog entitled “Totalitarianism and Ecology”

Anthony Paul Smith explains:

According to Neocleous “the concept ‘nature’ is, of course, deeply problematical” and “an empty vessel to be filled with whatever meaning is politically expedient”. The context for this is not nature “within fascism” but necessarily in itself. That is to say, Neocleous doesn’t see nature as a concept that can be negotiated, but that holds within it an already reactionary character. It seems the main mistake that fascism makes in regard to nature is to think of it as a subject in itself. For Neocleous nature is culturally constructed and thus a kind of artifice attached to human subjectivity. This goes so far as to cause Neocleous to take a negative view towards political ecology and one can almost say he sees being anti-ecological as being on par with an anti-fascist position. He claims that green groups and philosophies, like Deep Ecology (with which I too have issues, though in a different register), make the same mistake concerning nature (that it is a subject in itself) and even aside from that totalitarian political structures would be necessary to carry out the environmental changes necessary.

So first off, here’s this from a mailing list associated with one radical green group:

Hi All,
Reducing Greenhouse Gases
…
Step Three, reduce the World’s population, Nature is already doing this with HIV/AIDS and may be about to do more anyway

Need I say anymore?