STEPS TOWARDS A RADICAL GREEN ETHIC by Mark Stubbs The scientific, mechanistic and reductionist pattern that has dominated our thinking since Descartes has led us to think that the natural world is something that can be analysed, understood and eventually controlled. The natural world is seen in this way as a resource to be exploited. Believing that the world's resources would last indefinitely and that natural systems could cope forever with our wastes we have thoughtlessly squandered those resources and polluted our planet. Now we can see the results of this as we face the challenges posed by global warming, tropical deforestation, ozone depletion, species loss and so on. If we are to make good some of the damage we must change our way of thinking, our way of living, our consumption patterns and our ways of valuing. In short, a future worth having must be Green.
ECOLOGICAL CRISIS With the ecological crisis now upon us, the old mechanistic way of thinking is being challenged by a new ecological or Green one which emphasises the inter-connectedness of all things ; the moment to moment flow of life is seen as part of a whole. Instead of seeking to consume more and more, the ecologist stresses sustainability and looks for balance between natural systems. I say this is a new paradigm but of course it is also, to some extent, a rediscovery of the holistic thought forms of ancient and tribal peoples.
GREEN MYTHS Some people who have become disillusioned with materialism and consumerism are rediscovering and reworking old pagan myths connecting human life PAGE 8 WINTER 1991 SEA OF FAITH MAGAZINE with natural cycles. The attempt to reinvest nature with spiritual and religious value is essential if we are to start thinking Green, but I think that the radical Christian will only get limited mileage from such ideas given the degree of superstition and supernaturalism inherent in them. However, the ecological approach to life has already begun to generate new Green myths appropriate to our age.
For instance, James Lovelock's "Gaia Hypothesis", named after the Greek goddess of the Earth, envisages all life on Earth constituting a single system in which the constituent parts interact to provide a stable environment. The hypothesis does not suggest that there is any purpose in this system. There is no benign entity, a Mother Nature figure, looking after us.
The system exists merely to perpetuate itself and is meaningless, or rather it leaves us free to create our own meanings.
Whilst this is a scientific hypothesis it is a myth in the sense that all scientific hypotheses and theories are myths - they are at best stories, fictions designed to help us make sense of our world, our lives and experiences. As such they can be true for us now, at this point in history, but cannot claim any ultimate truth. The Gaia hypothesis is valuable for its timeliness at our moment of ecological crisis, helping .is to see our human life in the wider context of the life of our planet. `NATURE' IS A FICTION We may, or may not, be attracted by talk of getting back to nature, living in harmony with nature, or even of nature wreaking her revenge on us for our past sins. However, we realise that such language is metaphorical as there is no actual essence that is nature that we can go back to, live in harmony with or which can exact revenge. But such language does express a way of evaluating our lives and our world that fits in with a radical Christian ethic. We realise that 'nature' is in itself a fiction, a human construct, the very meaning of which is continually changing, yet can still find the concept useful in helping us to determine our ethical values.
THE GROUND OF OUR BEING So, by saying that we wish to live in harmony with nature we may express a desire to give the natural world greater value than it has previously been given in our post-enlightenment western culture. In the past our anthropocentric culture saw human beings as essentially separate from nature so that we could use and exploit it. To re-evaluate nature we would recognise that we are wholly dependent on the natural world for both our physical and spiritual life - the sense in which a walk in a beautiful landscape or the sound of birdsong can move and uplift us - and so see it as something which must not be diminished but rather nurtured and protected. It is, if you like, the ground of our being.
RE-EVALUATING THE NATURAL WORLD Human beings are constantly inventing and reinventing their values. Don Cupitt has suggested that we need to democratise our values, bringing value to the valueless. In part this means re-evaluating the natural world. When our physical environment was seen simply as a resource then one would feel no qualms about intensively rearing animals for food or felling whole forests for timber. But once one sees the inter-connectedness of all life then one has a greater respect for it. One might still fell trees but will do it rather more as tribal people do : with a sense of regret and a commitment not to take more trees than the forest will stand. One will see animals not merely as food producing machines but as sentient beings deserving of our respect and care.
ANIMALS & ETHICAL JUDGEMENT Some argue that animals have intrinsic value nr have rights akin to human rights. Whilst one may sympathise with these ideas it is difficult for the radical to hold them, for the value anything has is only the value it has been given. To suggest that anything has intrinsic value is to imply that there are absolute values which remain in place whether or not anyone subscribes to them, when in fact ethical judgements can only be made entirely within human language and culture.
What we value becomes valuable. We may say that all life has value but this is not to suggest that all life has the same value so that a rat has the same rights as a human being. Clearly there has to be a hierarchy of value. The point is that there needs to be a balance and a commitment to life in all its diversity. I would not like a rat to live in my kitchen, but the world would sadly be depleted just that bit more were rats to become extinct altogether.
A WAY OUT OF CRISIS In conclusion, then, I'm arguing that in our time of ecological crisis we need to re-evaluate the natural world and our place within it. If we can learn to see ourselves as part of the whole of creation, dependent on the natural world with moral obligations towards the rest of nature, and recognise that all life has value other than in simple utilitarian terms, we will actually enrich our own lives and may begin to find a way out of our present crisis towards a sustainable Green future.
MARK STUBBS is a theology graduate and qualified librarian currently working at Luton Central Library. He is a Green Party member and a prospective candidate in next year's local elections.