On the deep ecologists

The world view of Edward Goldsmith, who was one of the deepest of the deep ecologists, sees evolution ruled by behavior designed to maintain the stability of the whole earth biosphere, that is, the living world together with the geological substructure. He sees mainly a closed system. The whole is the sum of the parts.

Is the “whole” explained only as the earth's biosphere, where we stop with the earth and circle or cycle back in the old cyclic way of the old pagan and traditionalist religions? The old religions see an orderly world, with order called various names, such as, R'ta, the Tao, and the Dharma, and evolution is largely left out of this worldview---they do not-see life evolving from the earth out into the cosmos. Deep ecologists affirm a teleological goal to life but it is confined to maintaining the stability of earth. Purposiveness is an essential feature of living things, but the goal of evolving to Godhood is not one of the goals of the deep ecologists.

Goldsmith sees natural systems actually geared toward the avoidance of change, which brings to mind the feud between Burkean conservatives who see change as a part of the maintenance of conservatism, and the traditional school whose goal is stability without change. Evolution works with both in what I call Ordered Evolution, which is not centered solely on evolution or on order, both are required as we evolve. Any violation of order in traditionalist and pagan cultures calls for a strong religious activity restoring the order and supposedly saving society. This works in cycles to the traditionalists. While order is vital, it can also block evolution, and often has.

What happens first, the changing parts followed by the changing whole, or the whole changing the parts to maintain itself? It is some of both, but the deep ecologists and traditionalist school see only the parts changing to preserve the whole. I see the the Spirit-Will within as activating life toward evolving to eternal representation in the world, toward the highest success in evolution, or Godhood. We need both the whole and the parts working in an Ordered Evolution, activated from within but shaped by outside evolution.

J. P. Lamark said that randomness only expresses our ignorance of causes. Scientists have often used randomness as an argument against teleological principles. When an overall project or direction to life in the cosmos is not seen then randomness is easier to justify. I affirm the Promethean enterprise over the Gaian enterprise, while still affirming the natural ecosystem of the earth. We are not bound by the cycles of the earth even as we need to pay attention to them. To affirm higher evolution is not to deny the importance of the natural order. We don't want to become trapped on earth like astronauts breathing oxygen from tubes because we cut all the trees down.

Deep ecologists prefer to think that competition yields to cooperation when systems become more stable. We will of course need cooperation if we are to evolve to Godhood, but cooperation does not mean no competition, cooperation does not have to mean communism or fascism. What we realistically require is cooperative competition, otherwise we tend toward civil war if we try to stuff distinctly different groups together into Marxist-like utopias, ecologically sound or otherwise.

Diversity rises to stability for Goldsmith, but thinking forward we see stability rising to diversity again, just as evolution has continually moved from species to subspecies, and on to new species and subspecies. The organizing principle of nature for me is evolution. Maintaining earth's equilibrium is important but only a part of the picture. Competition does not stop when we move beyond “pioneer conditions” and end solely in cooperation. The best we can hope for, and should hope for, is cooperative competition.

Deep ecologists want education to be a matter of socialization, not unlike the Marxists. But education should also be the teaching of evolution. Reintegrating with actual human nature means being kin-centered, gender defined, age-grading, heterosexual marriage-making, hierarchical, ethnocentric, even xenophobic, and religious-making, with group-selection as the primary unit of selection. Our greatest problem is to reintegrate with actual human nature and the natural world.

It is not a natural fallacy to argue from “is” to “ought” as Goldsmith brilliantly points out. What we are, what nature is, is how we behave and therefore how we ought to behave. “Ought" from “is” is usually rejected because “is” does not fit with with the political correctness of the day. Why is arguing from “is not” to “ought” better than arguing from is to ought?

We do not evolve solely to maintain the order of the biosphere, as the deep ecologists believe, evolution seeks Godhood beyond our biosphere, even as we try to work in harmony with the biosphere.