On The Twenty-fifth Anniversary of the Publication of Eco-Philosophy: Designing New Tactics for Living
In 1981 Henryk Skolimowski published a small book on Eco-Philosophy, which turned out to be a classic, outlining a new field of philosophy, and which was translated into some twelve languages. At first the critics fussed that there was no such field of philosophy; (there wasn’t for the field was just created.) Other critics maintained that the harsh criticism of science and technology by Eco-Philosophy was unwarranted for science and technology would provide solutions. This was an illusion. The book maintained (and was right about it) “that we have constructed a deficient code for reading nature. Hence our deficiency in interacting with nature.” Other critics still, (especially Deep Ecologists) who were most unsympathetic to Eco-Philosophy, nowadays use its label to surreptitiously promote their own ideas — which is flattering to Eco-Philosophy but not quite right and proper morally. In short, Eco-Philosophy has survived well during the last twenty-five years.
One of its strengths has been from the beginning its quiet but firm insistence that spirituality and ecology must be seen as aspects of each other; and that traditional spirituality must be reformulated and resurrected — for the World is a Sanctuary and we are its shepherds
During the last twenty-five years Eco-Philosophy has not been resting on its early laurels. But has been relentlessly articulated by Henryk Skolimowski in the following works:
• Eco-Theology, Toward a Religion for Our Times, (1985)
• Living Philosophy, Eco-Philosophy as a Tree of Life (1992)
• A Sacred Place to Dwell (1993)
• The Participatory Mind (1994)
• A Philosophy for a New Civilization (2005)
These volumes provide a blueprint and a philosophical and moral reconstruction of the whole civilization.
Since the publication of Eco-Philosophy (in 1981) the world has not become a better place to live — in spite of the fall of Communism. In actual fact, the world has become a worse place to live. The philosophical, moral and economic resources of Capitalism have turned out to be a poisoned chalice. They contribute to our plights and misery, instead of ameliorating our condition. Capitalism is bankrupt philosophically and morally. Hence all our other problems.
We need a clean and compassionate philosophy, which is reverential to human life and to all creation. Without sound and sane philosophy we drift and whither. Philosophy is our compass.
I do not mean to claim that Eco-Philosophy is the only truth. But we have to have some visionary alternatives to the present philosophical barbarism.
Why is Eco-Philosophy important? Because it was able to offer a coherent, rational, and comprehensive world view — as an alternative to the mechanistic-scientific world-view. The mechanistic world-view dominated Western civilization for over two centuries. In the twentieth century the climate of thought was created according to which materialist-mechanistic philosophy was invincible and that there was no other credible alternative to it. As science and technology were supposed to be the kernel of this dominant philosophy, we, human beings, were supposed to accept the consequences of science and technology — even if we found them humanly questionable. Since science and technology showed little respect for intrinsic values and spiritual aspects of human life, we were supposed to act likewise. In brief, within the mechanistic world-view we became stuck intellectually and morally. We felt in a harness, which did not feel right. But we were told that this is how things are and we must accept them.
Eco-Philosophy was a frontal challenge to this enormous mechanistic edifice, which no one dared to question. Clergymen and theologians were too intimidated by the authority of science. Philosophers had the necessary equipment to see through the frailties and inadequacies of mechanicism, but they have kept napping, even after interesting alternatives began to appear. The entire academia proved to be visionless, petrified and driven by the interests of the status quo. So it was left to a few brave individuals to cry out that the king is naked, that the universe is not a mechanism but a Sanctuary, that we are not robots within a machine but shepherds of being, that the spiritual nature of the human must be upheld; otherwise we whither.
Eco-Philosophy (and the book of 1981) was in the forefront of these new voices. I hasten to add that it was not the only such voice. But it was one of the early swallows. It was, for thinking people, an enormous liberation to learn that we are not stuck in the mechanistic prison forever.
Well, the next question must be asked. Why have we not gone further along the alternative path? This is a painful one to try to answer. Part of the answer is that we (alternative voices and visions) have not been unified enough to make a bigger difference. But a more important reason has been is that we have been marginalized, belittled and (often time) derided for not being “rational” enough, while the mechanistic monster has been blindly and irrationally destroying natural environments, cultures, and human beings.
Just at the time when my book was published, President Reagan in the USA started his counter-revolution, which could be called “unrestrained selfishness.” This was a blow to all attempts to healing nature and bringing sanity to humans and societies. I couldn’t believe at first that the black knights of greed could reverse the evolutionary process of the last three centuries, whereby the wealth was progressively shared — with the poor benefiting more and more. I was even more flabbergasted several years later when another vicious form of selfishness emerged; and the black knights of globalizm started to loot the whole world. This process of naked greed and robbery cannot go forever. It is not natural. It is pathological. Sane and honest people will not allow it to continue.
In closing, let me say that although alternative visions of reality have had a rough passage to actualize themselves, they are gaining — all the time … if only because the present mechanistic world is visibly disintegrating. So mark my words, the New Renaissance is not far off.
— Henryk Skolimowski