Wholism: Earth Science and Deep Ecology
The new thoughts contained in this blog regarding the spiritual practices fostered by deep ecology’s commitment of “wholism” were spurred by news that Red Earth has co-authored an extensive essay that will soon appear in Total Art Journal.
Deep Ecology is commonly associated with the belief that humans should respect all entities, whether or not they possess souls and consciousness. Instead of monotheism, Deep Ecologists treat the whole of nature as sacred.
Such affinity bypasses function and recreation. It delves into the human soul where true communion across species can flourish.
Envisioning the universe as a unified, interconnected, and interdependent entity is not only metaphysical. The natural dynamics of what is now called “earth system science” provides a rigorous scientific model of the way the earth maintains suitable conditions for life’s continuity. This model confirms the image of the Earth as a self-regulating organism.
It also provides the basis for evaluating the consequences of human activities. From this holistic perspective, human beings have no more importance than other participants within the web of life. In fact, many deep ecologists advocate curbing both human yearnings and human populations because they disrupt the delicate balance between equilibrium and evolution across the planet.
Earth System Science, Deep Ecology and the Gaia hypothesis all focus on the dynamic interactions between living forms, bodies of water, land masses, and atmosphere. Alteration of any one of these components ripples throughout the system in perpetually expanding spirals of response and stimulus that are far too complex for humans to predict. Thus, human actions are never isolated, never of short duration, and never reducible to cause-and-effect calculations.
Implicit to them all is a challenge to the morality of Eurocentric codes of behavior that enforce fair treatment among humans, but pay little regard to human treatment of plants, animals, and habitats. Technical and legislative fixes are not likely to work in the absence of such cross-species obligations.