Introduction to Social Ecology
Very often when we think about nature, we think about a few things. Monkeys, deer, tigers, pine trees, the ocean, etc. We think about the untapped world around us.
But we seldom think of ourselves as a part of nature. We humans like to think of ourselves as part of the world, but also its dominators. Many tend to think of the earth as a dead thing that we can claim. But in the process, we get dominated by our own nature because the quest for domination often starts over other people.
It is often assumed that domination of nature leads to the domination of man over man. But it is the other way around. It is our “nature” of domination that leads to the domination of all other things around us. It continues to desire more despite the consequences.
Social Ecology as a study
In his magnum opus The Ecology of Freedom, Murray Bookchin teaches us that our environmental problems are rooted in our irrational, anti-ecological society. These problems are rooted in the hierarchical structure of our society which is described as institutionalized coercion of others. How it works is that someone who is above others, those who have the power be it resources or systemic, can force others against their will to do the aggressors bidding.
This can happen in many ways such as someone making you perform sexual favors for them in exchange for food, aiming a gun at your head to make you perform a task, a boss micromanaging your work even though they have little reason to, etc. Hierarchy takes many different forms, and it can be devastating to those who aren’t the master, lord, capitalist, patriarch, racial superior, etc.
Social ecology breaks down nature into two dialectical forces: first nature and second nature.
Go out into the nearest non-civilized area such as a forest, lake, plains, ocean, or mountains. Look all around you at the rocks, trees, birds in the sky, grass, animals you have come across, and other people you walk by. All these things are what’s called First Nature. Everything around us constitutes the organic, undefined parts of “nature” (as it is often called). We live together on this earth with all living things.
For some reason, humans stand out above all because of all animals, we are the only ones which are capable of ethics. Which is key here.
Man was able to develop tools such as spears, bows, pins, braids for your hair, hoes, toasters, trains, etc. Very often these things are thought of by the kind of organization we have with other humans. It is from other humans for example that we learned how to create fire, tools, and even other forms of organization. These forms of organization and use of ethics to build new things, is called Second Nature. Capitalism, Christianity, monarchy, socialism, slavery, Hinduism, democracy, Islam, flying spaghetti monster, fiefdoms, fascism, etc. these are all forms of second nature because we think of them as organization of how to build society and traditions. They are institutions.
How these interact
Second Nature is very important to us as human beings. It is a way of defining how society should be run and even influence who we are as people. People give credence to ideas like slavery, democracy, or capitalism because we recognize society as such. In turn, those ideas can influence how we in first nature interact with one another. For example, market relations shape the totality of social life in that we interact with one another economically and often socially, on terms of exchange value rather than use-value. How we love one another, party, consumerism, basically many facets of sociology and psychology are influenced by the second nature we give credence to.
Second nature is not good or bad. Technology is not good or bad. Democracy is not necessarily good or bad either. But the ethics of these ideas which are promoted are key to how we interact with one another. The woman in the picture above us, she is giving us a world in which technology can better save the earth and give us a world worth living in. In the case of ecology, we produce models from technology to produce ecosystems that can have better outcomes for those who dwell in them.
First nature is often treated as though it is its own mystical being, when it’s not. The behaviors of animals, the plants which grow, the rains which fall on us, and better yet, the atmosphere is all their own entities in how they interact. We humans engage in ways that can either better create a world for all of us to live in, or even be their destroyer. Climate Change for example, is influenced by CO2 and methane emissions which are caused by technologies such as oil drills or coal mining techniques.
There are some who treat the environmental consequences as though it is the result of humans, but this is incredibly regressive and based on this vague idea of human nature (more on this later).
Individuals are social animals and will often adopt behaviors of other humans around them. We are social, even to our own detriment. We accept hierarchical society, but it often creates mental disorder. Capitalism is a hierarchical entity in that one person, the employer, dominates other workers and gives them orders. This is all done in the pursuit of profit. What makes profit? By both underpaying workers and making them more subject to the consequences of environmental destruction, and by offsetting CO2 costs onto the environment. Second Nature itself isn’t a collective entity, but it does often have a way of enslaving us to its will. As mentioned, humans are a social animal and do things others do, because that’s what you do.
I do believe that first nature is not necessarily a collective entity, but first nature does have a way of fighting back.
We are right now, seeing the consequences of climate emissions right before our very eyes. More destructive hurricanes, worsening floods, severe fires like the one which happened in Hawaii, and rising temperatures which are destroying life as we know it. Humans may be resilient, but not that resilient. There is a breaking point in which humans will break down both mentally and physically. Mentally is a big part of all this.
When Second Nature breaks down
Humans, as said above, are informed by our own second nature. We create traditions in which they inform us, and institutions which we practice. A common thing that happens is that we internalize our own manifestations to a point where nothing else feels viable. During ancient times, it was common for a slave to revolt and even enslave their old masters. Slaves weren’t really thinking of slavery being bad, but rather they wanted revenge.
A common argument for capitalism is that if you don’t like being a worker, then you can become a capitalist. This is an example of what I mean when I say, a slave often reproduces the very system which hurts them. Under feudalism, it was common for peasants to find a new feudal lord instead of maybe trying to stop feudalism, because it is what they did. Capitalism is no different here. Second Nature reproduces its own self.
So, when does second nature begin to break down? How do we become free of our own incarnations?
Class society is the most pronounced form of domination and second nature. The very first major classes were slave owners. The very first people to ever be enslaved were women (patriarchy is also second nature) and eventually, other men have fallen victim of this class society to create economic domination. Race, particularly as an issue in America, is an artificial construct but also tends to become its own second nature of domination as systemic racism ravages African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans.
When the contradictions of society begin to show itself and break down, humans under distress will often change because of emergency. A book I would encourage reading for capitalism’s contradictions is “17 contradictions and the end of capitalism”. During the 2008 financial crisis, people were angry at the status quo and demanded change which Obama capitalized on to win a massive victory in that year’s election. Did we change? Kind of but not really. But we did get a wake-up call that the system was in trouble. You can either fix the system, or maybe go for a new one.
During this time of ecological crisis (get the name), we are beginning to see what is likely to be a catastrophic turn of events in the world. Species are dying and the planet is warming. People around the world are not satisfied with the current capitalist system and many are both attempting to change it, or even overcome it.
In a way, first nature almost fights back against second nature in often brutal ways. The process in which these two natures interact, we call “dialectical naturalism”.
Many attempts at trying to change the system have often ended in failure and even repeating many of the same mistakes as liberalism (the ideology of capitalism).
Critique of past socialisms
Murray Bookchin started out as a Stalinist because he was raised in a communist household. He even went to one of those labor schools that were popular in parts of the world during the 1930s (and still have some presence today). He was kicked out of school because he had some critiques of Stalin at 18 years old! He then went on to become a Trotskyist for a while until he realized that workers see themselves as more members of the communities, they lived in rather than the proletariat. So, he went on to become an anarchist once he started studying left-libertarian philosophy more. More on this later, but he made some scathing critiques of Marxism.
Bookchin is quite well known for his contributions to anarchism like Post-Scarcity Anarchism. He started to see the municipality as a place of both community and political formation. So, he began to advocate for a new socialist philosophy called “libertarian municipalism”. I already spoke of this before in my “What is Libertarian socialism” paper, but basically it advocates the replacement of the state with a confederacy and the municipalities being the centers of power.
Anarchists didn’t really take all that well to his philosophy because well, in many ways they are no better than Marxists. The biggest problem with anarchism is that it doesn’t have a center of power in which it coordinates and enforces the decisions made by the communities. Power found a way of not just being about statism, but the forcefulness of personalities. Catalonia had a human rights problem partly because of this. Also, anarchists will often resemble something more like Frederich Nietzsche than Pyotr Kropotkin or Mikhail Bakunin because many take individualism to rather odd levels. So, he went to form what he called “Communalism”.
Communalism in a nutshell, takes from both Marxism and anarchism. From Marxism, a dialectical view of the world and a study of the social sciences that come with it. As well as the ability to conduct power somewhere (the municipality). From anarchism, a commitment to both anti-statism and confederalism, as well as an acknowledgement that hierarchy is the basis of human problems.
The big problem with Marxism (particularly past Marxism) is that it takes an overly economistic worldview like liberalism. Like Hegel before him, Marx thought that it was man’s destiny to dominate the environment and make to his bidding. Marx and Marxism (Marx himself wasn’t a Marxist) both will talk as though the economy was made democratic, and the state was subdued into the tool of the state and thus, nature will be remade into paradise. To be fair, this was a common viewpoint in his time.
Bakunin was able to predict with sobering accuracy in the first international that Marx’s idea of a dictatorship of the proletariat would lead to a red bureaucracy and arguably something even worse than the Tsardom of Russia or the Qing Dynasty. While Lenin did reject the idea of “worker’s self-management” and classical Marxism in general, it was the governing idea that which Marx had which Lenin was inspired by. Saying that Marxism is responsible for Leninism is valid, whether you consider it to be. Yes, Lenin did differentiate himself from Marx, but the critique is still there.
All being said, Marxism does have a tradition of analysis, especially regarding class relations. I use his economic analysis all the time. Dialectical naturalism is inspired by dialectical materialism to go beyond. Also, modern Marxists have realized some mistakes as well as parts of Marx being outdated, so they have updated their analysis. Heck, Marxist Ecology is a thing which I hope becomes bigger.
Solution of Social Ecology
Social Ecology is the call for an ecological society built along rational lines. It is a desire to create a synthesis and symbiosis of first and second nature. Second Nature is a great and wonderful thing which can make first nature better. I am a proponent of Second Nature as it can be used to even keep species from going extinct and protecting all individuals who dwell on this planet earth.
The earth is our only home, and we need a second nature which does not build on domination, but harmony and democracy. That solution is communalism. I’ve talked about communalism before in another paper if you want to read it.
Social Ecology, and more importantly communalism, is already seeing many adherents today and growing at an honestly surprising rate. Rojava is pretty much built off both Bookchin and Ocalan’s ideas. Zapatistas decided to adopt many of communalism’s ideas such as libertarian municipalism. There is a movement in France which is uniting communities by using the libertarian muncipalist strategy. The Green Party here in America has become a de facto communalist party as it adopted many of Bookchin’s ideas.
It should also be noted that Social Ecology is not entirely limited to Bookcin either.
This is a rather brief introduction into what I sometimes mean when I say first nature or second nature.
Thank you for reading! Don’t forget to clap, follow, and share so others may hear this message. My email is derekhudley@gmail.com
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