Radical Transformation in the Human-Nature Perception: Deep Ecology

There have been numerous endeavors to date the green thought. As the environmental problems have begun to be apparent in the aftermath of the second world war, the year of 1952, a traumatic incident is noted where more than four thousand people have died due to air pollution in London, while in 1970, Rome Club have initiated within the Project of Predicament of Mankind in collaboration with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), in which zero growth thesis put forward in its famed report. Both the former and the latter ignited environmental awareness and regarded as the point of origins for the green thought. Regardless of where it begins from, ecological movements have mainly followed the paths of two movements of thought and tried to develop their paradigms on the basis of these two main thoughts. The environmentalists that named as socialist or Marxist asserts that only through a radical transformation where capitalist way of production is abandoned, the prevention of environmental degradation could be achieved. Whereas the environmentalists who follow the capitalist paradigm believed the protection of environment could be achieved by means of the sustainability in terms of natural resource pool and waste-disposal practices. If we look closely, both of these two movements of thought are anthropocentric. An alternative ecological movement of thought has proposed in 1973 by Norwegian philosopher, Arne Naess, in his work named, “The Shallow and the Deep, Long-Range Ecology Movement: A Summary”. This Deep Ecology approach moves through the commitment to the inner value of the nature aside from mankind and by this way, differs from anthropocentric approaches. Within forty two years, Deep Ecology has led various discussions. The themes as “ecosophy” which has proposed to define itself and the “bio-regions” conception which put forward to actualize its philosophy could be counted among the reference points of the discussions. Besides, its conceptional and intellectual mosaic has led to critics targeting its “potpourrilike” nature. This stems from the influences on the Deep Ecology from Christianity, Heidggerian philosophy, Taoism, Buddhism to the beliefs of hunters and gatherers and Western metaphysics. The traces of Injun culture, European romanticism and Spinoza could also be chased. This study aims to evaluate Deep Ecology in general while briefly touches upon the critics in particular. In this framework, it discusses whether it is possible to reach a “grounded” ecological movement of thought through Deep Ecology or not. By doing this, how the balance between the veins of realistic and mystic units of the 21st century environmentalism should be, forms the main axis of the study.