By Harold Lavender
New Socialist Webzine- Canada
January 17th, 2014
Images and talk of catastrophes are pervasive in today’s world.
Much
discussion of the subject ignores issues of social justice and is not
very favourable to a left-wing perspective. Yet the spectre of
catastrophic climate change haunts the future.
Climate change is
wreaking destruction on many, is getting worse and poses a potential
threat to life on the planet. This raises many serious questions about
how the Left should respond.
I read one recent effort to discuss these issues, Catastrophism: The Apocalyptic Politics of Collapse and Rebirth.
This is a short and very thought-provoking collection of essays that
has generated both praise in some circles and criticism in others.
In
her introduction, Sasha Lilley writes “Catastophism presumes that
society is headed for a collapse, whether economic, ecological, social,
or spiritual. This collapse is frequently, but not always, regarded as a
great cleansing, out of which a new society will be born.
Catastrophists tend to believe that an ever-intensified rhetoric of
disaster will awaken the masses from their long slumber — if the
mechanical failure of the system does not make such struggles
superfluous.”
The book is written as a critique of many different
forms off catastrophic ideas and politics. Eddie Yuen’s essay deals
with catastrophism within the environmental movement. James Davis writes
about catastrophism and the Right. Sasha Lilley writes about
catastrophic politics on the Left. David McNally uses a critique of
popular culture as a means to explore capitalism and the catastrophes of
everyday life. Doug Henwood contributes a forward, “Dystopia is for
Losers.”
Davis offers a useful exploration of different types of
right-wing catastrophism. He shows how these ideas have helped generate a
climate for draconian state responses, including tighter border
controls and a growing “security state.”
Eddie Yuen acknowledges
that we are in “what is unquestionably genuinely a catastrophic moment
in human and planetary history.” He adds “of all the forms of
catastrophic discourse on offer, the collapse of ecological systems is
unique in that it is definitely verified by a consensus within the
scientific community… In addition to the well-known crisis of climate
change, leading scientists have listed eight other planetary boundaries
that must not be crossed if the earth is to remain habitable for humans
and many other species.”
This raises the huge question of how we
can rapidly change the direction of human society. Yuen and other
authors in the book chose to intervene at the level of how we think
about and communicate a vision of transformation that will inspire
people. For Yuen, “the foundational problematic of this book is the
question of politicization: what narrative strategies are most likely to
generate effective and radical social movements?”
Yuen’s chapter
is a detailed critique of the way mainstream and some radical
environmentalists have fallen into catastrophic discourses. These are
not helpful and often hinder efforts to build a mass movement. He argues
that liberatory politics do not flow out of dire predictions of
disaster even in the cases where they may well be accurate.
Catastrophism
relies heavily on fear, which can often be paralyzing and lead to
inaction. The politics of fear do not serve the long term interests of
the Left, since they can all to easily be captured and manipulated by
right-wing racist anti-immigrant nationalist forces.
While some
on the pro-corporate right continue to deny or greatly minimize climate
change, other mainstream environmentalists acknowledge the problems but
offer woefully inadequate solutions. These range from future
technological fixes to inadequate injunctions for green consumption.
Meanwhile
contemporary capitalism has shown a real capacity to exploit disasters
and use them to implement its agenda, which includes increasingly brutal
forms of austerity and authoritarianism.
Yuen directly
challenges primitivist notions that have arisen within some radical
sectors of the green and anarchist movements. These see the collapse of
civilization as inevitable and something to be welcomed. However, his
piece doesn’t critically examine discourses about “civilization” which
can be very problematic in the light of colonialism, imperialism and a
history of barbaric wars fought in the name of civilization) or fully
examine what is worth preserving and not preserving from the industrial
capitalist world we live in.
Yuen seeks to make a positive appeal
to community and solidarity, suggesting that through organizing
against climate apartheid and the enclosure and commodification of
nature we can create compassionate, egalitarian and radical movements
that can bring a new world into being.
In her chapter, Sasha
Lilley offers a very wide-ranging critique of left-wing catastrophism
(primarily covering Marxism and anarchism). She frames things in a dense
and boundary pushing way I haven’t thought about in my many years as a
socialist and activist. I partially agree with what she writes. I agree
with Lilley in rejecting both mechanically determinist approaches –
like those that predict the inevitability of the collapse of capitalism
followed by revolution — and voluntarist approaches that assume that
people can change society regardless of the objective conditions.
Lilley
cites and criticizes a lengthy list of groups that believed that
degraded conditions and intensified state repression would create better
conditions. She shows how heightening the contradictions can just as
easily lead to defeat as victory.
However, her sweeping
generalization approach tends to ignore the specifics of each
situation. I believe the ways groups act in the world are very much
shaped by context and I am quite reticent to pass broad judgment on
decisions which have been stripped of their context. I am not convinced a
schema about catastrophism is the most useful way to understand history
and what it can and can’t teach us.
David McNally’s contribution
does not seem to directly connect to the question of ecological
catastrophe raised by Eddie Yuen. But he does include important points
about the nature of popular uprisings. In his essay McNally writes,
“However extraordinary a popular uprising may be, it is nonetheless a
product of decidedly mundane activity — strikes, demonstrations,
meetings, speeches, leaflets, occupations. The apocalyptic scenario, in
which a complete collapse of social organization ushers in a tumultuous
upheaval, is ultimately a mystical rather than a political one. It is
much more helpful to think about revolution as a dramatic convergence of
real practices of rebellion and resistance that, in their intersection,
acquire a qualitatively new form.”
The Limits of Critique
Catastrophism
is a dense and engaging book which is well worth reading. The framework
of what this short book seeks to address is clearly defined. Within
that framework, the book works quite well. If one is reading the book
primarily for a critique this is more than enough. However, our
reactions to a book are influenced by what we are looking for. I didn’t
find the book fully or adequately dealt with the questions that most
concern me as an activist currently working in the climate justice
movement. The framework of the book leaves out too much that is highly
relevant to the issues raised.
Most of the contributors focus
primarily on the importance of narratives. They argue strongly in favour
of narratives that generate hope and against catastrophic narratives
that inspire fear.
Yuen see narratives as key to politicization.
Questions of how we think and communicate our ideas are quite important.
However, for me Yuen’s approach seems a bit reductionist. There is no
single formula for how people politicize and people don’t all politicize
in the same ways. I see radicalization as the result of the
intersection of multiple factors (including ideas, historical memory,
the lived experiences of oppression , witnessing global injustice and
environmental destruction , the living laboratory of self-organization
and collective actionand resistance, spaces for dissent and organizing,
the creation of an alternative culture, the state of movements of
resistance, inspiring examples of action, and the lessons of victories
and defeats).
A key underlying factor is the belief that another
world is possible. This requires a vision that can see beyond the
constricted present and the lack of alternatives to neo-liberalism. But a
radical movement also requires some practical methods to advance
towards its goals – otherwise many people will deradicalize and drop out
when impasses are reached.
Yuen and other authors are faced with
a very difficult situation in the US and the Canadian state. The state
of mass politics, social atomization and lack of broad public
understanding of climate change issues create an unfavourable overall
context (although there is ongoing grassroots organizing, often
localized).
Yuen clearly acknowledges that the work of
environmental activists and the growth of the climate justice movement
create hope. However, this is a completely undeveloped side note to the
book. This is unfortunate. I think a case study of the climate justice
movement and its potential to fundamentally transform the way we
collectively understand and act would have greatly added to the book.
The
authors do a very good job of explaining what approaches they reject.
But it is much harder to decipher what they are in favour of. They have
many often brilliant insights that could contribute to the development
of alternatives. However, such ideas are presented in a manner which is
completely buried and submerged within a critique. I would have found it
much easier to understand the perspective(s) of the book if some of the
ideas had been developed and elaborated upon in a separate chapter on
alternatives.
What Action?
We live in
perilous times in which what to do is not self-evident. Yuen shows how
the failed approaches of the mainstream environmental movement can turn
people away. This is particularly true if issues of social justice are
ignored or if the voices of people who bear the worst consequences of
the environmental crisis are ignored or marginalized.
However, we
need to respond to the climate crisis directly. What can be said with
certainty is that the less that is done collectively at a global level
now, the more widespread and catastrophic the consequences will be in
the future.
The book doesn’t directly address this problem. But
it is clear that the root of the problem is that way too much carbon
dioxide and other greenhouse gases are being put into the atmosphere,
completely destabilizing climate patterns on which ecosystems and life
forms depend and triggering feedback mechanisms (such as the melting of
permafrost) that will release even more greenhouse gases. There is no
viable alternative to climate change other than a rapid process of
reducing these emissions and transitioning to alternative forms of
energy.
The antidote to pessimism and fatalism is effective mass
human action. But what makes action effective? Strategy plays a key
role.
If one believes that the capitalist system is the root
cause of the ecological crisis and many other ills then it needs to be
abolished. It won’t collapse of its own accord and a process of
disintegration is more likely to have devastating consequences than lead
to a better world.
However, abolishing capitalism seems
extraordinarily far-fetched and remote for most of us who live in
non-revolutionary times. So it is important to develop a transitional
and even immediate set of goals and objectives.
For example, one
could take on the huge capitalist fossil fuel and extractive industries
(including their transmission systems). These companies do untold damage
to the earth and have sometimes generated intense opposition from local
communities who experience the damage they cause but only receive a few
tiny crumbs of benefits from developments that generate huge profits
for the owners. Campaigns around these industries intermingle issues of
solidarity, social justice and protecting the earth.
In many
places, including where I live, indigenous people are defending their
lands against resource extraction projects and playing an essential role
in the environmental justice movement. Our movements need to stand in
full solidarity with defenders of the land and their struggles against
the colonialist Canadian state.
In becoming involved in a movement it is important to survey the terrain for resistance.
Strategically
we may wish to align with other progressive forces on the Left.
However, this can be very difficult. Around the world social democratic
parties have capitulated to neo-liberalism and in large measure Green
parties have adapted to and made similar accommodations. The workers’
movement and unions are strategically important. However, too often they
are missing in action from major environmental struggles. Union leaders
often seek to defend their members’ immediate interest in jobs
(sometimes falsely understood or portrayed as being in opposition to
environmental protection) and fail to promote a larger social and
environmental justice agenda.
Struggles against austerity can
also unfold in ways completely apart from environmental justice
concerns. However, there is an underlying connection in that austerity
policies promote all sorts of wrong spending choices which harm people
and other living things.
However, certain specific issues – such
as pipeline building in British Columbia — open a space to reach far
more people. In engaging in a specific campaign, such as to ban
fracking, one may find common cause with unlikely allies coming from
very different places.
It is very possible to agree with people
around specific goals while disagreeing with them about wider political
agendas and ideology. For me, the idea of — to use old left language —
the united front or unity in action is central to the process of mass
movement building.
In any major movement radicals face the
dangers of sectarianism and also of absorption into the agenda of others
which we don’t share. There is much to disagree with in the mainstream
environmental movement. As a result there is a temptation to not work
with them. This can mean refusing to participate in the broader movement
at all or going off in a completely separate corner. If one rejects
this temptation one has to deal with agendas which one disagrees with:
green capitalism and the prominent role of environmental NGOs which seek
to dominate the field, often using left-wing environmental activists
simply as foot soldiers.
It is impossible to navigate these
problems as an isolated individual. One requires the aid of
organizations with common purpose. Working together, people are better
able to balance the different imperatives of having very firm and
uncompromising long-term goals and the capacity to connect to people’s
lived experience and create broader networks and alliances which can
alter the course of events that is creating ecological catastrophe.
Harold Lavender is a member of Rising Tide Vancouver Coast Salish Territories and an editor of New Socialist Webzine.
Back to Sasha Lilley’s Author Page | Back to David McNally’s Author Page | Back to Eddie Yuen’s Author Page | Back to James Davis’s Author Page
