What Is Deep Ecology?
By Sean Weaver
What is Deep Ecology? Well, I am no longer an academic, and Deep Ecology is a theme that greatly inspired me as a PhD student back in the 1990s when I was steeped in the rich literature of environmental ethics and the works of Aldo Leopold, Arne Naess, John Seed, Joanna Macey, Pat Flemming, as well as Fritzov Capra, Rupert Sheldrake and many others. I am, though, a Zen Buddhist teacher these days and can share a perspective from this vantage point, but also blended with what originally inspired me a couple of decades ago and still does.
The term ‘ecology’ here tends to refer to our approach to knowledge and engagement with things ecological, rather than just the sense of the dynamic interrelationship between plants, animals, climate, soils, food webs and the like. Ecology in the “Deep Ecology” sense is more akin to “environmentalism”, as in Deep Environmentalism. But what does one mean by ‘Deep’ in this context? It is very much about how we engage with environmental and ecological challenges. Not only the lens we use to understand nature (philosophers call this an epistemology) but especially the mode of our engagement and the reality that we experience. It is very much about the extent to which we are prepared to embody the “ecological” in our being and let this ecological experience fill our heart mind and our politics.
A shallow ecology, in this sense, would be akin to an approach to environmentalism that merely dealt with relatively technical concerns but was not coming from a perspective of true intimacy with nature. It might be inspired by this intimacy, which is why we become environmentalists and environmental management professionals, but Deep Ecology is also about the way in which we allow this intimacy with the divinity of nature and life itself to inform and infuse our way of operating as social and political beings.
A Deep Ecologist is someone who is willing to be true to the culture that arises naturally from intimacy with (and as) nature, by embodying this culture where nature is not an “other” to be nicely and sustainably engineered. How so? Well, for a start we are soaked in an interconnected world that cannot be reduced to just the mundane scientistic and economic trade-off language that is so common in the mundane (i.e. non-magical) world of many eco-political pursuits. When we approach environmental practice from a Deep Ecological perspective, we bring in the enchantment of nature, of interconnectedness, of an interpenetrating blend of cooperation and competition into our mode of being eco-political.
What might this look like? Well, when we experience the profound and indescribable unity that comes with a transformative experience of nature, we have tasted the foundations of compassion in our interconnectedness and mutual co-arising with what for some remains as “other”. This source of compassion is a great driver of a style of ecopolitics that is by nature compassionate. It does away with ‘us-and-them’ – this distinction is completely irrelevant. Instead it grapples with the challenge of how to care for our community – a community that is incredibly inclusive. The needs of people who are in the camp that is damaging nature fast become our needs. We solve environmental problems by solving these human problems of people who we identify with.
As Deep Ecologists we find it impossible and illogical to use divisive, adversarial political styles because having truly tasted the nectar of interconnection, where self and other drop away as we walk in and as the divine forest, we know deep down that kindness is far more powerful as an ecopolitical ploughshare. We identify very strongly with our bioregion and its pulses and cannot help ourselves but to act to look after it. And the people of this bioregion are our people and we are compelled to want to reduce all suffering – even the suffering that arises from foolishly degrading water quality with avoidable farming or effluent management practices. But we do not crawl in the gutter of blaming and judging. We bear witness to a problem and we act to solve this problem with our whole being. This has integrity and such integrity has power and potency. Rather than try to explain this power and potency it is better to just let you give it a try or reflect on when you did give it a try.
This is not a rehearsal. This is our life. This is our home that far and wide is threatened with actions that are not good for us, our descendents, or the people who are doing it, and their descendents. There is no time to waste being ineffective, by being divisive and creating lots of enemies of environmentalism from our stink of self-righteousness. A Deep Ecology is an environmentalism of profound wisdom, the wellspring of which is our experience of nature, each other and our life as the sacred gift that it is.
The term ‘ecology’ here tends to refer to our approach to knowledge and engagement with things ecological, rather than just the sense of the dynamic interrelationship between plants, animals, climate, soils, food webs and the like. Ecology in the “Deep Ecology” sense is more akin to “environmentalism”, as in Deep Environmentalism. But what does one mean by ‘Deep’ in this context? It is very much about how we engage with environmental and ecological challenges. Not only the lens we use to understand nature (philosophers call this an epistemology) but especially the mode of our engagement and the reality that we experience. It is very much about the extent to which we are prepared to embody the “ecological” in our being and let this ecological experience fill our heart mind and our politics.
A shallow ecology, in this sense, would be akin to an approach to environmentalism that merely dealt with relatively technical concerns but was not coming from a perspective of true intimacy with nature. It might be inspired by this intimacy, which is why we become environmentalists and environmental management professionals, but Deep Ecology is also about the way in which we allow this intimacy with the divinity of nature and life itself to inform and infuse our way of operating as social and political beings.
A Deep Ecologist is someone who is willing to be true to the culture that arises naturally from intimacy with (and as) nature, by embodying this culture where nature is not an “other” to be nicely and sustainably engineered. How so? Well, for a start we are soaked in an interconnected world that cannot be reduced to just the mundane scientistic and economic trade-off language that is so common in the mundane (i.e. non-magical) world of many eco-political pursuits. When we approach environmental practice from a Deep Ecological perspective, we bring in the enchantment of nature, of interconnectedness, of an interpenetrating blend of cooperation and competition into our mode of being eco-political.
What might this look like? Well, when we experience the profound and indescribable unity that comes with a transformative experience of nature, we have tasted the foundations of compassion in our interconnectedness and mutual co-arising with what for some remains as “other”. This source of compassion is a great driver of a style of ecopolitics that is by nature compassionate. It does away with ‘us-and-them’ – this distinction is completely irrelevant. Instead it grapples with the challenge of how to care for our community – a community that is incredibly inclusive. The needs of people who are in the camp that is damaging nature fast become our needs. We solve environmental problems by solving these human problems of people who we identify with.
As Deep Ecologists we find it impossible and illogical to use divisive, adversarial political styles because having truly tasted the nectar of interconnection, where self and other drop away as we walk in and as the divine forest, we know deep down that kindness is far more powerful as an ecopolitical ploughshare. We identify very strongly with our bioregion and its pulses and cannot help ourselves but to act to look after it. And the people of this bioregion are our people and we are compelled to want to reduce all suffering – even the suffering that arises from foolishly degrading water quality with avoidable farming or effluent management practices. But we do not crawl in the gutter of blaming and judging. We bear witness to a problem and we act to solve this problem with our whole being. This has integrity and such integrity has power and potency. Rather than try to explain this power and potency it is better to just let you give it a try or reflect on when you did give it a try.
This is not a rehearsal. This is our life. This is our home that far and wide is threatened with actions that are not good for us, our descendents, or the people who are doing it, and their descendents. There is no time to waste being ineffective, by being divisive and creating lots of enemies of environmentalism from our stink of self-righteousness. A Deep Ecology is an environmentalism of profound wisdom, the wellspring of which is our experience of nature, each other and our life as the sacred gift that it is.