Blog #9 DeepEcology

After reading Arne Naess' "The Shallow and the Deep, Long-Range Ecology Movement," write a twenty-five-word (give or take) response to each of the seven Deep Ecology Movement principles. Do you agree or disagree with each of these principle. P. 90. 

After reading the article "Deep Ecology," do you feel that Devall and Sessions are accurate with their outline of the Dominant Worldview and the Deep Ecology view? Do you feel that the Dominant Worldview is representative of the average person? Please elaborate.

There are seven principles of the Deep Ecology movement. 

(1) Rejection of the man-in-environment image in favor of the relational, total-field image

I agree mostly with this idea. It says that if two things have a relationship, that relationship becomes part of their definitions, and without that relationship, they are no longer exactly the same.

(2)Biospherical egalitarianism (in principle) 

This principle is a bit hard to understand, but what I think its saying is that everything should have an equal chance to survive and that humans should stop seeing themselves as superior. I don't really agree with this because I think that humans have such a high capacity to change and manipulate that we wouldn't be fully using our talents to not see ourselves as superior.

(3) Principles of diversity and of symbiosis

I really disagree with this part, mostly because of the definition it puts out about survival of the fittest. "Live and let live" isn't how nature works. Even plants starve each other of sunlight in order to survive. 

(4)Anti-class posture

I would qualify this principle because I do think that having defined classes both locally and internationally are not the best  thing, but getting rid of them would create chaos. Without leaders, nothing would ever get accomplished. 

(5)Fight against pollution and resource depletion

This is definitely true. It seems like pollution is something that everyone sees as an easy way to 'green' the planet, but they might be doing it in such a way that, as this part says, "increases evils of other kinds."

(6)Complexity, not complication

Once again, I would have to qualify with this one. I don't agree that humans are completely ignorant of biospherical relationships; I think humans just don't really care, most of the time. Division of labor seems like a better idea that fragmentation of labor, but I'm not sure if it would actually work. I don't really understand this principle.

(7)Local autonomy and decentralization

I have a hard time with decentralization, probably because I've been so socialized to believe in it, but I think that localizing everything wouldn't be for the best. It reminds me of how when states used to have their own currency and how complicated that made trade. Localizing some things would be beneficial, but there still needs to be a centralized government or ruling body. 

After reading "Deep Ecology," I feel that Devall and Sessions are accurate about the deep ecology world view but a little off when it comes to the dominant wold view. I do think that our society has become incredibly individualistic, see as humans are a naturally social species. Devell and Sessions make things such as vegetarianism seem ridiculous because they say that vegetarians are saying that the plant kingdom has less rights to live than the animal kingdom. I do not believe that plants have feelings so that's a bit weird to me. Like all papers that argue for something, this one makes the dominant world view seem worse than it is in an attempt to make the deep ecological world view look better. I also don't think that humans see the world as having a infinite amount of resources. We aren't stupid, we know that we will run out of oil reserves eventually and stuff like that. Most people do have this more dominant world view, that's why it's called DOMINANT. It describes the average person give or take a few points. I for example, do believe that humans put themselves above nature and that we should in some regards, but I do not believe that nature has ample resources.