(EE) Shallow and Deep

Much of the material we have been discussing is quite confusing, and this is compounded by our fragmentary course schedule so far. Here's one thing we might usefully take away, however: it's probably not useful to divide those concerned about planetary health into deep and shallow, or non-anthropocentric and anthropocentric.

For example, deep ecologists sneer at proponents of recycling as a cult, which they would be if they thought recycling by itself were sufficient, but most of them don't. The deep ecologists are right that we must do much more than recycle, but do they really want us NOT to do so? This sounds like culting off your nose to spite your face.

Of course we reject the most narrow, selfish anthropocentrism that is not at all concerned with ecology, the idea that only humans matter and that the world is just a heap of raw material for our exploitation. But we have seen not only that a robust environmental ethic can flow from a more expansive anthropocentrism, but that the deep ecologists themselves cannot avoid understanding the world in relation to human values.

So the infighting is not substantive, and needs to stop. We needn't agree about everything to be on the same team, and we need all hands on deck to have any realistic hope.