Crisis of Perception

As the century draws to a close, environmental concerns have become of paramount importance. We are faced with a whole series of global problems that are harming the biosphere and human life in alarming ways that may soon become irreversible. We have ample documentation about the extent and significance of these problems.1

The more we study the major problems of our time, the more we come to realize that they cannot be understood in isolation. They are systemic problems, which means that they are interconnected and interdependent. For example, stabilizing world population will be possible only when poverty is reduced worldwide.

The extinction of animal and plant species on a massive scale will continue as long as the Southern Hemisphere is burdened by massive debts. Scarcities of resources and environmental degradation combine with rapidly expanding populations to lead to the breakdown of local communities and to the ethic and tribal violence that has become the main characteristic of the post-cold war era.

Ultimately these problems must be seen as just different facets of one single crisis, which is largely a crisis of perception. It derives from the fact that most of us, and especially our large global institutions, subscribe to the concepts of an outdated worldview, a perception of reality inadequate for dealing with our overpopulated, globally interconnected world.

There are solutions to the major problems of our time, some of them even simple. But they require a radical shift in our perceptions, our thinking, our values. And, indeed, we are now at the beginning of such a fundamental change of worldview in science and society, a change of paradigms as radical as the Copernican revolution. But this realization has not yet dawned on most of our political leaders. The recognition that a profound change of perception and thinking is needed if we are to survive has not yet reached most of our corporate leaders either, or the administrators and professors of our large universities.

Not only do our leaders fail to see how different problems are interrelated; they also refuse to recognize how their so-called solutions affect future generations. From the systemic point of view, the only viable solutions are those that are "sustainable." The concept of sustainability has become a key concept in the ecology movement and is indeed crucial. Lester Brown of the Worldwatch Institute has given a simple, clear, and beautiful definition: "A sustainable society is one that satisfies its needs without diminishing the prospects of future generations." 2 This, in a nutshell, is the great challenge of our time: to create sustainable communities-that is to say, social and cultural environments in which we can satisfy our needs and aspirations without diminishing the chances of future generations.

The Paradigm Shift

My main interest in my life as a physicist has been in the dramatic change of concepts and ideas that occurred in physics during the first three decades of the century and is still being elaborated in our current theories of matter, The new concepts in physics have brought about a profound change in our worldview, from the mechanistic worldview of Descartes and Newton to a holistic ecological view.

The new view of reality was by no means easy to accept for physicists at the beginning of the century. The exploration of the atomic and subatomic world brought them in contact with a strange and unexpected reality. In their struggle to grasp this new reality, scientists became painfully aware that their basic concepts, their language, and their whole way of thinking were inadequate to describe atomic phenomena. Their problems were not merely intellectual but amounted to an intense emotional, and, one could say, even existential crisis. It took them along time to overcome this crisis, but in the end they were rewarded with deep insights into the nature of matter and its relation to the human mind. 3

The dramatic changes of thinking that happened in physics at the beginning of this century have been widely discussed by physicists and philosophers for more than fifty years. They led Thomas Kuhn to the notion of a scientific "paradigm", defined as a "constellation of achievements-concepts, values, techniques, etc.-shared by a scientific community and used by that community to define legitimate problems and solutions." 4 Changes of paradigms, according to Kuhn, occur in discontinuous, revolutionary breaks called "paradigm shifts."

Today, twenty-five years after Kuhn's analysis, we recognize the paradigm shift in physics as an integral part of a much larger cultural transformation. The intellectual crisis of the quantum physicists in the 1920s is mirrored today by a similar but much broader cultural crisis. Accordingly, what we are seeing is a shift of paradigms not only within science, but also in the larger social arena. 5 To analyze that cultural transformation I have generalized Kuhn's definition of a scientific paradigm to that of a social paradigm, which I define as "a constellation of concepts, values, perceptions, and practices shared by a community, which forms a particular vision of reality that is the basis of the way the community organizes itself." 6

The paradigm that is now receding has dominated our culture for several hundred years, during which it has shaped our modern Western society and has significantly influenced the rest of the world. This paradigm consists of a number of entrenched ideas and values, among them the view of the universe as a mechanical system composed of elementary building blocks, the view of the human body as a machine, the view of life in society as a competitive struggle for existence, the belief in unlimited material progress to be achieved through economic and technological growth, and-last, but not least-the belief that a society in which the female is everywhere subsumed under the male is one that follows a basic law of nature. All of these assumptions have been fatefully challenged by recent events. And, indeed, a radical revision of them is now occurring.

Deep Ecology

The new paradigm may be called a holistic worldview, seeing the world as an integrated whole rather than a dissociated collection of parts. It may also be called an ecological view, if the term "ecological" is used in a much broader and deeper sense than usual. Deep ecological awareness recognizes the fundamental interdependence of all phenomena and the fact that, as individuals and societies, we are all embedded in (and ultimately dependent on) the cyclical processes of nature.

The two terms "holistic" and "ecological" differ slightly in their meanings, and it seems that "holistic" is somewhat less appropriate to describe the new paradigm. A holistic view of, say, a bicycle means to see the bicycle as a functional whole and to understand the interdependence of its parts accordingly. An ecological view of the bicycle includes that, but it adds to it the perception of how the bicycle is embedded in its natural and social environment-where the raw materials that went into it came from, how it was manufactured, how its use affects the natural environment and the community by which it is used, and so on. This distinction between "holistic" and "ecological"" is even more important when we talk about living systems, for which the connections with the environment are much more vital.

The sense in which I use the term "ecological" is associated with a specific philosophical school and, moreover, with a global grassroots movement known as "deep ecology", which is rapidly gaining prominence. 7 The philosophical school was founded by the Norwegian philosopher Anre Naess in the early 1970s with his distinction between "shallow" and "deep" ecology. This distinction is now widely accepted as a very useful term for referring to a major division within contemporary environmental thought.

Shallow ecology is anthropocentric, or human-centered. It views humans as above or outside of nature, as the source or all value, and ascribes only instrumental, or "use," value to nature. Deep ecology does not separate humans-or anything else·-from the natural environment. It sees the world not as a collection of isolated objects, but as a network of phenomena that are fundamentally interconnected and interdependent. Deep ecology recognizes the intrinsic value of all living beings and views humans as just one particular strand in the web of life.

Ultimately, deep ecological awareness is spiritual or religious awareness. When the concept of the human spirit is understood as the mode of consciousness in which the individual feels a sense of belonging, of connectedness, to the cosmos as a whole, it becomes clear that ecological awareness is spiritual in its deepest sense. It is, therefore, not surprising that the emerging new vision of reality based on deep ecological awareness is consistent with the so-called perennial philosophy of spiritual traditions, whether we talk about the spirituality of Christian mystics, that of Buddhists, or the philosophy and cosmology underlying the Native American traditions. 8

There is another way in which Anre Naess has characterized deep ecology. "The essence of deep ecology." he says, "is to ask deeper questions." 9 This is also the sense of a paradigm shift. We need to be prepared to question every single aspect of the old paradigm. Eventually we will not need to throw everything away, but before we know that we need to be willing to question everything. So deep ecology asks profound questions about the very foundations of out modem, scientific, industrial, growth-oriented, materialistic worldview and way of life. It questions the entire paradigm from an ecological perspective: from the perspective of our relationships to one another, to future generations, and to the web of life of which we are part.

Social Ecology and Ecofeminism

In addition to deep ecology, there are two other important philosophical schools of ecology, social ecology and feminist ecology, or "ecofeminism". In recent years there has been a lively debate in philosophical journals about the relative merits of deep ecology, social ecology, and ecofeminism. 10 It seem to me that each of the three schools addresses important aspects of the ecological paradigm and, rather than competing with each other, their proponents should try to integrate their approaches into a coherent ecological vision.

Deep ecological awareness seems to provide the ideal philosophical and spiritual basis for an ecological lifestyle and environmental activism. However, it does not tell us much about the cultural characteristics and patterns of social organization that have brought about the current ecological crisis. This is the focus of social ecology. 11

The common ground of the various schools of social ecology is the recognition that the fundamentally antiecological nature of many of our social and economic structures and their technologies is rooted in what Riane Eisler has called the "dominator system" of social organization. 12 Patriarchy, imperialism, capitalism, and racism are examples of social domination that are exploitative and antiecological. Among the different schools of social ecology there are various Marxist and anarchist groups who use their respective conceptual frameworks to analyze different patterns of social domination.

Ecofeminism could be viewed as a special school of social ecology, since it, too, addresses the basic dynamics of social domination within the context of patriarchy. However, its cultural analysis of the many facets of patriarchy and of the links between feminism and ecology go far beyond the framework of social ecology. Ecofeminists see the patriarchal domination of women by men as the prototype of all domination and exploitation in the various hierarchical, militaristic, capitalist, and industrialist forms. They point out that the exploitation of nature, in particular, has gone hand in hand with that of women, who have been identified with nature throughout the ages. This ancient association of women and nature links women's history and the history of the environment and is the source of a natural kinship between feminism and ecology. 13 Accordingly, ecofeminists see female experiential knowledge as a major source for an ecological vision of reality.14

New Values

In this brief outline of the emerging ecological paradigm, I have so far emphasized the shifts in perceptions and ways of thinking. If that were all that were necessary, the transition to the new paradigm would be much easier. There are enough articulate and eloquent thinkers in the deep ecology movement who could convince our political and corporate leaders of the merits of the new thinking. But that is only part of the story. The shift of paradigms requires an expansion not only of our perceptions and ways of thinking, but also of our values.

Here it is interesting to note the striking connection in the changes between thinking and values. Both may be seen as shifts from self-assertion to integration. These two tendencies-the self-assertive and the integrative - are both essential aspects of all living systems. 15 Neither is intrinsically good or bad. What is good, or healthy, is a dynamic balance; what is bad, or unhealthy, is imbalance-overemphasis of one tendency and neglect of the other. If we now look at our Western industrial culture, we see that we have overemphasized the self-assertive and neglected the integrative tendencies. This is apparent both in our thinking and in our values, and it is very instructive to put these opposite tendencies side-by-side.

integrative
conservation
cooperation
quality
partnership

One of the things we notice when we look at this table is that the self-assertive values - competition, expansion, domination-are generally associated with men. Indeed, in patriarchal society they are not only favored but also given economic rewards and political power. This is one of the reasons why the shift to a more balanced value system is so difficult for most people and especially for men.

Power, in the sense of domination over others, is excessive self-assertion. The social structure in which it is exerted most effectively is the hierarchy. Indeed, our political, military, and corporate structures are hierarchically ordered, with men generally occupying the upper levels and women on the lower levels. Most of these men, and quite a few women, have come to see their position in the hierarchy as part of their identity, and thus the shift to a different system of values generates existential fear in them.

However, there is another kind of power, one that is more appropriate for the new paradigm-power as influence over others. The ideal structure foe exerting this kind of power is not the hierarchy but the network, which, as we shall see, is also the central metaphor of ecology.16 The paradigm shift thus includes a shift in social organization from hierarchies to networks.

Ethics

The whole question of values is crucial to deep ecology; it is, in fact, its central defining characteristic. Whereas the old paradigm is based on anthropocentric (human-centered) values, deep ecology is grounded in ecocentric (earth-centered) values. It is a worldview that acknowledges the inherent value of nonhuman life. All living beings are members of ecological communities bound together in a network of interdependencies. When this deep ecological perception becomes part of our daily awareness, a radically new system of ethics emerges.

Such a deep ecological ethics is urgently needed today, and especially in science, since most of what scientists do is not life-furthering and life-preserving but life-destroying. With physicists designing weapons systems that threaten to wipe out life on the planet, with chemists contaminating the global environment, with biologists releasing new and unknown types of microorganisms without even knowing the consequences, with psychologists and other scientists torturing animals in the name of scientific progress-with all these activities going on, it seems most urgent to introduce "ecoethical" standards into science.

It is generally not recognized that values are not peripheral to science and technology but constitute their very basis and driving force. During the scientific revolution in the seventeenth century, values were separated from facts, and ever since that time we have tended to believe that scientific facts are independent of what we do and are therefore independent of out values. In reality, scientific facts emerge out of an entire constellation of human perceptions, values, and actions-in one word, out of a paradigm-from which they cannot be separated. Although much of the detailed research may not depend explicitly on the scientist's value system, the larger paradigm within which this research is pursued will never be value free. Scientists, therefore, are responsible for their research not only intellectually but also morally.

Within the context of deep ecology, the view that values are inherent in all of living nature is grounded in the deep ecological or spiritual, experience that nature and the self are one. This expansion of the self all the way to the identification with nature is the grounding of deep ecology, as Arne Naess clearly recognizes:
Care flows naturally if the "self" is widened and deepened so that protection of free Nature is felt and conceived as protection of ourselves...Just as we need no morals to make us breathe...[so] if your "self" in the wide sense embraces another being, you need no moral exhortation to show care...You care for yourself without feeling any moral pressure to do it...If reality is like it is experienced by the ecological self, our behavior naturally and beautifully follows norms of strict environmental ethics. 17

What this implies is that the connection between an ecological perception of the world and corresponding behavior is not a logical but a psychological connection. 18 Logic does not lead us from the fact that we are an integral part of the web of life to certain norms of how we should live. However, if we have deep ecological awareness, or experience, of being part of the web of life, then we will (as opposed to should) be inclined to care for all of living nature. Indeed, we can scarcely refrain from responding in this way.

The link between ecology and psychology that is established by the concept of the ecological self has recently been explored by several authors. Deep ecologist Joanna Macy writes about "the greening of the self"; 19 philosopher Warwick Fox has coined the term "transpersonal ecology"; 20 and cultural historian Theodore Roszak uses the term "eco-psychology" 21 to express the deep connection between these two fields, which until very recently were completely separate.

Shift from Physics to the Life Sciences

By calling the emerging new vision of reality "ecological" in the sense of deep ecology, we emphasize that life is at its very center. This is an important point for science, because in the old paradigm physics has been the model and source of metaphors for all other sciences. "All philosophy is like a tree," write Descartes. "The roots are metaphysics, the trunk is physics, and the branches are all the other sciences." 22

Deep ecology has overcome this Cartesian metaphor. Even though the paradigm shift in physics is still of special interest because it was the first to occur in modern science, physics has now lost its role as the science providing the most fundamental description of reality. However, this is still not generally recognized today. Scientists as well as nonscientists frequently retain the popular belief that "if you really want to know the ultimate explanation, you have to ask a physicist," which is clearly a Cartesian fallacy. Today the paradigm shift in science, at its deepest level, implies a shift from physics to the life sciences.

EPILOGUE: Ecological Literacy

Reconnecting with the web of life means building and nurturing sustainable communities in which we can satisfy our needs and aspirations without diminishing the chances of future generations. For this task we can learn valuable lessons from the study of ecosystems, which are sustainable communities of plants, animals, and microorganisms. To understand these lessons, we need to learn the basic principles of ecology. We need to become, as it were, ecologically literate. 1 Being ecologically literate, or "ecoliterate," means understanding the principles of organization of ecological communities (ecosystems) and using those principles for creating sustainable human communities. We need to revitalize our communities-including our educational communities, business communities, and political communities-so that the principles of ecology become manifest in them as principles of education, management, and politics. 2

The theory of living systems as discussed in this book provides a conceptual framework for the link between ecological communities and human communities. Both are living systems that exhibit the same basic principles of organization. They are networks that are organizationally closed, but open to the flows of energy and resources; their structures are determined by their histories of structural changes; they are intelligent because of the cognitive dimensions inherent in the processes of life.

Of course, there are many differences between ecosystems and human communities. There is no self-awareness in eco-systems, no language, no consciousness, and no culture; and therefore no justice or democracy; but also no greed or dishonesty. We cannot learn anything about those human values and shortcomings from ecosystems. But what we can learn and must learn from them is how to live sustainability. During more than three billion years of evolution the planet's ecosystems have organized themselves in subtle and complex ways so as to maximize sustainability. This wisdom of nature is the essence of ecoliteracy.

Based on the understanding of ecosystems as autopoietic networks and dissipative structures, we can formulate a set of principles of organization that may be identified as the basic principles of ecology and use them as guidelines to build sustainable human communities.

The first of those principles is interdependence. All members of an ecological community are interconnected in a vast and intricate network of relationships, the web of life. They derive their essential properties and, in fact, their very existence from their relationships to other things. Interdependence-the mutual dependence of all life processes on one another - is the nature of all ecological relationships. The behavior of every living member of the ecosystem depends on the behavior of many others. The success of the whole community depends on the success of its individual members, while the success of each member depends on the success of the community as a whole.

Understanding ecological interdependence means understanding relationships. It requires the shifts of perception that are characteristic of systems thinking-from the parts to the whole, from objects to relationships, from contents to patterns. A sustainable human community is aware of the multiple relationships among its members. Nourishing the community means nourishing those relationships.

The fact that the basic pattern of life is a network pattern means that the relationships among the members of an ecological community are nonlinear, involving multiple feedback loops. Linear chains of cause and effect exist very rarely in ecosystems. Thus a disturbance will not be limited to a single effect but is likely to spread out in ever-widening patterns. It may even be amplified by interdependent feedback loops, which may completely obscure the original source of the disturbance.
The cyclical nature of ecological processes is an important principle of ecology. The ecosystem's feedback loops are the pathway along which nutrients are continually recycled. Being open systems, all organisms in an ecosystem produce wastes, but what is waste for one species is food for another, so that the ecosystem as a whole remains without waste. Communities of organisms have evolved in this way over billions of years, continually using and recycling the same molecules of minerals, water, and air.

The lesson for human communities here is obvious. A major clash between economics and ecology derives form the fact that nature is cyclical, whereas our industrial systems are linear. Our businesses take resources, transform them into products plus waste, and sell the products to consumers, who discard more waste when they have consumed the products. Sustainable patterns of production and consumption need to be cyclical, imitating the cyclical processes in nature. To achieve such cyclical patterns we need to fundamentally redesign our businesses and economy. 3

Ecosystems differ from individual organisms in that they are largely (but not completely) closed systems with respect to the flow of matter, while being open with respect to the flow of energy. The primary source for that flow is the sun. Solar energy, transformed into chemical energy by the photosynthesis of green plants, drives most ecological cycles.

The implications for maintaining sustainable human communities are again obvious. Solar energy in its many forms-sunlight for solar heating and photovoltaic electricity, wind and hydropower, biomass, and so on - is the only kind of energy that is renewable, economically efficient, and environmentally benign. By disregarding this ecological fact, our political and corporate leaders again and again endanger the health and well-being of millions around the world. The 1991 war in the Persian Gulf, for example, which killed hundreds of thousands, impoverished millions, and caused unprecedented environmental disasters, had its roots to a large extent in the misguided energy policies of the Reagan and Bush administrations.

To describe solar energy as economically efficient assumes that the costs of energy production are counted honestly. This is not the case in most of today's market economies. The so-called free market does not provide consumers with proper information, because the social and environmental costs of production are not part of current economic models. 4 These costs are labeled as "external" variables by corporate and government economists, because they do not tit into their theoretical framework.

Corporate economists treat as free commodities not only the air, water, and soil, but also the delicate web of social relations, which is severely affected by continuing economic expansion. Private profits are being made at public costs in the deterioration of the environment and the general quality of life, and at the expense of future generations. The marketplace simply gives us the wrong information. There is a lack of feedback, and basic ecological literacy tells us that such a system is not sustainable.

One of the most effective ways to change the situation would be an ecological tax reform. Such a tax reform would be strictly revenue neutral, shifting the taxes from income taxes to "eco-taxes." This means that taxes would be added to existing products, forms of energy, services, and materials, so that prices would better reflect the true costs. 5 In order to be successful, an ecological tax reform needs to be a slow and long - term process to give new technologies and consumption patterns sufficient tome to adapt, and the eco-taxes need to be applied predictably to encourage industrial innovation.
Such a long-term and slow ecological tax reform would gradually drive wasteful and harmful technologies and consumption patterns out of the market. As energy prices go up, with corresponding income tax reductions to offset the increase, people will increasingly switch from cars to bicycles, use public transportation, and carpool on their way to work. As taxes on petrochemicals and fuel go up, again with offsetting reductions in income taxes, organic farming will become not only the healthiest but also the cheapest means of producing food.

Eco-taxes are now under serious discussion in several European countries and are likely to be introduced in all countries sooner or later. To remain competitive under such a new system, managers and entrepreneurs will need to become ecologically literate. In particular, detailed knowledge of the flow of energy and matter through a company will be essential, and this is why the newly developed practice of "eco-auditing" will be of paramount importance. 6 An eco-audit is concerned with the environmental consequences of the flows of material, energy, and people through a company and therefore with the true costs of production.

Partnership is an essential characteristic of sustainable communities. The cyclical exchanges of energy and resources in an ecosystem are sustained by pervasive cooperation. Indeed we have seen that since the creation of the first nucleated cells over two billion years ago, life on Earth has proceeded through ever more intricate arrangements of cooperation and coevolution. Partnership-the tendency to associate, establish links, live inside one another, and cooperate - is one of the hallmarks of life.

In human communities partnership means democracy and personal empowerment, because each member of the community plays an important role. Combining the principle of partnership with the dynamic of change and development, we may also use the term "coevolution" metaphorically in human communities. As a partnership proceeds, each partner better understands the needs of the other. In a true, committed partnership both partners learn and change-they coevolve. Here again we notice the basic tension between the challenge of ecological sustainability and the way in which our present societies are structured, between economics and ecology. Economics emphasizes competition, expansion, and domination; ecology emphasizes cooperation, conservation, and partnership.