Posted by Bob - the Alien on September 02, 2002 at 23:51:48:
In Reply to: is anyone else interested in this posted by john on August 30, 2002 at 11:14:03:
OK,
I did get back to that site. And most of it seems fairly reasonable and logical to me.
But, allow me to pull out one quote that, although not even the main topic of the site, made me stop and think and yes, post:
"Ecofeminism believes that Patriarchal society is built on four interlocking pillars; sexism, racism, class exploitation and environmental destruction."
I think that they are mixing up cause and effect here. Sexism is the foundation of patricarchal society. No question there, its practically the definition of patriarchal. I think that racism and class exploitation are not the foundation, but they are an unfortunate follow on, because the patricarchal society builds a feeling of superiority.
And that is what everything on that site really drives at -- assumed supieriority, and its negative repurcussions. The last item on that list, environmental desctruction, is by no means a pillar of patriarchal society. Rather, it is a distinctive effect. It went unnoticed for years because of the assumed superiority of men. Only now are people beginning to both understand the ecology and have the education to try to put a stop to the damage.
But the assumed superiority is always the catch. Even that site said to not damage nature except for 'vital needs'. Whose vital needs? Ours? Or the planets? Frankly, the planet's vital needs are at this point contradictory to our current society. That site has good ideas on how to change society to fix things, but can they be done in time? I truly fear that they cannot. To change things fast enough, all children in the world would have to be brought up today believing that nature is more important than humanity. And even that might not be fast enough. We are in a bad spot, folks.
So lets look at this from another angle -- because society (including religious beliefs, BTW) will most likely not change their mind about the superiority of humanity, how can we save the ecology? I think it will have to boil down to sacrifice. In a way, we need to play up to the ego of humanity as a whole. Teach the people that they are killing their own world. Tell them that yes, they are superior. Superior enough to make personal sacrifice, and sacrifice all that has been given to us over the last 500 years of invention. For the sake of all natural life, we need to stop being selfish as a culture. We need to accept the problems of living life using only archaic technology and living an ecologically sustainable life. Just because we are capable of doing things does not mean that we should. Quite the opposite -- we have to take a step above the animal kingdom and do what no animal would do -- sacrifice parts of our own well-being for the sake of other life.
Now tell me -- how does that last paragraph sound to you all? Most of society would call me a freak for putting such words down. But what other choice has been presented that will successfully stop the damage being done to nature? I'd love to hear one. But if we cannot make such sacrifices to save our own world, then we are not superior to the rest of the planet. Instead, we prove ourselves wrong by acting just like any animal would and protecting our own well-being. I think we are being tested, honestly. And so far we are failing...but I hope we will recover.
With Love,
Bob