The most extreme proponents of isolating humans from nature are the so-called “deep ecologists.” These people urge that humans adopt a “biocentric” per-spective (as opposed to an anthropocentric, or human-centered view-point). The purported goal of biocentricism is to incorporate all of nature into one’s perspective, to identify with all ecosystems in nature as one’s personal interest. Sadly, deep ecologists seem incapable of expressing that perspective themselves. The first three tenets of Deep Ecology, as articulated by Arne Naess and George Sessions, dialectically separate humans from nature, rendering a biocentric perspective, an impossible paradox:Source
- All life has value in itself, independent of its usefulness to humans.
- Richness and diversity contribute to life’s well-being and have value in themselves.
- Humans have no right to reduce this richness and diversity except to satisfy vital needs in a responsible way.
The principles of Deep Ecology (there are 8) fall afoul of several constraints. First, (as they constantly remind us) humans already are an interconnected part of nature, competing for our individual benefit in our own manner as a species. Second, “Richness and diversity” are perceptions of value, important only to humans (near monoculture is a common phenomena in nature). Third, the idea that humans are responsible for maintaining a status quo among populations of existing species as a matter of “rights” is imposing a human set of values onto the results of mortal competition among species. It is a denial of dynamic equilibrium in natural selection and antithetical to the cyclical ebb and flow of populations of predators and prey.
If humans are so inherently destructive that they must be separated from nature, how could it be possible for humans to have a biocentric view? There would certainly be no hands-on opportunity to learn one. Although that might save having to expend a lot of physical effort, how would it help?
Further, these same people believe that nature is so robust and so rugged that it is fully capable of recovery without intervention, but that it is too fragile to survive our attempts to help. To decide not to take action because of the view that nature will somehow “know better” what to do, is just as much a projection of human impressions onto nature, as is the conclusion that the situation demands the investment of time and money. There is no mechanism in the process of natural selection, that implies volition on the part of nature, much less prospective reversibility.
On the other hand, humans DO exhibit prospective volition. However, if we adhere to this perspective of doing nothing, what good is preventive intervention? How would we learn to exercise it effectively and benevolently? How would we learn to reduce the impact of urban technology if we did not interact? Such a process bias toward inaction precludes even the significant probability of constructive errors.
A biocentric perspective also presumes that humans are capable of anything other than human perception. If one is busily experiencing a totality, from what perspective does one notice that?
If humans cannot assume this pan-perspective, and are operating under the belief that they are inherently destructive, then why would they consider the effort to learn it of any redeeming value? Would that choice not also be corrupted by human desire? Why, then, act to prevent action?
Any humans action in a competitive system results in harm to something. Deep ecologists would feel distraught at the loss and guilty of the failure to prevent it. Thus, to actively seek collective dominance over people they disdain, politically forcing others into mandated inaction in order to protect themselves from risk to their personal feelings, is not only anthropocentric; it is an egocentric view.
Perhaps that is why it seems to be so popular!