The New Ecological Order

By Luc Ferry

Book Overview

Is ecology in the process of becoming the object of our contemporary passions, in the same way that Fascism was in the 30s, or Communism under Stalin? In The New Ecological Order, Luc Ferry offers a penetrating critique of the ideological roots of the "Deep Ecology" movement spreading throughout Germany, France, and the United States.

Traditional ecological movements, or "democratic ecology," seek to protect the environment of human societies; they are pragmatic and reformist. But another movement has become the refuge both of nostalgic counterrevolutionaries and of leftist illusions. This is "deep ecology." Its followers go beyond practical critiques of human greed and waste: they call into question the very possibility of human coexistence with nature. The human species is no longer at the center of the world, but subject to a new god called Nature. For these purists, man can only soil the harmony of the universe. In order to secure natural equilibrium, the only solution is to grant rights to animals, to trees, and to rocks.

Ferry launches his critique by examining early European legal cases concerning the status and rights of animals, including a few notorious cases where animals were brought to trial, found guilty, and publicly hanged. He then demonstrates that German Romanticism embraced certain key ideas of the deep ecology movement concerning the protection of animals and the environment. Later adopted by the Nazis, many of these ideas point to a profoundly antihumanistic component of deep ecology that is compatible with totalitarianism.

Ferry shows how deep ecology casts aside all the gains of human autonomy since the Enlightenment. He deciphers the philosophical and political assumptions of a movement that threatens to infantalize human society by preying on the fear of the authority of a new theological-political order. Far from denying our "duty in relation to nature," The New Ecological Order offers a bracing caution-against the dangers of environmental claims and, more important, against the threat to democracy contained in the deep ecology doctrine when pushed to its extreme.

"A book of intellectual power, full of insights, invention, and not without temerity, from one of the best political philosophers today."-Le Figaro

"Few books have analyzed in depth this phenomenon of the ecological movement as the most recent book by Luc Ferry has done. . . . It is a book that absolutely must be read."-Le Point

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0226244830
• ISBN13: 9780226244839
• Release Date: August 1995
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Length: 190 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

A Study in Anti-Humanism

This book deals with one of the most important issues facing modern man: the threat posed to humanism by various so-called progressive movements. This is part of Ferry's ongoing project to expose the illiberal consequences of what is regularly called post-modernity. (See his book on the Sixties as an essay on anti-humanism, and his statement on why he is not a Nietzschean). Some of the practical issues discussed are the crucial distinctions between conservation and radical environmentalism; between anti-cruelty and animal rights. The link between fascism in its most anti-humanist incarnation (Nazism) and "animal rights" should be studied - once animals have the rights of man, man is placed on par with animals. It is no coincidence those carted off to Auschwitz and the eastern camps were sent in cattle cars. These chapters on Nazi animal rights legislation, and the other progressive initiatives of that regime, is fascinating and important especially in light of contemporary European tendencies like the great ape project, support for euthanasia and other progressive ideas - like smoking bans. This is one of the best popular books around to explain the formal and theoretical connection between these seemingly unrelated ideas.

A thoughtful and moderate defense of democratic humanism.

...Ferry sees deep ecology (or what Americans would call deep ecology) as fundamentally at odds with democracy. Essentially, we may read his critique as claiming that, while democracy incorporates an open-ended dialogue over the good, deep ecology promotes a singular vision of what is good. Deep ecology is biocentric, placing humankind squarely in the midst of nature; democracy, in contrast, is humanistic. Deep ecology promotes a dissolution of the subject; democracy places the subject at its core. In exploring the tension between deep ecology and democracy (but not, it should be noted, between environmentalism as such), Ferry draws on a few well-illustrated examples, including case studies of Medieval trials of animals, developments in German Romanticism, and Nazi ideology. The chapters on Nazism are especially interesting - although it is made clear that deep ecology is not a form of fascism; only that there are certain paralles in how each addresses the question of democracy and modernity. The book is well-written and well-argued. In contrast to the stereotypical French philosopher (at least as many Americans have been exposed to French philosophy), Ferry's writing is elegant and clear, and he avoids obfuscation. I have used portions of this book in introductory classes, and plan to assign it in an upcoming undergraduate seminar.

Accurate yet misleading

This book is an astute critique of some of the naive and even undemocratic tendencies in Deep Ecology. But it is unfair to associate Deep Ecology with fascism without pointing out that fascism has other political heirs far more powerful than any ecologist. The book leaves you feeling the author prefers needling theories to grappling with the ecological crisis in its true depth. This can't be done from the calculative, rationalist basis he finds comfortable. If Deep Ecology needs a new basis, Ferry gives few clues what that might be and settles instead for enlightened smugness.

Ferry thoughtful book

In this book, Luc Ferry uproots the animal rights movement and the ecology movement. He does this because of these movement anti-humanist thrust. But Ferry is not against these animal rights or the enviroment. He just thinks that we should protect the enviroment in the name of man and not the protect it in the name of rocks and .

Luc Ferry's Polemics

Luc Ferry raises some very important and pressing questions about the implied praxis behind deep ecology. Does the vision of society espoused by deep ecology depend on an authoritarian social structure? Does deep ecology demand a level of political correctness which places its premises beyond question? Ferry is not the first to raise these questions. The Institute for Social Ecology, led by Murray Bookchin, has made the critique of deep ecology its bread and butter. Of course, there are plenty of ideologues within radical ecology, but they do not make up the whole story. Particularly glaring is Ferry's one-sided depiction of eco-feminism. In fact, some eco-feminist work in the U.S. has been particularly sharp at questioning the orthodoxies of both radical ecology and feminism. The questions which occupy Ferry should be asked by every person who is involved in radical ecology, and many of his criticisms are on-target for a specific body of work. But he doesn't bother to see the whole picture, and readers should be careful to read beyond the quotes cited by Ferry and to study deep ecology and ecofeminism on their own terms.