‘If reality is like it is experienced by the ecological self, our behavior naturally and beautifully follows norms of strict environmental ethics.’ – Arne Naess
What is the ‘ecological self’ and how does it fit into our perception of ourselves? The traditional view of the self is seen through the lens of the ego. Ego being our psyche, our consciousness, the part of us that feels like us, our inner world. Maturity then, is our ego becoming social and eventually metaphysical. But there’s a few problems with this traditional view. For one, why is maturity considered so linear? As human beings we are constantly influenced by the world around us, not just our social interactions. Where is the influence of our home? Our immediate environment? Where is nature? Are mature human beings really those that have no connection to their world?
Arne Naess proposed an alternative to this social / metaphysical self. The ecological self is about who you identify with and this includes nature and the non-human. In a way it’s like the practice of kinship. We are permeable beings caught up in tenuous web of interrelationships that includes the non-human, the bacteriascape, landscape, bioregion, atmosphere, and sea. We are ecospheric beings. To say none of this influences us or our development as a species is a very narrow view, even from an anthropocentric stand point.
So, how does the ecological self reach maturity? Naess proposes that attachment or kinship with our world requires self-realization. We get to self-realization via our potentials. Potentialities being our possible routes to fulfillment. With kinship, this generally means acting in ways that align with our ethics. And as we’ve seen, what ethics we have matter.
A person following their potential for ecological self-realization is someone who has that attachment to nature, who is cultivating kinship, and working on aligning their ethics with their beliefs, not just in mind, but in action. Not just in the narrow human centered social sphere but in an ecospheric human and non-human sphere of interrelationship.
Sources:
- ‘Self-Realization: An Ecological Approach to Being in the World’ by Arne Naess (The Trumpeter Vol.4 No. 3 Summer 1987)
- The Ecological Self: Connecting who we are and the natural world by Kat Palti