L4: Environmental Authoritarianism and Fascism

Avocado politics

Green on the outside, but brown at the core

• Using enviornmental crisis as justification for more far-right policy agendas

Avocado politics example

Not only building walls to combat rising sea levels but to keep out the people that will be trying to flee climate consequences

Gilman: Pre-Nazi blend of naturalist-nationalist sentiment

• Anti-modern rejection of industrialization, urbanization, capitalism, and rationality as environmentally destructive forces (associated with Judaism)

• Nature mysticism, traditionalism, and romantic connection to nature (associated with German völk)

• Pseudo-scientific "justification" of this distinction in early ecology

Gilman: National socialist ideology and practice

• Skepticism of modernity and anthropocentrism, argues society must be organized according to nature's laws

• Frames anti-modernism in racialized terms, in part by drawing on misapplied ecology

• Pursues environmentally sensitive policies in agricultural and industrial sectors

• Enacts assertive environmental laws

Gilman: significance

• Environment and ecology are politically indeterminate (i.e., environmentalism and ecologism can be part of all sorts of political projects and endowed with all sorts of political meaning)

• Therefore, must be vigilant about how green concerns are interpreted and mobilized politically

Anti-modern naturalism and nationalism: late 19th early 20th century Germany

• cultural synthesis of naturalism and nationalism

  • Naturalism: nature is not inert matter to dominate through reason, but a quasi-mystical entity to commune or connect with

  • Nationalism: well-being of German people linked to well-being of German land, nature and nation one

• Living in-tune with nature

Anti-modern naturalism and nationalism Example: Völkisch movement

• Unites ethnocentric populism with nature mysticism

• Rejects modernity i.e., capitalism, industrialization, urbanization

• Advocates return to land, simplicity, natural purity

• Personifies forces of modernity as expressions of Judaism

  • Hand in hand with anti-semetisim 

• Naturalism and nationalism linked to antisemitism

Ecology

• Ernst Haeckel: originator of term "ecology" (i.e., study of how organisms interact with environment); social Darwinist; proponent of eugenics; proponent of "racial purity"

• Early ecology bound up in an intensely reactionary political framework

Ecology implications

• Insisting human society is governed by the same laws as the rest of nature cuts against anthropocentrism and the modern ethos of human supremacy and control

  • Humans should not think of themselves as superior to non-human entities

• Insisting human society is governed by the same laws as the rest of nature lends scientific veneer to racist naturalism-nationalism of völkisch movement (i.e., modernity personified can be framed as antithetical to the "laws of nature" or "unnatural")

Youth movement

"Hiking Birds" [Wandervöge/] youth movement

• Neo-romanticism, nature mysticism, hostility to reason and modernity

  • Hostility to reason: rejection of idea that society should be organized in purely rational ways

    • Ways of human life that escape this rational way of organization

      • Start during romantic era

    • Something beyond rationality

• Environmental conservation, wilderness expeditions, immersion in nature

• "Right-wing hippies" later absorbed by Nazis who model their own youth movement on it

Environment and nazi ideology: denigrates human agency in favor of natural order and law

• Takes issue with anthropocentrism and modern ethos of human primacy

• Anthropocentrism only valid "if it is assumed that nature has been created only for man. We decisively reject this attitude. According to our conception...man is a link in the living chain of nature just as any other organism"

• Systems of human life must be modeled on nature and organized according to fixed laws of nature

  • Nature is superior to humanity

• Failure to organize human society according to nature's dictates will lead to social and environmental devastation

Environment and nazi ideology: emphasizes organic holism

• Holism: parts of a whole (e.g., system or organism) can't exist independently or be understood except in relation to whole, which therefore takes priority over parts

  • Human society is not different from any other natural society and should therefore be modeled after nature

• Eg. 1934 Reich Agency for Nature Protection biology curricula objective: very early, the youth must develop an understanding of the civic important of the organism, ie the coordination of all parts and organs for the benefit of the one and superior task of life

• Nazi thought transposes ecological-biological idea of holism onto society

• Because human society is no different from nature, rules of ecology and biology apply This has authoritarian implications: individuals can be sacrificed for totality

• This has racist implications: if an "urbanized and overcivilized modern human race" is "responsible" for destroying the environment, then it must be eliminated

Environment and nazi practice: agriculture policy

• Organic farming methods introduced at mass scale

• Goals a) re-agrarianization b) farming conducted according to "laws of life"

• Increased agricultural productivity in harmony with nature

• Government support for environmentally sound agriculture

Environment and nazi practice: industrial and technological policy

• Massive construction projects (e.g.. Autobahn) must be executed in environmentally sensitive way

• Construction must harmonize with natural surroundings and complement landscape

• Environmental criteria for industrial projects (e.g., protection of wetlands, forests, fragile eco-systems)

• Reich "Advocate for the Landscape" ensures industrial build-up doesn't compromise environment

Environment and nazi practice: environmental laws

• 1933: reforestation; species protections; preservationist limits to industrial development; construction of nature preserves

• 1935: guidelines for safeguarding of flora, fauna, and natural monuments; restrictions on commercial uses of natural resources; requirement to consult
  "nature-reserve" authorities in advance of development

Environment and genocide

• Anti-humanism and preoccupation with natural purity feed into genocide

• National Socialism personified forces of modernity (capitalism, industrialization, urbanization) as expressions of Judaism

• National Socialism blamed modernity's environmental degradation on "destructive influence" of a race

• To correct for environmental degradation, and return the German people to their supposedly innate closeness to nature, Nazism sought to eliminate that race

  • Connected modernity and Judaism in order to justify genocide

• Legacy of eco-fascism in power: "genocide developed into a necessity under the cloak of environmental protection"

Li and Shapiro: Environmental authoritarianism

• Environmentalism as means to the end of authoritarianism

• State uses environmentalism to concentrate, entrench, and justify authoritarian rule

Li and Shapiro: environmental authoritarianism in China

• Expansion of state's regulatory scope to environment and environment adjacent issues

• Cooptation of non-state actors (e.g., NGOS, media, scientists) into state's environmental agenda

Li and Shapiro: China’s environmental accomplishments real but compromised

• China has made environmental progress (e.g., clean tech industries, enshrining of
  "ecological civilization" in Constitution)

• But is still plagued by environmental challenges (e.g., pollution, contamination)

• What progress has been made has come at the cost of individual rights and social freedoms

Environmental authoritarianism: Should we embrace it if it is able to do more than what is already being done?

• Not at all the lesson from China

• Practically underwhelming and unpalatable

Environmental authoritarianism in China

• Environmental authoritarianism is different in different parts of the country

• In less developed areas, it can take the form of forced relocations in the name of environmentalism

  • Relocation to facilitate reforestation, building of renewable energy sites, conservationism, etc.

  • Often targets ethnic minorities

• Some environmental improvements might be reached but all in the service of coercive control

• Can allow state to advance several goals at once

  • E.g:, with forced relocations, state can pacify border regions and secure green energy at the same time

• For Li and Shapiro, this isn't authoritarian environmentalism, but environmental authoritarianism

Environment authoritarianism

using environmental means to justify the intensification of authoritarianism —> might not actually lead to environmental improvement

• what’s going on

• Good for the state rather than the environment 

Authoritarian environmentalism

end goal is justifiable of environment fixing, the means to get there is justifiable too

• What the rest of the world wants china to be

Environmentalism and the growth of state power: increased outward manifestation of state power

• E.g., state moves whole populations and builds new hydropower dams in their wake, leaving physical mark on environment

• That mark sends a message: the state is powerful and authoritative, so much so that it can dramatically reorder both people and environment

Environmentalism and the growth of state power: increased inward experience of state power

• E.g., morality bank: part of social credit system awarding points for virtuous deeds and deducting them for immoral behavior

• Environmentally virtuous deeds like recycling rewarded, environmentally unvirtuous deeds punished

Environmentalism and the growth of state power effect

taking up environmental concerns can expand authoritarian states reach and increase its resilience

China and high modernism

• Mastery and control key ingredients of modern ethos

• Li and Shapiro see this in China

• People mastered and controlled

  • E.g., morality bank

    • Monitored: therefore rewarded or punished

  • Citizens legible or transparent to state

  • Can be monitored and evaluated according to environmental conformity with regime

• Environment mastered and controlled

  • E.g., hydropower dams

  • Water and land its channeled through subjected to technological command and direction

Contrast between eco-fascism and enviornmental authoritarianism: modernity

Both skepticism and embrace of modernity can issue in coercive politics

Eco-fascism

• For National Socialism, human domination of nature yields social and environmental devastation

  • Rejects modernity

Environmental authoritarianism 

• For China, human domination of nature yields social and environmental advancement

• Environmental assessments of modernity can be politically indeterminate

  • Acceptance of modernity -> make it sustainable

Contrast between eco-fascism and environmental authoritarianism: environmental coercion and illiberalism at play in west too

• E.g., UNFCCC REDD + program ("Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation") (Li and

• Shapiro)

• Rich countries effectively pay poor countries to not cut down forests

• This policy can be unpopular among citizens in target countries who can no longer use their environments as they'd like to without having had much say in the matter

• Here it's not the state, but an international organization that issues coercive environmental policy

• E.g., Climate crisis as rationale for tighter borders, stronger nationalism (Gilman)

Avoiding eco-coercion? Gilman 1

• Cautions against framework of catastrophe, which can motivate new forms of eco-fascism as readily as mainstream environmental engagement

• E.g., apocalyptic framing of climate change may invite extreme opposition to immigration and "us vs. them" antagonisms

Avoiding eco-coercion? Gilman 2

• Makes a bid for the importance of historical awareness

• If we understand how past illiberal politics took up environmentalism, then we can reduce the chances of environmentalism being co-opted by present and future illiberal politics

• The historical form of Gilman's argument is in this way connected to its prescriptive content

• If we understand how far right and ecology have intersected in the past, we are better prepared if it happens now or in the future

Avoiding eco-coercion? Gilman 3

• Cautions against unreflectively applying natural scientific concepts onto society

• E.g., National Socialists thought ecological holism must dictate socio-political life, but this authorizes absolutism and shuts down debate, negotiation, and compromise

• Argues against reducing social systems and dynamics, which are contingent and mutable, to natural systems and dynamics, which are necessary and immutable

Avoiding eco-coercion? Li and Shapiro

• Caution to be wary of environmentalism as Trojan horse

• Overtly protecting the environment can be a way to covertly advance other political goals

• Suggest we interrogate political implications of different courses of environmental action