Environmental Authoritarianism and Fascism

Gilman

• Genealogy of ideological continuities a) fascism b) ecology

  • linkages to ecology and german facism before even nazi

  • it was brewing w the rejection of modernity

    • rejecting industrialization, capitalism, and rationality

    • and connection to nature

• Pre-Nazi blend of naturalist-nationalist sentiment

  • avacado polititics

    • green and brown facism on the inside

  • 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)

    • said jews were the cause of envi destruction

  • Pseudo-scientific “justification” of this distinction in early ecology

• 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

    • not just at the level of ideology but also nazi practices

    • green wing on the party was active and advocated for envir sensitive policies and

  • • Pursues environmentally sensitive policies in agricultural and industrial sectors

  • • Enacts assertive environmental laws

• 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)

    • care for and care abt env doesnt translate to a particular politics

    • env can be part of many political projects

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

    • what meaning do we attach to it?

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

    • mystical place that showed the interconnectivity of all things

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

    • connecting with nature in nationalistic terms

    • well being of german ppl was linked to the german land

    • this combination found expression in the volk movement

• E.g., 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

    • reconstructs older model of society sanctioned by history and rooted in nature

    • refused to located sources of alienation in social structures.. blamed it on other phenomenon with the figure of the jew

  • • 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”

  • but the connection goes deeper then just him

• Early ecology bound up in a reactionary political framework

  • commitment to applying biological concepts to the social world

• Unmediated application of biological concepts onto society has complex 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 shouldnt think of themselves are superior to the rest of nature

  • 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”)

    • industrialization and urbanization by jews were personified as unnatural

Youth Movement

• “Hiking Birds” [Wandervögel] youth movement

  • Neo-romanticism, nature mysticism, hostility to reason

    • hostility to reason is a rejection that society should be organized in rational ways

  • Environmental conservation, wilderness expeditions, immersion in nature

    • advocated a return to the land and return to life w/o modernism

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

    • tapped into racial nationalism, early ecologists reduction to the social to biological and mystical romantic rejections to modernity

Environment and Nazi Ideology: 1

• Denigrates human agency in favor of natural order and law

  • humans are subordinate to nature

    • Takes issue with anthropocentrism and modern ethos of human primacy

      • humanity isnt the center of universe nature was

    • 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

      • humans had no business dominating it

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

      • they had to be organized by dictates to nature and its unbending principles

      • the key to harmony was the internal laws of nature processes

Environment and Nazi Ideology: 2

• 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

    • holism: ind parts that make up a part are so internconnected they cant be understood alone

      • E.g., 1934 Reich Agency for Nature Protection biology curricula objective: “Very early, the youth must develop an understanding of the civic importance of the organism, i.e., 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

    • the application of holism justified totalitarianism

  • 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

• Agricultural policy

  • greenwing

    • 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

      • w soil to be kept healthy

    • Government support for environmentally sound agriculture

      • unmatched

• 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

    • as nazi took a industrial buildup the envi would still be safe

  • 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

• Environmental laws

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

    • sometimes retricted ind dev and demand respect for german forests

  • 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

  • = naxi ecology want just legal but also genocide

Environment and Genocide

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

  • rationality to 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

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

• = env mobility is volatile and be moved from the left or the right

  • they dont prescribe any politics but take on pol meanings through the thought we attached to them

  • we risk waiting into reactionary and facism waters

• the green wing was a faction of the poly regime

Li & Shapiro

• China as eco-political model? Eco-autocrat needed to save planet? No.

  • china has positioned itself as a world leader

  • china could be a model for achieving improved env problems

  • aut regimes had made some real improvement to embrace state coercion as a means to environmental repair

  • they argue this isnt the lesson we should take from china

  • we dont see an instance of auth environmentalism and coercion is a means to this ends

    • the env is invoked as a justification as a indifferent objective

• Environmental authoritarianism

  • Environmentalism as means to the end of authoritarianism

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

• 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

    • the chinese expanded is discoursive control

    • and allows the state to solidify its own power

• China’s environmental accomplishments real but compromise

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

    • china has made environmental progress and now inshrined in its constitution

    • china may be one of the greenest but also the most polluting

  • 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

    • env authoritarianism is underwhelming and unpowerable

Environmental Authoritarianism in China

• Environmental authoritarianism is different in different parts of the country

  • people may need to relocate and also in the name of conservation

  • this allows the state to advance diff objectives and aims

• 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

• 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

video

• env auth is and auth env are different

  • env auth:

    • what is actually going on

    • using env means to justify autho

    • env goals and ends may not translate to env benefits

    • across all we see a consolidation of chinese state power through these green initiatives —> isnt so good for the planet

    • auth is the ends and env is the means

  • auth env:

    • using aut means to accomplish env goals

    • where env is the end and auth is the means

    • auth objectives to make the env better

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

    • forced relocation and building green dams the state leaves a physical mark is the impressive power of the state to redesign whole slots of the env

    • it affirms its authority through material means

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

• 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

    • reaches deeper internally and help the chinese state to further into the experiences of ppl

    • with community morality with its increased internal reach

    • morality bank: is a prototype to and monitor citizens including env behaviors

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

• Taking up environmental concerns can expand authoritarian state’s reach and increase its resilience

China & High Modernism

• Mastery and control key ingredients of modern ethos

  • people are mastered and controlled where citizens are transparent and readable to the state in accordance to env conformity

• Li and Shapiro see this in China

• People mastered and controlled

  • E.g., morality bank

  • 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

    • but also they have tech control over people and nature alike

    • env auth is a modernist project

Two Contrasts

• Both skepticism and embrace of modernity can issue in coercive politics

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

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

  • Environmental assessments of modernity can be politically indeterminate

    • acceptance of modernity to make it sustainable

    • kinda similar to eco modernalism and mastery towards to the env

• • Environmental coercion and illiberalism at play in the West too

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

    • initiated by norway

  • 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)

    • that migrants hurts the env

Avoiding EcoCoercion?

• Gilman One

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

    • we shouldnt turn to the langauage of catastrophy

    • if its an emergency it should be real —> but this says this can look like neo facism

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

    • where scarce resources should be conserved for nationals

    • it should be replaces w something temperate not as a catastrophe

• Gilman Two

  • Makes a bid for the importance of historical awareness

    • how past illiberal projects may help us reduce future neo facism

  • 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

• Gilman Three

  • 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

    • efforts to try to reform society to nature doesn’t allow for compromise

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

• 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

    • it can help address o ther concerns

    • secretly

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

    • especially from those politics that seen harmless or neutral