(((Knowledge Ecology)))

Comments on The Introduction: “Whose Environment Is It?” and Chapter 1: “The Return of Interiority: Redefining the Humanity-Nature Relationship”

Integral Ecology: Uniting Multiple Perspectives on the Natural World, the near 800 page tome written by Michael Zimmerman and Sean Esbjorn-Hargens begins with a rather simple description of a forest scene. In this forest we find beetles, Douglas firs, flying helicopters, photographers, grizzly bears, chainsaws, bulldozers, and the wandering satellite eyes of GIS imaging equipment. In addition to this we also find environmentalists, ecological scientists, loggers, politicians and manufacturers all in a curious debate; we might say the focus of this debate is to determine the “reality” of the forest. “Which is the “real” forest?” our authors ask. Whose perspective counts in the construction of this forest? What does it mean that the forest exists multiply, as it is encountered by different species of animals, different kinds of equipment, and different kinds of humans?

This opening scene represents the core of integral ecology. If you can see why the multiplicity of the forest, and the multiplicity of perspectives that seek to determine how to relate to the forest is a problem, then you are probably, in one way or another, an integral ecologist. Over the next several weeks we will be exploring the central issues presented in Integral Ecology, investigating its key assumptions, and perhaps interrogating some of it’s weaknesses. To do this we will need some basic knowledge of integral theory, much of which is provided with a good deal of clarity in the introduction and in the first chapter of the book. Our goal in this first post will be to explore some of the basic tenets of integral ecology, as well as to ask some questions that might provoke further dialogue into the basic premises of the Esbjorn-Hargans/Zimmerman perspective.

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