Ecohumanism: Volume 15 of Humanism Today
Ecohumanism
Volume 15 of Humanism Today
Edited by Robert B. Tapp
Prometheus Books, 2002, 333 pp. [price not noted on jacket]
Varied disciplines come together in this book, which contains eighteen essays along with a Preface by the editor. The authors include professional scientists and academics, as well as persons from the corporate community, variously affiliated with the Humanist Institute and/or the American Ethical Union. The contributors include Vern L. Bullough, Gwen Whitehead Brewer, Kendyl L. Gibbons, Richard Gilbert, Michael J. Kami, Gerald Larue, Timothy J. Madigan, Sarah Oelberg, Don Page, Howard B. Radest, Philip J. Regal, Andreas Rosenberg, Harvey B. Sarles, David Schafer, John M Swomley, Robert B. Tapp, Michael Werner, and Carol Wintermute.
The predicament addressed by Ecohumanism is aptly summarized by first essayist (Radest)'s choice of a short phrase by Thomas Jefferson characterizing the perennial dilemma of man's place in the larger world, simply: "nature assigned us [head and heart] the same habitation." Thereafter, this interplay of man and nature, and man's "head" and "heart", is perhaps what most clearly defines the essays of this compendium-- a tension well described again by Radest when he suggests "if I take the thought of an earth-metaphor seriously, than I am in the presence of a religious consciousness" or "to put this idea in exalted terms, the failures which an ecohumanism seeks to remedy are not the fault of our knowledge, our ethics or even our politics. Rather, they are failures of presence, of personal connection".
To the book's great credit, this compassionate (if not somewhat anthropocentric) tone does not derail it from a serious, conscientious, scientific contribution. The essayists have a good sense of balance concerning "the players" in this difficult subject and what distinguishes "the apples from the oranges". For example, Rosenberg notes in the second essay "The labels Ecologist and Humanist each represent a series of unique attributes" and, concerning the integrity of the scientific enterprise itself, "If knowledge of the human condition is a keystone of humanism, then it is important for humanists to understand the larger system in which we exist….". This, and many other examples of balance and sensitivity to the subtleties of the topic, are a great credit to Ecohumanism. Also commendable are the essayists' "up to scale" savvy regarding current issues, including (among others) population growth, globalization, sociobiology, the distinction between preservation and conservation, global warming, and complex political, cultural and intergenerational issues.
Adding interest and pleasure to reading this book are personalized historical "threads" regarding environmentalism presented by several of the authors, initially Page, Kami and Gibbons (and later, Bullough). Their takes on "what happened", "when" and "why it was important" are intriguing in themselves, but assume even greater moment when followed by essayists Schafer and Sarles who aim, respectively, at recounting concomitant historical trends in Humanism and in how the sciences themselves have regarded the place of the human species in nature.
Continuing from the early essays, which aim more at the "demographics" of defining "ecohumanism", later contributors address the urgency of the world's ecological crisis. Schafer, for instance, entitles his essay simply "Time is Not on Our Side" and Werner notes "The modern environmental movement has a short history, but one where the tension between various strategies, goals, and tactics has delayed coherency and coordinate action". Again, to their credit, the authors are quick to balance their critique of man's response thus far to the world's environmental crisis with equal awareness of the potential weaknesses and "blind spots" in their own approaches. Accordingly, much of the content of the later essays turns to substantial discussion of the problems and paradoxes inherent in articulating a "humanist" response. This "tug of war" in many of the essays, concerning precisely what humanism is and, therefore, what "ecohumanism" is, becomes more and more a major subtopic of the texts.
It is obvious that humanists are not of one mind about either the problems or the solutions. For example, Werner says of humanism "Humanism maintains that all our values including environmental ones come from human needs and concerns and this warns us that we are always biased toward self-interest" and Sarles says (even more bluntly of some philosophical views) there has been "an attempt to shift the idea of external reality from nature to talk or narrative…[which] sides with the idea of reality as being located somehow in the mental attributes of the human". Interestingly, it is precisely this tendency to warn away from over-emphasizing the human that concerns essayist Bullough. He notes, after commenting on some complex political and cultural issues in a later essay: "My worry about ecohumanism in the twenty-first century is that it will, if not fail, be severely compromised because we will not be able to deal with the human problems." Overall the subsequent essays in the book deal with a fuller discussion of what appears to be a potent paradox in the humanist approach to environmentalism. These range from eloquent understandings of the interplay of many factors in both the environmental and human arenas, as in the Gilbert, Brewer, Oelberg and Madigan essays, to a potent question by Wintermute concerning whether humanists have a major "praxis" problem themselves. What is impressive about these essays is not only the content but the sensitive self-criticism. These perhaps warrant the comment of several of the contributors that, although the humanist movement is only some seventy years old, it does hold out one of the greatest promises for helping mankind face these environmental issues. The breadth of this possibility is explored in the summary essay by editor Tapp who, again, aptly characterizes Ecohumanism by saying "This document shows the refining work of many minds".
As to negative comments, and few need to be made, when one at first picks up Ecohumanism one needs to "get by" some of the language. A "pet peeve" of professional evolutionary biologists (of which I am one) is seeing the words "Darwin", "Darwinism", "Darwinian" etc. thrown around all over the place. Regarding such language (which seems to have become a modern fixture of arms-length commentaries on the biosphere) a line from Tapp's own Preface is humorously apt: "How do such patched, tongue-twisting labels come into being?". Although Darwin was the "Great Synthesizer", there are so many people on the historical stage in evolutionary biology before and after Darwin, not to mention the modern confusion concerning what "Darwinism" actually is (say, compared to "Neo-Darwinism", "Quasi-Darwinism", "Post-Darwinism" etc. etc.), it is sometime simply unfair and inaccurate to sum it all up with the name of one man. However, once one digs into Ecohumanism a bit, one quickly realizes it is an extremely potent and enlightening compendium. In sum, although there is a tendency for books like this not to "get read" by the professional community, I hope that Ecohumanism will be an exception. I also hope humanists and Ethical Culturists will take the opportunity to look into this rich document and thereby comprehend some of the breadth their heritage brings to these issues. The Humanist Institute is to be commended on producing this sensitive and worthwhile document which presents both substantial content and good reading.
Kurt Johnson
Dr. Kurt Johnson is an evolutionary biologist associated for fifteen years with the American Museum of Natural History and currently with the McGuire Center for tropical biology at the University of Florida. He is the author of over 250 technical articles and books regarding biology and conservation and co-authored, in 1999 (Zoland)-2000 (McGraw-Hill), with Steve Coates of The New York Times, Nabokov's Blues: the Scientific Odyssey of a Literary Genius, a book named to several "Ten Best Books in Science" lists in 2000. Kurt is a member and officer of the Board of Trustees of the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture and on the advisory boards of both the Parks Department of the City of New York and the international Association for Tropical Biology.
Ecohumanism
Volume 15 of Humanism Today
Edited by Robert B. Tapp
Prometheus Books, 2002, 333 pp. [price not noted on jacket]
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