POLS 384 Lec 15 1 Person/planet politics: The political ecology of sacrifice.
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Transcript of POLS 384 Lec 15 1 Person/planet politics: The political ecology of sacrifice.
POLS 384 Lec 15 1
Person/planet politics:
The political ecology of sacrifice
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“For everyone to admit to our inherent drive towards heroism would probably release such pent-up force as to be devastating to societies as they now are."
~Ernst Becker,
The Denial of Death
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Sacrifice, n.
(a) The destruction or surrender of something valued or desired for the sake of something having, or regarded as having, a higher pressing claim
(b) to make sacred; the act of becoming sacred
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Poor Nations to Bear Brunt as World Warms
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Ecological Sacrifice: Making Sacrifice Visible
To the extent that the culture of consumption creates the illusion of getting without giving, sacrifice goes underground.
The global economy as massive conversion of gift wealth to market wealth Distancing
geographic temporal
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Ecological debt
The socio-temporal dimension of sacrifice Global flow of wealth from periphery to core Carbon Debt
Shadow ecologies and ecological footprints >> What is being sacrificed and by whom?
North/South divide … and to what “gods?”
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Sacrifice & the political ecology of food
SugarHistory
Slavery, deforestation, symbol of prosperity, colonialism, industrialization, working class
Today: subsidies, chemicals, wetlands
Geography From core to periphery
Health & addiction
BeefHistory: Spanish colonies, New World frontier, British elites, buffalo slaughter, destruction of grasslands, deforestation
Today: subsidies, chemicals, antibiotics, factory farming, bad working conditions, fast food, increased consumption in DCs, symbol of prosperity
Mitigating factors: health concerns, mad cow disease, animal rights movement
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Sacrifice of the unborn and the nonhuman Intergenerational ethics
Toxic & nuclear waste Ozone depletion Climate change Biodiversity
Trans-human sacrifice Animal rights Mass extinction crisis
Most sacrifice is involuntary and unconscious Making the unconscious sacrifice conscious
CHOICE! Are we happier?
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Green consumerism:
Sustainability without sacrifice?
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Are we stuck between a rock and a hard place?
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Interrogating “Sacrifice” Stuck in the Mud
Constraining effect of the shroud of negativity associated with “sacrifice”
Make Current Sacrifice Clear Ecological debt, sacrifice of unborn & nonhuman
Illuminating the Underground “Sacrifice” occurs regularly, but has gone underground.
Practical Ju-Jitsu Today’s “sacrifice” can be tomorrow’s gain.
Deeper exploration of ontology and questions of meaning
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Modernity and sacrifice
Sacrifice ubiquitous across human cultures Modernity denigrates sacrifice
Resistance to environmentalism premised upon gloomy view of sacrifice Sacrifice as loss Inevitable under an ontology of individualism
Sacrifice does not disappear; it goes underground.
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Sacrifice under a cosmology of wholeness
Sacrifice: to make sacred by offering “A celebration of consumption and being consumed”
Relationships To transcendental forces
Sublimating the awesome Forges community
Gift economy as the basis for culture Gifts must flow Market economy occludes gifts, especially nature’s
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An Affirmative Politics of Sacrifice
Global eco-crisis as crisis of meaning Ontology of holism and radical interdependence
Holistic ontology; participatory cosmology; revival of cyclical processes
Sacrifice as a premise of interdependence Not the death of the individual, but his/her entry into
ecological adulthood in a participatory universe Modernity has given us the social construct of the
individual who can choose this. Acknowledging our integral role in Earth’s gift
economy We are Earth becoming conscious of itself
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