Besides the many diverse costs resulting from our environmental damage to nature, we are now beginning to suffer a loss of reputation. Under a new category of study called “ecopsychology”, thinkers from a wide range of disciplines have started an honest and penetrating examination of mechanisms guiding our collective behaviour. The resulting image of humanity is not flattering. Words such as “psychopathic” are appearing, along with invented derivatives such as “ecopathic”, “ecopath” and “ecopathy”.
Coining a new term
Ecopathy is derived from two Greek words, oikos for “house” and pathy for “sickness”, “disease” or “suffering”. The word is sobering because it recognizes that the deteriorating ecological condition of our planet is the direct result of an indifference and negligence in our human behaviour that we seem incapable of correcting, even though we have known for decades what to do and how to do it. The medical term for this condition is a pathology.
The origin of the term ecopathy may have emerged about 1979 from the reflections of environmentally conscious Buddhist scholars in the West who would have been comparing the importance of compassion in their tradition to its relative absence in humanity’s treatment of nature.
The psychological and philosophical character of Buddhism would have noted that a cultural insensitivity to the well-being of the plants and animals surrounding us could be construed as a fundamental failure in awareness. As ecologies suffered increasing damage, this absence of empathetic connection would have become increasingly obvious. Although earlier Buddhist thinkers would not have used a term such as ecopathy to identify this condition, the modern use fits uncomfortably well.
Diagnosis of ecopathy
The symptoms of ecopathy match the classic symptoms of psychopathy. Rather than applying to the social pathology of interpersonal relationships, however, the symptoms of ecopathy apply to our treatment of the natural world. The following characteristics that compare the behaviour of the ecopath to the psychopath are derived from the World Health Organization via two environmental writers, Derrick Jensen and Michael Harris:
- a callous unconcern for the feeling or well-being of other things in the environment;
- a gross and persistent attitude of irresponsibility and disregard for ecological norms, rules and obligations;
- an incapacity to maintain enduring ecological relationships, but no difficulty in establishing them;
- a very low frustration tolerance and an equally low aggression threshold, with discharges that include violence toward the environment;
- an incapacity to feel guilt and to learn from experience, particularly from threats and punishments from nature;
- a distinct inclination to blame others or to invent implausible rationalizations for behaviour that has brought the culture into conflict with ecologies.
Such a diagnosis and comparison, of course, is a generalization with obvious inaccuracies. Many people are concerned about environmental issues — some are even alarmed — but, as a society, a culture and a civilization, we have not yet reached the critical mass of awareness that is able to recognize the symptoms, accept them as valid and thereby cure the pathology.
Too many people are still oblivious or indifferent to the evolving environmental crisis, while others remain dismissive or even hostile to the existence of a problem — if they won’t acknowledge the problem, then they certainly won’t recognize the symptoms.
Seeking the treatment
The symptoms of this disorder are many and varied. We have been cultivating them for centuries and millennia. They can be found throughout our mythology, religion, philosophy, psychology, sociology, economics, politics and technologies. Some may be hidden in the biochemical recesses of our genetics and brain functions.
These are the symptoms that are most worrisome because they may be traits entrenched in the cells and structure of our physiology, designed and nourished by the same evolutionary processes that made us. If ecopathy is more an indication of “who we are” than “what we do”, then the possibility of reform will be exponentially more difficult.
How do we become who we are not? How do we remake ourselves to be compatible with the natural world out of which we grew if we have become who we are because of our incompatibility with it? If this incompatibility with nature is our distinctive quality, then how are we to integrate into an ecological system that is governed by immutable laws, that is limited by the finite, and that is brutally unforgiving of mistakes?
The uncomfortable answer to these questions may be that, like incurable psychopaths, we are incurable ecopaths, committed to an endless struggle against nature’s imposed limits because our narrow willfulness knows no other way. And so, while indifferent and oblivious to consequences, we will continue to use our ingenuity and cunning to do what we must to get what we want. The eventual outcome is hidden in the future. And we have no idea what this future will be.
Great idea! Why not “ecopathy”? I would make the small change from “house” to “home” because “house” let’s a lot of people off the hook—could be somebody else’s “house”, not worth worrying about. But “home”—everybody understands that, even people that don’t have a “house”.
“Ecopathy”: homesickness?
The pathology is actually the shoe on the other foot… The problem is not so much the callous disregard for the environment, which ‘the right’ is accused of (generally, unjustly so) but the irrational worship of plants and rocks, together with shrill and strident cries that the world is coming to an end… In particular, the incredibly wasteful effort to claim that carbon dioxide is how mankind is ruining the earth. A rational approach escapes the luddite environmental extremist left. The compounding of error upon error that is the core of the Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW) movement is a total corruption of what “science” really is. These crackpot ideas distract us from real environmental issues. ‘the salamander’ simply inflames the emotional irrationality of other leftists with its unjustified aspersions thrown at the US ‘tea party’ folks and non-specific accusations of ‘destructive, toxic’ attributes of the Canadian government. Tell me, salamander, what did you accomplish?
The pathology might be defined as follows:
a callous unconcern for the well-being of fellow humans in the environment;
a gross and persistent attitude of irresponsibility and disregard for societal norms, rules and obligations that we have to one another;
an incapacity to maintain enduring personal and professional relationships, with no intention of establishing them in the first place;
a very low frustration tolerance, and an equally low aggression threshold, with discharges that include violence toward those people that he perceives as not holding his ideals;
an incapacity to feel guilt for bad actions taken towards his fellow man, and a demonstrated ability to disregard any threats and punishments from civil society;
a distinct inclination to blame others or to invent implausible rationalizations for behaviour that has brought the individual into conflict with ecologies or society in general.
The greenie does not see himself as a plague upon the earth, but sees the rest of us as such. The greenie does not act to reduce the surplus population (by tossing himself off a cliff) yet he yearns to toss me off of said cliff, as he considers me as ‘surplus population’ or worse.
The green has a callous unconcern for the well-being of fellow humans in the environment; This is demonstrated in his glee over the demise of the product known as DDT. The greenie has committed his first great holocaust by banning DDT (instead of using DDT in a sane and responsible manner) thus condemning millions of fellow humans to death via malaria.
the greenie has a gross and persistent attitude of irresponsibility and disregard for societal norms, rules and obligations that we have to one another; this is particularly evident in the fiscal nature of the greenie, where no action proposed is ever too expensive, when it furthers “the cause”. It matters not what ‘renewable energy’ actually costs to produce, because it will ‘save the earth’. It does not matter when Germans and other europeans enter into a new form of suffering and death known now as ‘energy poverty’, where they cannot afford to both eat and stay warm; this is a direct result from ‘renewable energy’, which is incredibly expensive to produce and maintain (and, in the long run, does not ‘spare the earth’ from any carbon dioxide at all). These actual deaths are irrationally balanced, in the green mind, by the number of deaths avoided as CAGW is averted… but, the actions of India and China continue unabated, so CO2 continues to climb, thus the ‘benefits’ of “renewable energy” are negated, and, oh, by the way, CO2 isn’t warming the earth nor upsetting the climate, so these folks in ‘energy poverty’ suffer and die for naught, nothing, nada. For the cause.
an incapacity to maintain enduring personal and professional relationships, with no intention of establishing them in the first place; Look at the climatologists, mostly in the University of East Anglia. These pointy-headed academics use advanced mathematical statistics to build their computer models and arrive at their cataclysmic conclusions, without ever consulting actual statisticians to see if their math is correct. They maintain a closed, tiny society of their own, approving each others ‘scientific’ papers and controlling their own definition of what is ‘peer reviewed science’ … this this small community of eggheads exerts undue influence upon governmental policy makers.
a very low frustration tolerance, and an equally low aggression threshold, with discharges that include violence toward those people that he perceives as not holding his ideals; as Lawrence Torchello suggests that real jail time is appropriate for those who fund the intellectual efforts to counter-balance the insane “Global Warming” and “Climate Change” crowd.
an incapacity to feel guilt for bad actions taken towards his fellow man, and a demonstrated ability to disregard any threats and punishments from civil society; The eco-warriors who commit violent crimes towards whaling vessels of the Japanese fleet.
a distinct inclination to blame others or to invent implausible rationalizations for behaviour that has brought the individual into conflict with ecologies or society in general. The greenie is quick to blame the driver of a Ford F-150 truck who actually hauls material for a living, as if he is destroying the planet, yet the greenie drives an all-electric vehicle that is actually powered by coal, while the greenie drives his electric vehicle for nonessential reasons, in comparison to the F150 truck driver who hauls material in support of actual work (okay, I made that comparison up, just to illustrate the conflict).
How’s that for greenie pathology?
.. wonderful & illuminating article ..
and it brings clarity and definition
.. criteria for a differential diagnosis of
the destructive toxic stance, ideology & actions
of the current government in Canada
.. not to mention the catastrophic tea ‘partiers’
of the United States ..
Hopefully you’ll expand on this topic..
and develop the odd religious aspects
that are often & conveniently involved..
The holier than thou entitlement
to vanquish & consume the earth & creatures
as some sort of ‘Rapture’ pre-game show