![]() ![]() This is one explanation for the mysterious rise of the ghostly eco-fascists. Those who point these limits out - and who point out, especially, that the very existence of industrial modernity might be the root cause of the problems we currently face - can expect to be smacked down with the worst insults our culture can conjure. ![]() Whatever we think our politics are - and they are likely to be the least important thing about us - we have no idea what to do about the coming end of the brief age of abundance, and the reappearance, armed and dangerous, of what we could get away with denying for a few decades: limits. ![]() This is how it works, and this is what we are now facing.Īnd we cannot face it even those of us who think we can. Change the climate out there and it changes in here. The thing we are avoiding is the thing that we used to call ‘nature’, and the reality that we are trying to distract attention from is that we are part of it, we live inside it and that everything we do to it we also do to ourselves. One is fairly straightforward: there is something we can’t bear to look at, and we are trying to distract attention from it by screaming at the people who are pointing it out. So why all the dire warnings? I can think of two possible explanations. I was in and around the green movement for a long time, but I never met an eco-fascist, though I did have the pleasure of being called one. Plenty of people get the label applied to them of course - without the prefix, the word ‘fascist’ has been a meaningless, all-purpose insult for decades - but they all reject it. No public intellectuals, no writers, no philosophers, no politicians, no popular movements embrace anything of the kind. Dark corners of the Internet aside - you can find any craziness there, after all - it’s hard to find a single ‘eco fascist’ anywhere out in the real world. The problem, though, is that actual ‘eco fascism’ is notable mostly by its absence. Either way, the conclusion will be much the same: a non-specific but ominous call for more monitoring of ‘problematic’ views, more work to tackle ‘radicalisation’, more ‘hate speech’ or anti-protest laws and probably more Internet regulation. Depending on where you’re coming from, you can now explain how these new eco-authoritarians represent either a threat to our God-given right to drive, mine, manufacture, fly, burn oil and freely enjoy the glories that only Western Progress can provide, or a threat to diversity, equality, human rights, LGBTQIA++ people, refugees, ‘global justice’ and a woman’s right to choose. Having got here, you can move on to the meat of the thing: sombrely intoning about the ‘new threat to democracy’ which is represented by this ominous movement. Did you know there was an organic garden at Dachau? It makes you think. Mutter darkly about ‘blood and soil’ and how Hitler was a vegetarian. Chuck in the names of a couple of nature writers from the 1930s who became fascists. Use the phrase ‘dark undercurrent’ a lot. Dig into the most miserable chans and reddits of the Internet and ‘expose’ a few anonymised avatars promoting race war in the name of the planet. Move on to explore how much of this ‘rising authoritarianism’ is reflected in environmentalism, as evidenced by Just Stop Oil, Extinction Rebellion, the Green New Deal, the Great Reset, Bill Gates, Greta Thunberg or Īfter this, list the historical inspirations for these new green authoritarians: Ted Kaczynski, Pentti Linkola and Dave Foreman should do for starters. Start with talk of the ‘rising tide of authoritarianism’ all over the world, as evidenced by ‘populism’, Brexit, Georgia Melloni, Viktor Orban, Justin Trudeau, Donald Trump, Joe Biden or any other leader you don’t like. The formula is always the same, and can be usefully applied across the political spectrum. Those essays and articles could be rolled into one easily enough, and sometimes it seems like they have been. In publications right and left and neither you’ll be able to read long expositions of the origins and intentions of this frightening movement, which seems to be taking root all over the world. If you haven’t you soon will, because the number of people warning about this alarming new danger to civilisation seems to be growing exponentially. By now, you might have heard about the rising threat of ‘eco-fascism’. ![]()
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