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Glen Lehman Accountability and Transparency in the Modern Anthropocene Accountability and Transparency in the Modern Anthropocene Glen Lehman Accountability and Transparency in the Modern Anthropocene Glen Lehman Adelaide, SA, Australia ISBN 978-981-16-5190-8 ISBN 978-981-16-5191-5 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-5191-5 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. 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The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore Preface Our entire picture of the world has to be altered even though the [theory] changes only by a little bit. This is a very peculiar thing about philosophy. … Even a very small effected some- times requires profound changes in our ideas. (Feynman, the Feynman Lectures on Physics, found in Hutto & Myin, 2017, p. ix) Since the seventeenth century Enlightenment, Western economic and political thought has stressed the importance of economic growth as integral to a sustainable world (Stoknesa & Rockströmbgreen, 2018). Over the course of this epoch, a sustainable and growth society is assumed to be achievable within existing social structures, such as those based on free-market principles of laissez-faire economics. These processes have led to the construction of what is referred to as the Anthropocene (Luke, 2019). This is a term that denotes the current geological age, viewed as the period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment (Jamieson, 2016).1 Humanity has become a major force of Nature in the Modern Anthropocene, and this book offers a critical interpretation of these economic and calculative approaches that shape and dominate ecological discourse and political theory. The major theo- retical impediment to challenging the implications of the Anthropocene is largely the intolerable inequality of modern Western and capitalist modernity. The inequali- ties of today are made provisionally tolerable only by rapid economic growth. As such we must rethink the concept of economic growth together with steady-state social arrangements in challenging the pursuit of unlimited growth through profit structures (Sen, 1994). A notable example is how neoliberal economic theory assumes that unlimited economic growth is feasible and possible through ever increasing technological and 1 In this book I use the term ‘analytic-interpreters’ to refer to the ideas of Dreyfus, Gadamer, Nussbaum and Taylor. It has also been defined as communitarian-libearlism or post-liberalism. Interpretation is about examining, identifying and (possibly) combining divergent political strate- gies within a broad and encompassing set of political commonalities. Some of these definitions and ideas have been developed in Fiedler & Lehman (1995), Lehman (1995, 1998, 2004, 2010a, b, 2011a, b, 2015, 2017). v vi Preface scientific advances (Davis & Walsh, 2017). Environmentalists such as Paul Ehrlich (1968) have argued that limits to growth exist. This means that continual escalations in economic growth may not be feasible in the medium to long term. Modernity must respond to the challenges of inequality. Here, ideas from Casanova’s (2011) Public Religions and Taylor’s (2007) A Secular Age are used to explain how our Western secular age is influenced not only by a narrow vision of the natural environment but a procedural and secular conception of practical reason (see Abbey, 2002 for early work on Taylor’s interpretivism). This is a form of reasoning that submerges other ways to think about modernity and the various social fields in the public sphere (Bourdieu, 1993, 2005; Taylor, 2011). In their various ways, both thinkers did not set out to find a single narrative about modernity. Moreover, they were not arguing whether religion was being eroded by modernisation or not. Rather, they explored how religion was being reshaped by modernity. Modernisation did not bring secularity per se, but it did bring a differentiation of social spheres so that no one religion could pervade all elements of social life. Secularist research has been undertaken by theorists such as Pierre Bourdieu (1993), José Casanova (2011), Hubert Dreyfus (2004) and Charles Taylor (2007). Their ideas are used to form an interpretivist political response to the problems confronting modern communities. This involves returning, in part, to counter- Enlightenment thinkers to whom modernity offers a dangerous trajectory. Indeed, the seventeenth-century philosopher, Johann Herder, was one of the first to observe that the Enlightenment spawned an instrumental political virus that submerges our non-inferential engagements with the world. This is where the idea of non-inferen- tialism refers to humanity’s direct engagements in Nature. A counter-Enlightenment vision of modernity involves consideration of our place in the world, that is, a world where language is the conduit through which the otherness of Nature is articulated (Luke, 2019; Lehman, 1995, 1999, 2011a, 2021; Taylor, 1986, 1989b, 1993). The analysis and exploration of ecological and global politics in the Modern Anthropocene can benefit from an interpretivist approach to politics. This is to argue that accountability, ecological politics and sustainability research must consider the notion of steady-state social arrangements (Taylor, 1978, 1989b. 2010a, b). Using ideas from political interpretation, phenomenology and secular reasoning, new research focuses on our engaged bodily relationships in the world (Taylor, 1978). No longer can we consider ourselves thinking beings capable of controlling Nature. Rather, we are beings immersed in the world (both human and natural in terms of ecosystems). Our engagements in the world are then expressed through our languages touched by Nature. This more basic way to think about our humanity offers new opportunities to consider the commonalities needed to organise the human situation in the Modern Anthropocene. Environmental and social issues are more than simply calculating and costing our relationships with the natural world. These ideas are taken further to understand the various patterns of meaning which have influenced the construction of our societies. Through the narratives, paths and structures that shape communities in the Modern Anthropocene it is possible to perceive and visualise the natural world. New political structures must be designed Preface vii that align our activities and systems with the natural environment. This is a task needed now more than ever before (Baquendano Jer, 2019). In this regard, critical and environmental thinkers express the caveat that the criterion of sustainability is limited by its affiliation with procedural and secular forms of reasoning. Procedural and technical approaches to the world do not engage fully with critical and interpretivist means to understand our place in the natural world. Critical and interpretivist theorists maintain that sustainability must be con- sidered in the light of the narratives and processes of Western thinking. More funda- mentally, the focus should be about how these narratives have adversely impacted Nature (Rosenzweig et al., 2008; Lehman, 2001, 2011a, b, 2021). That is, to understand the complexity of the dilemmas confronting modern communities, we must not constrain thinking by narrow interpretations reliant purely on anthropocentric and secular thinking (see Economist, 2020; Iovino and Opperman, 2014). It is not enough to simply rely on corporate environmental and political strate- gies, politics must engage with cultures different from our own in the pursuit of environmental sustainability. Part of any viable strategy must focus critically on the role of discourse to reveal the implications associated with ideologies such as com- munitarianism, liberalism, socialism, and utilitarianism (Nussbaum, 2006). The interpretivist and secularist loci classici are Hegel’s (1977) Phenomenology of Spirit together with ideas from Heidegger’s (1962) Being and Time and Merleau-Ponty’s (1964) The Primacy of Perception. These works are used to illustrate our direct and immediate relationship with Nature (Taylor, 1989a, 1994, 1995). These various authors provide a multifaceted understanding of the specificity of communal life, and the common purposes that exist for everyone as part of the natural environment. Challenging modernity’s preoccupation with growth is a concern that single set economic and political solutions are unlikely to provide. They do not offer full understanding of the conundrums confronting modern communities. The challenge therefore is to understand how humanity is engaged in the world and does not con- trol it. Intriguingly, theorists of secularist processes (Casanova and Taylor) explain how modernity is empowered by sources such as religion. Arguments for the role of religion leads to the view that anthropocentrism narrows the frameworks that can explain, interpret, and shape our being-in-the-world. The relevance of interpretation is that it concurs with deep ecologists from one point of view, theists from another. Speculating, Taylor states in his introduction to A Secular Age: I may find it inconceivable that I would abandon my faith, but there are others, including possibly some very close to me, whose way of living I cannot in all honesty just dismiss as depraved, or blind, or unworthy, who have no faith (at least not in God or the transcendent). Belief in God is no longer axiomatic. There are alternatives. And this will likely mean that at least in certain milieux, it may be hard to sustain one’s faith. There will be people who feel bound to give it up, even though they mourn its loss. (Taylor, 2007, p. 53) Within this quotation lies an implicit question: what are the alternatives to modernity? How do non-secular alternatives motivate action? Are they environmentally and politically viable? Do they respect the rights of all citizens? Interestingly, Richard Bernstein (2009) observed in his review of – A Secular Age – that it is a very personal and passionate book. It offers an eloquent and viii Preface moving défense of the benefits of a humanistic religious faith in a Christian God. Bernstein emphasises Taylor’s personal commitments as opposed to the analysis of secular processes which have created a consumer-focussed culture (Taylor, 2007, 2010a, b). In literature dealing with secularity and modernity, the consumer culture is referred to as a disenchanted world. In this regard, this is the price we pay for failing to explore and understand all the ideas about our place in it (Taylor, 2011). As will be seen in the 16 chapters of this book, political systems have the propen- sity to create unsustainable and unjust outcomes, even when the motivations have been constructed with sound intentions. Environmental politics searches for new political structures that can accommodate sound environmental outcomes and uses philosophy and political theory in this endeavour. They share the view that the procedural and bureaucratic politics of today have limited means available for humanity to visualise and meet the natural environment. As a result, humanity has remained alien- ated from the natural world. The task is to re-enchant not only the natural environment but the cultural visions on which it is based (see Lehman and Mortensen, 2019). Adelaide, SA, Australia Glen Lehman 1st October 2020 References Abbey, R. (2002). Taylor as a postliberal theorist of politics. In A. Laitinen & N. H. 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To name the most recent: Dr. George Couvalis, Dr. Andrew Grienke, Bonnie Manning, Anna Murison, Caitlin Pendergrast, Professor Russell Craig, Professor David David, Emeritus Professor Chris Mortensen and Professor David Parker. In the United Kingdom, Emeriti, Emeritus Professors Jane Broadbent, Mike Jones, Richard Laughlin, Prem Sikka and Professor Jim Haslam have been very supportive and helpful when visiting there. I would like to thank my parents, Douglas and Patricia, for supporting this research over many years. xi