The Trumpeter - Journal of Ecosophy (Athabasca University)

Seed, John

The Trumpeter  
ISSN: 0832-6193 
Volume 22, Number 2 (2006) 
 
 
The Ecological Self 
 
John Seed 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
John Seed is a long-time, deep ecology movement activist who also conducts 
council of all beings workshops. He has been working for the protection of 
rainforests for 25 years. He delivered a keynote address entitled “Our Larger 
Community: All Species of the Cenozoic Era” at EarthSpirit Rising: A 
Conference on Ecology, Spirituality and Community at Xavier University, in 
Cincinnati, Ohio on July 8–10 2005, http://earthspiritrising.org. A slightly 
different version of this article was published in EarthLight, in April 2005. For 
those who want to know more about the ceremonies and workshops John Seed 
does, his email address is: Johnseed1@ozemail.com.au. He would love to hear 
from you. 
Introduction 
In the 1970s, when Jerry Brown was Governor of California, the eco-
poet Gary Snyder was working in his administration. One day Gov. 
Brown felt exasperated. He said to Snyder: “Gary, why is it that, 
whatever the issue, you are always going against the flow?”  
Gary replied: “Jerry, what you call ‘the flow’ is just a 16,000 year eddy; 
I'm going with the actual flow!”  
The deep, long-range ecology movement is based on a feeling for 
nature that sees the environmental crisis as a symptom of a 
psychological or spiritual ailment that afflicts modern humanity in 
technological societies.  
We moderns are enveloped by an illusion of separation from nature, 
made more extreme by anthropocentrism or human first centredness. 
 
 
 
 
The Trumpeter 96 
 
 
I 
Supporters of the deep, long-range ecology movement critique the idea 
that we are the crown of creation, and the measure of all beings. We 
tend to think that the world is a pyramid with humanity rightly on top: 
that nature is merely a resource and that it has only instrumental value. 
To maintain such a position, we have to ignore our own deeper feelings 
that our poets remind us of.  
The great California poet Robinson Jeffers was one of the ancestors of 
the deep ecology movement who reminds us of our connections with 
the natural world.  
As a young man, in the 1920s, he wrote this prophetic poem for his two 
infant sons. 
Shine, Perishing Republic 
While this America settles in the mould of its vulgarity, heavily 
thickening to Empire, 
And protest, just a bubble in the molten mass, pops and sighs  
out, and the mass hardens, 
 
I sadly smiling remember that the flower fades to make fruit, the  
fruit rots to make earth. 
Out of the mother; and through the spring exultances, ripeness  
and decadence; and home to the mother. 
 
You making haste, haste on decay: not blameworthy; life is good,  
be it stubbornly long or suddenly 
A mortal splendor: meteors are not needed less than mountains:  
shine perishing republic. 
 
But for my children, I would have them keep their distance from  
the thickening center: corruption  
Never has been compulsory, when the cities lie at the monster's  
feet there are left the mountains. 
 
And boys, be in nothing so moderate as in love of man, a clever  
servant, insufferable master. 
There is the trap that catches noblest spirits, that caught – 
they say – God, when he walked on earth.1
 
A popular formulation of the sensibilities of the deep, long-range 
ecology movement is found in Ishmael and other books by Daniel 
Quinn.  
Volume 22, Number 2 97
 In a recent essay, “The New Renaissance,”2 Quinn calls on us to heed 
this “concise expression of the basic message of all my books.” He says 
that anthropocentrism is “the most dangerous idea in existence” because 
it necessitates mass extinction, including our own. He writes: 
And even more than being the most dangerous idea in existence, it's the most 
dangerous thing in existence—more dangerous than all our nuclear armaments, 
more dangerous than biological warfare, more dangerous than all the pollutants we 
pump into the air, the water, and the land. All the same, it sounds pretty harmless. 
You can hear it and say, “Uh huh, yeah, so?” It's pretty simple too. Here it is: 
Humans belong to an order of being that is separate from the rest of the living 
community. There's us and then there's nature. There's humans and then there's the 
human environment. 
The term deep ecology movement was coined in the 1972 by Arne 
Naess, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Oslo University. He and 
other theorists have traced the historical roots of anthropocentrism.3 
Naess and others offer a more wide ranging critique. Naess also coined 
the term ecosophy for any lifestyle and practice which focuses on 
ecological values and harmony with the natural world. The author Lynn 
White Jr. focuses particularly on the role of Judeo-Christianity.4 In this 
religion, according to White, we live in a world where only humans 
were created in the image of God, only humans have a soul and, 
prophetically: 
the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and 
upon every fowl of the air, and upon all that moveth on the earth, and upon all the 
fishes of the sea; into your hands they are delivered.5  
Given that there are such deep anthropocentric roots in our culture and 
psyche, it is little wonder that a change of concepts is not by itself 
sufficient to reorient ourselves, to align ourselves back with the flow of 
the natural world.  
As Arne Naess has pointed out, ecological ideas are not enough, we 
need an ecological identity an ecosophic self. 
Ideas only engage one part of our mind in cognition. We also need 
ecological feelings and actions as well as ideas to nurture a maturing 
ecological identity in a place.  
Poets have always known that in wild places too, we may expand into 
larger identities. Here is Jeffers again:  
 
 
The Trumpeter 98 
 
 
I entered the life of the brown forest,  
 
And the great life of the ancient peaks, the patience of stone,  
 
I felt the changes in the veins  
 
In the throat of the mountain, 
and, I was the stream,  
 
Draining the mountain wood; and I the stag drinking: 
  and I was the stars,  
 
Boiling with light, wandering alone, each one the lord of his own summit;  
  and I was the darkness 
 
Outside the stars, I included them. They were part of me. 
I was mankind also, a moving lichen  
 
On the cheek of the round stone . . . they have not made words for it . . .6
 
II 
Arne Naess writes: 
If reality is experienced by the ecological Self, our behaviour naturally and 
beautifully follows norms of strict environmental ethics. We certainly need to hear 
about our ethical shortcomings from time to time, but we change more easily 
through encouragement and a deepened perception of reality and our own self, that 
is, through a deepened realism. How that is to be brought about is too large a 
question for me to deal with here. But it will clearly be more a question of 
community therapy than community science: we must find and develop therapies 
which heal our relations with the widest community, that of all living beings. 7
When I first read these words in 1986, I couldn’t help but think of the 
work that Joanna Macy and I had initiated the year before. “The 
Council of All Beings” is a set of experiential deep ecology processes, 
ceremonies and rituals that help us to expand our identification in the 
way that Naess describes. “Community therapy to develop deep 
awareness of our ecological self” is a good way of thinking about this 
work. 
A couple of years later I was privileged to witness a ceremony held in a 
Hopi village high on a mesa in the southwest of the United States. It 
was so like the Council of All Beings. The masks were more splendid, 
Volume 22, Number 2 99
of course, the drums more confident. And people assured me that they 
had continually celebrated thus for thousands of years. 
Since then I have searched in vain for a single example of an 
indigenous culture, still connected to their traditions, which didn’t have 
such ceremonies: regular rituals to testify that the human family is one 
strand in the larger web of life, to acknowledge all our relations. 
This suggests that the tendency to disconnect from the natural world 
might not be just a modern phenomenon as I had assumed. The fact that 
indigenous people invariably practice such ceremonies, speaks of the 
human tendency to forget who we really are and wander off into 
socially constructed identities. Why else would we need to regularly 
and powerfully remind ourselves that we are part of the web of life? 
Most peoples have always had cultural processes to counteract this 
tendency. So many solutions have been found that allow the human 
community to continue to cleave to the whole Earth community. This 
had been lost from our culture, suppressed by inquisitions and 
ignorance and now it re-emerges in a thousand ways. 
Even more than “community therapy,” I think that “cultural 
reclamation” encapsulates this work that reconnects. 
Deep ecological experiential processes for connecting with our 
ecological selves, that have been developed and extensively tested over 
the last 20 years, are described in detail elsewhere.8
We work with three major processes: 
1. Despair and Empowerment or work with feelings. 
2. Deep Time, Evolutionary Remembering, The Cosmic Walk. 
3. The Council of All Beings. 
• Despair and Empowerment or work with feelings. We circle 
together with our people as of old and mourn the loss of species 
and landscapes, 
• Deep Time, Evolutionary Remembering, The Cosmic Walk. 
remember our billion-year journey 
• The Council of All Beings, and empathize with the myriad 
creatures. 
We circle together with our people as of old and mourn the loss of 
species and landscapes, remember our billion-year journey, and 
empathize with the myriad creatures. Whenever we do so, we have 
found that a palpable and expanded ecological identity inevitably 
The Trumpeter 100
 
 
emerges in participants along with a profound experience of 
community. However, these experiences are ephemeral. 
Research by Eshana (Dr. Elizabeth Bragg) has shown9 that unless we 
find a way to regularly practice our deep ecology, the new and fragile 
consciousness fades back into the logic of the eddy, and we remain 
trapped inside a skin encapsulated ego floating helplessly towards the 
abyss.  
The ideas of interconnectedness and participation may remain, but in 
the absence of the experience they are sterile. 
As part of her PhD dissertation, Eshana developed new tools for 
measuring “ecological identity.” In Australia, North America and 
Russia she asked people to answer her questionnaires before a weekend 
deep ecology workshop, 48 hours later after the workshop, and six 
months later. She found statistically significant increases in 
participants’ “ecological identity” scores after the workshop, but, 
except for people who find ways to continue the practices and embody 
them somehow in their lives, this effect vanishes in six months. 
These things are explored in community. We need to find or create a 
“sangha” of kindred spirits (as all spiritual traditions have recognized). 
We need to find opportunities to meet—on solstices, equinoxes, under 
the full moon, in deep ecology workshops or online—to build these 
vital support systems into our lives. In such ways, while swirling in the 
midst of the vast eddy, we may remain aligned to the flow. 
Naess advocates a pluralism of ecosophies. The platform of the deep, 
long-range ecology movement contains statements10 that most people 
who consider themselves part of this movement can support, even 
though each person may have a unique and personal ecosophy. 
This paper is a sketch of my own ecosophy.  
I came to this understanding, this consciousness, initially through a 
profound epiphany that took place when I found myself taking part in 
the first direct action in defense of rainforests at Terania Creek, New 
South Wales, in August of 1979. As I wrote some years later in an 
essay titled “Beyond Anthropocentrism,” 11 for me this transformation 
of perspective came from my actions on behalf of Mother Earth.  
“I am protecting the rainforest” develops into “I am part of the 
rainforest protecting myself. I am that part of the rainforest recently 
emerged into thinking.” What a relief then! The thousands of years of 
imagined separation are over and we begin to recall our true nature. 
Volume 22, Number 2 101
In the early 1980s, reading Devall, Sessions, and Naess, I finally found 
a philosophical approach through which I could make sense of this 
experience. 
 
Workshops 
Workshop descriptions and John Seed & Ruth Rosenhek workshop 
schedules and essays can be found at www.rainforestinfo.org.au.  
Joanna Macy’s schedule and writings may be found at 
www.joannamacy.net.  
                                                 
 
Notes 
1 Tim Hunt, editor. l988. The Collected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers. Stanford: Stanford 
University Press, Vol. l. 
2 See http://ishmael.org/Education/Writings/The_New_Renaissance.shtml
3 See the deep ecology section at www.rainforestinfo.org.au/
4 Lynn White Jr. 1967. The Historical Roots of our Ecological Crisis. Science 155: 
1203–1207 
5 Genesis 9;2  
6 From Tim Hunt, editor. 1988. Signpost. The Collected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers. 
Stanford: Stanford University Press, Vol. l. 
7 Arne Naess 1988. Self Realization: An Ecological Approach to Being in the World. 
Thinking Like a Mountain—Towards a Council of All Beings by John Seed, Joanna 
Macy, Pat Fleming, and Arne Naess, New Society Publishers. 
8 See the deep ecology section at www.joannamacy.net/ or www.rainforestinfo.org.au. 
9 PhD thesis by Eshana (AKA Elizabeth Bragg). For a summary of her findings see 
“Towards an Ecological Self” at www.rainforestinfo.org.au/deep-eco/Eshana.htm. 
10 See Arne Naess. 2005. The Basics of Deep Ecology. The Trumpeter Vol. 21, No. 1. 
11 Reprinted in Bill Devall’s book Simple in Means, Rich in Ends: Practicing Deep 
Ecology, Peregrine Smith Books, 1988. 
The Trumpeter 102


The Ecological Self

Whitaker, Andrei

 
 
The Trumpeter  
ISSN: 0832-6193 
Volume 22, Number 1 (2006) 
 
 
Five Things You Should Know about  
Arne Naess 
 
Andrei Whitaker 
 
 
 
 
 
Andrei Whitaker is currently completing his Masters of Environmental Studies 
at Dalhousie University. His thesis is on the possibility of restoring wolves to 
the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. On most days you have a better chance 
of finding Andrei out in the woods instead of in front of the computer where he 
belongs. A slightly different version of this article appears in Hobo Magazine. 
It’s 2:00 a.m. and I’m in a punk bar in northern Norway surrounded by 
heavily tattooed men and empty shot glasses—never a good sign when 
you have an early flight—exceedingly worse if the plane is carrying 
you to meet a world renowned intellect. As I watch in dismay, Per 
bashes the next round on the table. The others murmur in agreement. 
This scene has been ritualistically repeated since I let it slip in the 
bathroom line that tomorrow I am to interview Arne Naess, Norway’s 
most famous philosopher. The clout of this statement apparently goes a 
long way in this land; my offer to buy beer for these guys has 
steadfastly been refused all night, the only stipulation being that I must 
say hello to Arne from them.   
 
Many Norwegians consider Arne Naess to be one of their greatest 
living treasures. A man of incredible ease and depth, Arne is an original 
thinker who, at the age of 27, became the chair of philosophy at the 
University of Oslo. Known for his social activism, mountaineering, 
writings, and exploits, he conjures up the romantic image of the 
swashbuckling professor—an adventurer equally at home in the remote 
wilderness as he is in front of a classroom. Credited with reviving 
Norwegian philosophy and influencing the global environmental 
movement, Arne’s contributions to modern thought haven’t gone 
unnoticed. Among the many distinguished awards he has received are 
the Sonning prize for contribution to European culture, the Mahatma 
Volume 22, Number 1 113
Gandhi prize for non-violent peace, and the Star of St. Olav’s Order, 
Norway’s equivalent of a knighthood. A tremendously prolific writer, 
with over thirty books and 400 academic articles published, this year he 
celebrates the release of a ten-volume set of his selected works (SWAN). 
Yet despite this illustrious resume, Arne is barely known outside of 
Europe. Intrigued with the character my editor described as a real life 
Indiana Jones (no guns, lots of Nazis), I trundled off to the land of the 
midnight sun to find out more about Scandinavia’s most beloved 
philosopher.   
1 Arne loves to box 
 
Thirty seconds into our first meeting, he begins to playfully box me 
around an imaginary ring in his living room. At 93, he still swoops and 
side-steps with grace, quickly finding the holes in my ineffectual 
technique. He seems really good, but then again he should be—Arne’s 
been boxing since before the start of the Second World War.  
 
When we finally sink onto the couch to talk, it’s under a menacing 
portrait of a younger Arne (but still over 80) in full boxing attire, 
punching out at the camera. I remark that it is unusual, to say the least, 
that a philosophy professor and practitioner of Gandhian non-violence 
would want to learn such an inherently violent sport. He laughs as he 
replies. “When I started it made headlines. People found it very 
amusing that Professor Naess wanted to learn to box.” 
  
While his initial motivation may have been exercise, Arne quickly 
understood that boxing had other areas that were equally beneficial. 
Specifically, it taught him how to take a punch. This rid him of any 
anxiety associated with being hit in the face. Once the anxiety’s gone, 
Arne explains, “One’s behaviour is then free to be of a kind most likely 
to pacify attackers.”1 In an improbable twist, learning to box allowed 
Arne to practise non-violent resistance at a higher level.  
 
Arne’s days of traditional boxing, however, were brief. As a person 
who lives philosophy rather than merely teaching it, Arne quickly 
morphed boxing into an embodiment of Gandhian non-violence. “The 
object became to put your fist in the right position but without 
strength,” he says as he offers to show me. Arne then grins at old 
memories. “It was the speed and movement I was after. It was a 
wonderful, friendly way to box.”  
 
Andrei: You engaged in non-violent boxing? 
The Trumpeter 114
 
 
Arne: Yes (laughs). I used to do it for exercise. It took such a short time 
for you to get completely… what do you call it? 
 
Wiped out? 
 
Yes wiped out. Three minutes of boxing is an hour of other exercise. 
The way we boxed was to try and get in the right place but without any 
force. Not to touch them. Not to knock them out. It was for fun.  
 
How did that evolve? 
 
I would train for boxing in the University gym. I was able to mix with 
the young people and we would box together. They didn’t want to hit 
me because I was a professor. They were afraid (chuckles). Gandhian 
boxing—it was good times.  
 
2 He was profoundly inspired by the Mahatma 
 
Arne was just a teenager when he read about Gandhi’s salt march in 
1930. “I admired him risking his life in favour of peace,” he says, “his 
march was so simple and elegant. I liked that.” Arne laughs, but then 
gets concerned that I might not be following him. “Do you know about 
this walk?” he asks, brow slightly furrowed. When I tell him yes, he 
smiles again. “It was good the way he took on the British Empire in a 
non-violent way. He had nothing against the British, but he thought 
India should have its own government. I liked that very much.” Arne 
leans forward and looks me in the eyes. “So,” he says, “I became a 
follower of Gandhian activism.”    
  
Gandhian non-violence has permeated Arne’s life ever since. From 
environmental activism to Nazi occupation, Arne has always remained 
a firm believer in non-violent resistance. He doesn’t like physical 
aggression, but at the same time he thinks we should always seek the 
centre of conflict; albeit in a non-violent way. Arne is more apt to invite 
his adversaries over for a cup of tea than to concern himself with hate 
or anger. To Arne, every opponent is a potential ally.2   
 
When asked, Arne admits that he appreciates the power of non-violent 
resistance. But even more so, he admires the composure Gandhi 
maintained throughout his struggle: “The more hatred that surrounded 
[Gandhi], the more respect he showed for himself and others. I was 
Volume 22, Number 1 115
very impressed for this is hard to do. It was marvellous how he always 
behaved well and in a completely non-violent way.”  
 
Arne reflected Gandhi’s composure during his own experiences with 
non-violent resistance. He’s been arrested for civil disobedience while 
protesting environmental injustices, and has chained himself (at age 
70!) in front of bulldozers to stop a dam from being constructed. 
However, the most notable test of his Gandhian values occurred during 
World War II. When I ask him if he ever considered using force during 
the German occupation he responds strongly—“NO.” For Arne, the 
horrors of invasion only helped to solidify his views on the philosophy 
of non-violence.  
3 He was active in the Norwegian resistance during World War II  
 
He mentions it almost casually, slipped into the conversation 
somewhere between Einstein and wolves. “During the war I spied for 
the Norwegians. I was a member of the XU.”  
 
It’s hard not to be impressed. The XU was an underground Norwegian 
intelligence organization formed after the Germans invaded in 1940. Its 
activities were considered so vital to national security that most of its 
work was kept secret for fifty years. When I inquire about the long 
delay, Arne replies, “I think this was in case Norway was invaded 
again. So we could do it another time.”  
 
The XU did much of its recruiting at the University of Oslo, where 
Arne was a professor. Because of his profession and fluency in German, 
Arne became a spy. This fit perfectly with his commitment to non-
violent resistance. When I ask about his success, he humbly shrugs and 
says “I never really discovered what the Germans were doing.” But the 
truth is most likely the opposite—in 1998 Arne received a medal from 
the King of Norway for his contributions to the XU. 
 
Arne: While I worked for the XU, my code name was Sigurd 
 
Andrei: What does that mean? Like, the dove or something? 
 
No, no (laughs). It was just a name. A common Norwegian name, like 
Arne. 
 
What did you do? 
The Trumpeter 116
 
 
When the Germans got together and discussed occupation matters, I 
was a spy hiding close. 
 
Oh right! That must have been dangerous. 
 
Very dangerous. 
 
He says this with a cheeky grin on his face, but in reality Arne came 
close to becoming a World War II statistic. One night while working 
late, he was arrested by a Nazi patrol. 
  
Arne was at his father-in-law’s house when the Germans came bursting 
in. “They were suspicious for some reason or another,” he says, sipping 
his Pepsi as he mulls the memory over. “I was alone. In the desk there 
were some documents relating to the resistance. I knew they were 
there.” He takes another sip. 
 
“I remember asking by what authority they were doing this and a young 
soldier pointed his gun at me and said, ‘Is this authority enough?’” Arne 
laughs and repeats the last phrase disbelievingly. “Is this authority 
enough?” He shakes his head. 
 
“The officer found the papers and I was taken back to headquarters to 
be interrogated. In those days I spoke good German,” says Arne, “so 
while I was being questioned I started a conversation with the arresting 
officer. I found out that he was from the area of Germany near 
Denmark.” He pauses and his face darkens slightly. “I then started to 
get worried because I began to think it was possible that he could have 
read what the documents were about.” He notices my puzzled look and 
explains the danger, “Norwegian is very close to Danish.”    
 
Luckily for Arne, the officer had been ‘recruited’ into the army on the 
threat of imprisonment. “I found out from him that he had been forced 
to join and that he didn’t like it at all.” Arne smiles. “The officer was 
very nice. We talked and became friendly and eventually I was let go.”  
 
Again he notices that I don’t understand, so Arne gently offers an 
explanation. “He let me go because we became friendly. Wars, for the 
most part, are between countries, not people. It has nothing to do with 
personal relationships. It was an unhappy coincidence that we were 
enemies.” When I ask about the officer, Arne gets wistful. “He was a 
very civilized man. I often regret not getting his name for I would have 
Volume 22, Number 1 117
liked to have kept in contact with him after the war. He made an 
impression on me.” 
 
He pauses and takes another sip and then we sit in silence for a while. 
Inside I am bursting with a question that I’m not quite sure is 
appropriate to ask. Finally I blurt it out: “What were the documents 
about and what happened to them?” Arne laughs at my enthusiasm 
before I get my answer. He seems to remember that they might have 
been about sabotaging some factories. Regardless, the resistance got to 
keep them. The Germans had left the papers in the desk drawer. 
 
4 His father is a mountain (literally) 
 
Just prior to the war, Arne built a small rough hut on the high plateau of 
Mt. Hallingskarvet. Known as Tvergastein, it is Arne’s refuge of peace 
from society. Inside its thin wooden walls is a detailed log of the time 
he has lived there. At last count, Arne has spent over twelve years of his 
life on these wind swept slopes.  
   
Arne has always been drawn to the mountains. His love of the outdoors 
as a child blossomed into a love of climbing and mountaineering in his 
teens. He has stated that he values “mountaineering and life among 
mountains higher than university studies”3 and has always found time 
to escape on climbs and hikes. Despite the rigours of academic society, 
he managed to embark on many mountaineering first accents around the 
world, including Tirich Mir (7706 metres), the highest peak in the 
Hindu Kush. In some areas, Arne is more famous for his 
mountaineering than his philosophy. 
 
Arne’s relationship with Mt. Hallingskarvet is not, however, based on 
mountaineering alone. Though there are plenty of cliffs to climb (and 
not even Arne has scaled them all), Arne views this mountain instead as 
a father figure. The connection developed out of the long stays at the 
family cabin on Hallingskarvet’s base. Arne explained their bond 
perfectly in an interview with Stephen Bodian: “Because I had no 
father, the mountain somehow became my father, as a friendly, 
immensely powerful being, perfect and extremely tranquil.”4 The 
mountain taught Arne about respect and nature, forging a deep 
relationship that has lasted his entire life.  
  
On the slopes of Mt. Hallingskarvet, Arne writes that he finds the 
“serenity within . . . the kind of serenity [that] does not prevent the wind 
The Trumpeter 118
 
 
blowing strongly in my life. But it is an inner consolidation and 
presence that means that in every kind of situation one can feel like a 
complete human.”5 This peace and harmony has allowed Arne’s mind 
to wander freely—much of his most original philosophical work was 
created during his stays at Tvergastein. His love and respect for his 
mountain and hut has never wavered over his 90-plus years. He recently 
published a book about his relationship with them—a rough translation 
of the title—Hallingskarvet: The father of a good long life. 
 
5 His philosophical musings are at the cutting edge of the 
environmental movement 
 
When Arne is at Tvergestein, he states that he cannot “make a very 
clear distinction between myself and the hut and the vegetation.”6 For 
those who know him, this is not a surprising declaration. Arne has felt 
an essence ‘of oneness’ with nature his whole life.  
 
When Arne was a child, his family would vacation in western Norway. 
One of Arne’s favourite things to do on these holidays was to stand in 
the ocean up to his knees, sometimes for hours on end. He glows as he 
tells me about it. “The sea creatures would come and go around my 
feet. The water was never still because of their movement—
marvellous!” He laughs after he says this and I laugh with him. His 
enthusiasm for a memory almost a century old is contagious. 
 
While this may seem like a relatively tame childhood recollection, his 
experiences in the fjords as a boy led him to recognize that all of life 
was connected—not only as part of the food web—but also in a 
metaphysical sense.   
 
Andrei: What did you feel when you stood in the water? 
 
Arne: Standing there, small living creatures would try to hide under my 
feet and plant eggs. They thought it was a very good place to stay and 
we liked each other. I got the feeling of being one of them. Being 
bigger but being together with them.  
 
How did that affect you? 
 
There was this feeling of nearness to the situation they have in life to 
the situation in my life. I understood them and they understood me. 
Volume 22, Number 1 119
[Later] it was so clear that we have a tremendous responsibility . . . we 
need to let nature be. 
 
Arne translated this experience, among others, into what would 
eventually be called the deep ecology movement. For Arne, the 
environmental movement that was sprouting out of the ’60s and ’70s 
didn’t address the root of the problem—humanity’s relationship with 
nature. Instead, this mainstream environmentalism was still ultimately 
concerned with fulfilling human needs. There didn’t seem to be much 
consideration regarding any other creatures on the planet, unless they 
were endangered. Arne believed this type of conservationism to be 
shallow and thought that humanity should strive for something 
deeper—nothing less than a total paradigm shift from an 
anthropocentric (human oriented) to a biocentric (all life oriented) way 
of thinking and acting.  
 
Arne believes that humanity should stop thinking about the world in 
terms of a hierarchy of life. Through his work on the deep ecology 
movement, Arne articulated the principle that all species have a right to 
exist and flourish. In his eyes, all life has intrinsic value; a value not 
determined by any potential usefulness to humanity. Arne also extends 
this same consideration to ecosystems and life-sustaining processes. To 
him, a forest or a river has inherent value, as does a tiger or a human 
being. With a few deft strokes, Arne’s writing removes humanity from 
its usurped throne and places us back within nature’s realm. 
 
“We have to limit the ways we are changing nature,” Arne tells me, 
“especially diminishing it.” He is worried about the environment and 
has been for a long time. He even took retirement a decade early, so 
that he could devote more time to thinking about, writing on, and being 
active in the budding environmental movement. Despite the fact that we 
haven’t seemed to have learned our lesson yet, Arne is completely 
optimistic about the future of this planet. While he thinks this next 
century might be a little rough, he believes we will eventually come up 
smiling. When I voice my doubts, he gently looks me in the eye and 
says, “100 years from now we will have much more nature than today.” 
I am almost moved to tears by the power of this statement. There is 
such conviction, strength, and peace in his tone that I don’t doubt him 
for a minute. I only wish he could be here to see us get it right. 
 
When I get up to go, I feel a profound sense of sadness at leaving his 
side. I realize that I am going to miss Arne greatly, even though I have 
The Trumpeter 120
 
 
only known him a few days. When we shake hands I try to take it all 
in—the mischievous curls of white hair, the intense calm that surrounds 
him—but it’s too much. The only thing I walk away with is a sense of 
complete and absolute beauty.  
 
I open the door and start to leave when I suddenly remember something 
I had forgotten to say. I turn. “There are some boys up in Tromsø who 
wanted me to say hello.” Arne grins, “Tell them I say hi back.” And he 
shuts the door.  
 
Notes 
                                                 
1 Arne Naess. 1992. To Grow Up Or To Get To Be More Mature. The Trumpeter 9.2: 
80–91, p. 81. 
2 Arne Naess. 2002. Life’s Philosophy: Reason and Feeling in a Deeper World. 
London: University of Georgia Press, xiv. 
3 Arne Naess. 1983. How My Philosophy Seemed To Develop. In Philosophers on 
Their Own Works, vol. 10, eds., A. Mercier and M. Svilar. Bern: Peter Lang: 209–226. 
Quoted in Warwick Fox’s 1992 article:  Intellectual Origins of the Depth Theme in 
The Philosophy of Arne Naess. The Trumpeter 9.2: 68–73, p. 68.   
4 Stephen Bodian. 1982. Simple in Means, Rich in Ends: A Conversation with Arne 
Naess. The Ten Directions Summer/Fall: 7–12, p.10.  
5 Arne Naess. 2002. Life’s Philosophy: Reason and Feeling in a Deeper World. 
London: University of Georgia Press, p. 21. 
6 Ibid., p. 22. 
 
 
 
Volume 22, Number 1 121


Five Things You Should Know About Arne Naess

Naess, Arne

 
 
 
The Trumpeter  
ISSN: 0832-6193 
Festschrift Section 
Volume 22, Number 1 (2006) 
 
 
 
The Limited Neutrality of Typologies of 
Systems: A Reply to Gullvåg 
1977 
Arne Naess 
 
 
 
 
I
l
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F
 This paper was originally published in Inquiry, Volume 20, 1977, pages 67–81.
It is reprinted here with slight revisions. n reply to Gullvåg (Inquiry, Vol. 18, 1975), I concede that there are 
imitations to a pluralistic metaphilosophy. The limits are not, however, 
pecifiable. By increasing a philosophical system’s comprehensiveness, 
ne decreases its refutability; as the system becomes more 
omprehensive, it begins to incorporate its own rules of refutation and 
ther concepts required for assessing validity, but there are no definite 
imits to comprehensiveness. By increasing a system’s 
omprehensiveness one also diminishes the possibility of comparing 
hat system with others. There is a fairly neutral but vague and 
mprecise way of expressing oneself metaphysically, but such 
xpressions can never attain absolute neutrality. Nevertheless, it might 
e useful to retain, as a regulative idea, the notion that all 
omprehensive systems try to embrace the same single reality. 
ntroduction 
ngemund Gullvåg’s “Naess’s Pluralistic Metaphilosophy”1 is a fine 
xample of criticism which takes every care not to misrepresent the 
iews under examination. Gullvåg offers some usefully succinct 
ormulations of many aspects of these views and uses them to point to a 
umber of weaknesses in the views. In what follows, I shall gratefully 
ake some concessions and restate a way of thinking which I think 
mportant in itself and also in its consequences for the policy of 
hilosophy departments. 
estschrift Section, Volume 22, Number 1 (2006) 7
 
Typologies of systems have on the whole been post factum. They try to 
furnish a sufficiently broad frame of reference to accommodate existing 
specimens, not all future possible specimens. But even so, they may not 
be broad enough. Indian surveys of all systems, the 
sarvadarsanasmgrahas, show a dependence upon specific Indian 
frames, while Karl Jasper’s excellent typology manifests his 
psychological and existential leanings and can hardly be said to cover 
all Indian systems.2 The former reveals a certain narrowness of compass 
if we try to accommodate other than Indian systems, and the latter 
illustrates how the inventor of a typology tends to make presuppositions 
which totally exclude them from the sphere of valid (consistent, true, 
tenable) systems. 
 
A study of existing typologies suggests that it should be possible to 
construct wider and more neutral ones. More importantly, the higher the 
level of neutrality of the typology and the comprehensiveness of the 
system, the narrower the basis for establishing the invalidity of any of 
them. Propositions about philosophic systems in general presuppose an 
understanding of all systems. In my view this understanding can only 
reach certain approximations, because any understanding that occurs 
can do so only on the basis of a definite set of presuppositions, which 
cannot be brought into and out of play without altering the personality 
of the person whose understanding it is. My view, indecently, 
presupposes that concepts of understanding involve that of a person of 
some kind. 
 
Really Existing and Identifiable Objects 
Gullvåg writes: 
 
With respect to objects, Naess apparently takes a view that is strikingly 
similar to the ontological standpoint on particulars that Peirce accepted 
before he came, at a late stage in his philosophical development, to 
acknowledge them as existing and identifiable independently of conceptual 
frameworks. . . . My conclusion here is that if there is such a presupposition 
underlying Naess’s semantics and doctrine of systems, he has already 
deviated quite radically from the programme of system-neutrality.3
 
I hold that objects exist and are identifiable independently of concepts. With 
Moore I say I have two hands—for certain. I hold it to be objectively true. 
 
But all this I affirm, or rather admit, “on the T0-level”, that is, as point-of-
departure formulations which allow extremely different philosophical 
interpretations.4 Even philosophies which contain sentences such as “nothing 
exists” seems to hold that in certain senses something exists. I say “seem to”. 
The Trumpeter 8 
 
 
It may well be that some concepts of maya are such that in no sense can I 
imagine that I really and objectively have two hands. This would mean that I 
cannot understand certain maya philosophies, and that they are not taken 
account of in my typology. 
  
Earlier Gullvåg says: 
 
But I am not at all sure that Naess would want to accept such a picture of the 
world as sets of objects of different kinds, which are there independently of 
out conceptual systems and descriptions. Possibly he would reject it as not a 
system-neutral account of the relationship between system and reality. Or 
perhaps he would accept alternative accounts incompatible with the one just 
mentioned.5
 
This is also correct: when the T0-version of the object-independency 
formulation is made more precise, most or all plausible interpretations 
form highly unneutral philosophical statements—and sometimes false 
ones, so far as I can understand. I will, as Gullvåg indicates, include 
views incompatible with some of those precizations in my typology. 
The typology includes systems with I tend to regard as invalid or 
strange, but none that I feel to be utterly unintelligible. My hands may 
be unreal in many senses, but there is a (not easily described) limit to 
the degree of ontological unreality of my hands beyond which I would 
tend to say: “I do not follow; I cannot understand your position. 
Therefore I cannot take it into consideration in my typology.” I say this 
“undogmatically” (in Sextus Empiricus’s sense). I do not preclude the 
possibility that I will come to understand your position, and not 
understand that I did not understand. 
 
Neutral Semantics as a Tool in Systems Theory 
Gullvåg says that he thinks that “Naess’s notion of a ‘Kindergarten 
version’ of his semantics is programmatic rather than actualized in any 
exposition.”6
 
The semantics of my Communication and Argument7 can be given an 
exposition that is system neutral to an extremely high degree. This is, as 
Gullvåg indicates, a programme and a hypothesis. But the pluralistic 
meta-systematic theory makes use, I admit, of more precise versions. 
And the direction of precization is, presumably, not philosophically 
completely neutral. It is likely that metasystematic theory fails, to some 
extent, to fully reach the high level of neutrality intended. Readers can, 
with less effort than me, point out weaknesses. I can then try to 
reconstruct in order to avoid the specified weaknesses. But they must be 
shown before they can be eliminated. 
 
Festschrift Section, Volume 22, Number 1 (2006) 
 
9
Moderately Comprehensive, Moderately Precise Metatheory 
Again Gullvåg: 
 
Apparently, then, the pluralistic theory of systems cannot be a theory in any 
strict sense, that is, something that can in principle be evaluated with regard 
to truth, consistency, and entailments. Nor does Naess claim any such status 
for it. Some of his remarks suggest that his account of systems is a quasi-
theoretical attempt to show or indicate something that cannot, strictly 
speaking, be stated. It cannot strictly speaking be correct to say anything 
about systems in general.8
 
Yes, but there are less paradoxical levels of the metaphilosophy of 
systems. It must be borne in mind that there are two dimensions—more 
or less comprehensive systems, and more or less precise typological 
conceptual frameworks dealing with systems. Between the two there is 
a complementarity relation—the more precise the conceptual 
framework, the less comprehensive the typology. 
 
 
B 
 
P
re
ci
se
ne
ss
 
C 
A 
Comprehensiveness  
 
The extreme difficulties arise when we try to combine an extreme 
degree of comprehensiveness with even a modest degree of 
preciseness—like typology C in the diagram. Or where, as with B, a 
considerable degree of preciseness is combined with even a modest 
degree of comprehensiveness. 
The Trumpeter 10 
 
 
 
How precise must a theory be in order to be a theory “in any strict 
sense”? Gestalt-theory and some other theories which have generated 
much insight never acquired any substantial level of interpersonal 
preciseness. The metaphilosophy of systems may also generate or help 
insight despite its low interpersonal preciseness. 
 
Systems: Absolutely or Relatively True—or Simply True? 
Gullvåg quotes me as saying: “A system can legitimately claim truth 
and intersubjective validity, not merely expediency or subjective 
appropriateness.”9
 
What I tried to convey was that metasystematic assertions of plurality 
do not invalidate or make assertions of the simple kind “p is true” 
meaningless. That would invalidate or make meaningless the assertion 
“p.” In other words, the so-called absolute concept of truth remains. 
Only, strictly speaking, there is not just one such concept. A rich variety 
will occur if made precise in relation to different ontologies. 
 
Furthermore, the substitution of “p is relatively true” or “p is true in 
relation to my system S” for “p is true” is of doubtful usefulness. If 
somebody calls a system “my system S,” S is not his total system. He 
administers typological concepts in such a way that he is able to place S 
within a class of different systems. Whatever his system, it is therefore 
wider than S. 
 
This implies that a metasystematic relativism of the kind I assert on the 
T0-level cannot be stated within a definite total system which is thereby 
relativized through assertions made by its own adherents. 
 
Reality as a Directive Idea: There Is Only One Reality 
In describing my views, Gullvåg says:  
 
The rules for the use of the term “reality” make the notion of reality a kind of 
regulative or directive idea. “Reality” is not a term that stands for a definite 
structure or substructure. Here, however, it is natural to ask: In what sense is 
the idea of reality a directive idea? Does it determine a direction? 
Apparently, it doesn’t determine anything, since it does not exclude anything, 
for different, mutually incompatible systems are equally valid in the sense of 
agreeing equally well with reality.10
 
The use of the term “real” is such that is determines a direction towards 
oneness. Reality is one. In advocating a definite view concerning reality 
Festschrift Section, Volume 22, Number 1 (2006) 
 
11
and trying to refute opposing views, I do not permit the intrusion of the 
idea that the other views concern another reality, a second or third 
reality, unrelated to each other. If related, then they are mere parts of a 
greater whole.  
  
A view may, of course, intend to cover a different part or aspect of 
reality from another view. If one philosopher says “this is reality,” the 
other “no, that,” a decision must be made in favour of only one of the 
possibilities, provided they can be shown to be different. If among 
philosophers we assert agreement about reality, we assume inevitably 
and correctly that it is the same reality we speak about. This also holds 
good when we speak of extremely different parts or aspects of reality. 
 
Concerning the Validity of Comprehensive Systems 
Gullvåg says: 
 
“According to Naess’s pluralistic metaphilosophy, different, mutually 
incompatible, all-encompassing systems are equally ‘valid or true’.”11
 
Yes, but a next step in the dialectical metaphilosophy of systems 
requires such utterances to be reformulated. 
  
(a) More accurately I would say that there are no decisive arguments 
against an all-encompassing (consistent) system, and that if anything is 
valid, such a system is valid. (“Consistency” must be thought of as 
being defined within the system.) 
  
(b) The formulation “different, mutually incompatible systems may 
agree equally well with reality” is of a moderate level of preciseness. 
The more comprehensive the system, the more difficult it is to make a 
systematic comparison, because more and more terms are defined 
within the system. This implies that hypotheses about incompatibility or 
compatibility have less and less basis for confirmation or 
disconfirmation. The degree of incomparability increases. Thus it is 
presumably more precise to say “different, mutually incompatible, or 
incomparable systems may agree with reality.” The term “equally well” 
suggests (wrongly) a kind of system-independent measure of 
agreement. Or we may use the following formulation: “There may be 
no adequate basis for a conclusion that one system agrees and another 
does not agree with reality, even if the systems are mutually 
incompatible.” 
  
The Trumpeter 12 
 
 
(c) All-encompassingness cannot be achieved without encountering 
grave logical problems. I would say “strict or absolute all-
encompassingness is impossible.” On the other hand, fruitful 
conceptions of “near-total” or “maximally encompassing system” are 
what are needed in metaphilosophy. The term “total-system” is only 
used on the T0-level, as is “total view.” 
 
(d) “Anything is possible” must also be taken as a point-of-departure 
formulation. It serves to stress a trend towards a greater tolerance of 
assumptions which postulate states of affairs that generally tend to be 
called impossible. 
 
If interpreted in an absolute way, the slogan implies “It is impossible 
that something is impossible.” This goes against my epistemology. I 
will not exclude the possibility that something is impossible. 
Transcendental philosophy, especially from the time of Kant, has 
proffered valuable hypotheses about impossibilities. 
 
Gullvåg’s paper is a valuable contribution to the unending process of 
correction and elaboration which metaphysical inquiry needs if it is to 
adapt to changing standards and contexts. 
 
Notes 
                                                 
1 Ingemund Gullvåg, “Naess’s Pluralistic Metaphilosophy,” Inquiry, Vol. 18 (1975), 
No. 4, pp 391–408.  
2 Karl Jaspers, Psychologie der Weltanschauungen, 1st edition. 1919. Translation into 
English of this great work is still lacking. 
3 Gullvåg, p. 406. 
4 Ibid., see pp. 393 ff. 
5 Ibid., p. 404. 
6 Ibid., p. 403. 
7 Arne Naess, Communication and Argument, Universitetsforlaget, Oslo: George 
Allen & Unwin, London, 1965. Now published as SWAN Vol. 7 
8 Gullvåg, p. 402. 
9 Ibid., p. 400. 
10 Ibid., p. 401. 
11 Ibid., p. 392. 
Festschrift Section, Volume 22, Number 1 (2006) 
 
13


The Limited Neutrality of Typologies of Systems: A Reply to Gullvåg

The Trumpeter  
ISSN: 0832-6193 
Volume 22, Number 2 (2006) 
 
 
Arne Naess and Possibilism 
 
Andrei Whitaker 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Andrei Whitaker is finishing his Masters in Environmental Studies at 
Dalhousie University. His thesis is on the possibility of restoring wolves to the 
Canadian Province of Nova Scotia. The remarks below are a continuation of 
his conversation with Arne Naess held in Oslo in 2005. See his article “Five 
Things you Should Know about Arne Naess, the Trumpeter Vol. 22, No. 1, 
Winter 2006, pages 113–121. In this part of their talks they briefly explore 
Naess’s version of possibilism. For an article by Naess on this topic see 
“Possibilism and Reflections on Total Systems,” pages 29-42, The Trumpeter, 
Festschrift Section of Vol. 22, No. 1. There are also discussions of these topics 
in some SWAN Volumes, see especially Vol. IV: The Pluralist and Possibilist 
Aspect of the Scientific Enterprise, Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer, 
2005, especially pages 119–133.
 
It is just past lunch and Kit-Fai is on the phone making dinner plans 
with the Dutch ambassador. Arne is smiling and sipping a Pepsi while 
I’m sliding down the couch in a well-fed glow. We have been talking 
about my recent hitchhiking trip around the Lofotens, a small chain of 
mountainous islands hovering just above the Arctic Circle. Arne laughs 
as I confess that I forgot my thermarest and was forced to sleep on a 
yoga mat a friend gave me in London. He knows from experience the 
ground is much too cold for that.  
He starts to reminisce about camping and sleeping outside. He believes 
you need to go travelling and sleep under the stars while you are still 
young, though, knowing Arne, this statement probably has nothing to 
do with actual age. He tells me about his journeys on the Hurtigruten, 
the coastal ferry that navigates Norway’s fjords, and is delighted to 
learn that I have taken it. I don’t have the heart to reveal to him that I 
actually sneaked on board, but we do talk about sleeping on the upper 
deck in two chairs pushed together. I confide that I didn’t sleep much 
up north and felt lost in the constant light. In the Arctic, time seemed 
stretched thin.  
Arne nods and then hums to himself a little before saying, “There are an 
indefinite number of times. We can not possibly expect for there to be 
The Trumpeter 118
 
 
only one time.” My puzzled face makes him laugh, so he explains 
further. “Even in the human experience we have of youth, middle age, 
old age etc.; age itself is not definite. There could be places where you 
get younger and younger instead of older.”  
And with those simple words, I am introduced to possibilism, which as 
far as I can gather, is a philosophy that states that anything is possible, 
anything can happen. 
Arne continues. “In pure logic this is all right to say, while factually it 
is meaningless. You need to understand, there is a difference between 
factual relations and logical relations. For example, when you leave my 
home, I am pretty sure you will be in Oslo, but you could step out into 
Ancient Rome. Probably not, but it could happen. It is different from 
what you expect, but not impossible. How can you prove it impossible? 
You could prove it silly, but not impossible.”  
At this point I am starting to feel a little giddy, but luckily Kit-Fai 
interrupts my dizziness with a cup of strong tea. My thoughts are erratic 
and I desperately try to grasp something tangible. Anything is possible? 
That sounds like intellectual chaos. And then as if understanding my 
faltering mind, Arne suddenly gets up and starts to walk across the 
room. 
Kit-Fai: “Where are you going?” 
Arne: “I don’t know. How could I possibly know? But it seems like I 
am walking in this direction.”  
Arne reaches a bookcase in the corner of the room and picks up a 
framed photograph of Einstein. He murmurs “beautiful man” and then 
holds the picture up to the light. “Imagine having such an imagination. 
The concept of it is staggering.” He walks back to the couch and we 
start talking about Einstein’s famous youthful daydream of riding a 
light beam across the universe—a daydream that arguably led to the 
development of relativity theory and quantum physics. 
Quantum physics and space-time relativism have intrigued me since I 
was a boy, though I can’t claim to understand it all. Infinite is a hard 
idea to hold, especially when one considers the universe is both infinite 
and expanding. Luckily, Arne is knowledgeable on the subject and has 
even written a book on quantum physics and the work of Einstein and 
Niels Bohr. He believes the deeper you delve into science, the more 
philosophy there is to discover. As our conversation is dancing around a 
subject that has bothered me since childhood, I decide to shoot straight 
from the hip. Taking a deep breath, I lean forward and ask, “If the 
universe is expanding, what is it expanding into?”  
Volume 22, Number 2 119
As always when I am serious, Arne laughs as he answers.  
The Universe is expanding—not necessarily into more space—but it is expanding 
into something. This is not a logical contradiction, but it is not possible to answer 
your question. It sounds contradictory, but perhaps it is like a dream. Dreams don’t 
have any logic at all, yet while we are in them they seem to make perfect sense. It 
is not a contradiction to say that it is expanding, but not into something. Perhaps 
there are many places and no distances. This may seem like a factual 
contradiction, but we must not think that everything has to happen in space. Why 
does there have to be space? 
“There’s no space?” As I repeat that line to myself in bewilderment, my 
mind lets go and I finally understand what possibilism is about. It is a 
philosophy of imagination and dreams, an abandonment of the 
mundane to explore the empirically impossible. As this comes to me, I 
smile to myself. Arne notices and just says one word—“good.” 
The Trumpeter 120


Arne Naess and Possibilism

Rosenhek, Ruth

The Trumpeter  
ISSN: 0832-6193 
Volume 22, Number 2 (2006) 
 
 
Earth, Spirit, and Action:  
The Deep Ecology Movement as Spiritual 
Engagement 
 
Ruth Rosenhek 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Ruth Rosenhek is an international environmental and social justice activist, 
educator and director of the Rainforest Information Centre in Lismore 
Australia. Ruth organizes and campaigns on behalf of forest protection, land 
rights, and global justice. She facilitates experiential deep ecology workshops, 
teaches on spiritual engagement and is an active member of the Dharma Gaia 
Trust http://www.rainforestinfo.org.au/deep-eco/rosenhek.htm. This paper was 
originally delivered as a lecture at Griffith University's Environmental Politics: 
Dialogue and Dissent series in May, 2005. Email: ruthr@ozemail.com.au
I once gave a talk at the Wilderness Society in Hobart, Australia, and 
immediately after I was done, an older woman said gruffly, “I like to 
win!” “Good on ya.” I said. “I’m serious, I want to WIN!” she growled. 
“Win what, and at what cost?” I asked. 
Of course, she was talking from the heart about the forests of Tasmania. 
Anybody with a love for nature who has stepped into the Styx or the 
Tarkine would also boldly state that they want to protect these forests. 
To step into these ancient unique forests is to love them, to yearn for 
them to continue to be.  
I understand all too well the deep yearning to protect beautiful places. 
Years ago, when the deer came running into my yard as the private 
contractors put roads and houses into a previously pristine area, it was 
my desire to protect that forest that led me to become an environmental 
activist. But I ask myself, how do we balance our desire to protect a 
place with the deeper understanding that, in the long run, a greater shift 
in consciousness is needed? How do we work from a genuinely 
peaceful place, when we are filled with grief or anger, with frustration 
over the callous disregard for billions of years of evolution? 
I’ve found a nature philosophy supporting the deep ecology movement 
to be extremely useful in providing some perspective on the world 
environmental crisis. The deep ecology platform principles state that all 
The Trumpeter 90 
 
 
life forms have intrinsic value, and that richness and diversity of 
cultures and life forms are good in themselves. The platform strongly 
critiques human centredness or anthropocentrism and asserts that we’ve 
forgotten who we truly are. We think we can extract, exploit, 
manipulate, and control the natural world without any consequence to 
ourselves. We’ve forgotten that, when we stretch the strands of the web 
of life to the breaking point, we are threatening the very life force that 
we depend on, its air, water, earth.  
In a nutshell, the deep ecology movement reminds us that we are from 
the Earth, of the Earth and not separate from it. Its platform principles 
provide a way for Westerners to begin to understand our deep 
connections, and to experience, a little, the intimate relationship that 
many intact indigenous groups have with the natural world. 
None of our good efforts in the world will be binding without a radical 
shift in consciousness, a transformation in which we see, know, and 
understand who we truly are. “Plain and simple members of the biota,” 
as naturalist Aldo Leopold so aptly put it, although I prefer to say, 
“Beautiful Earthlings!” Changing awareness involves action. 
As an activist, I rely heavily on “Despair and Empowerment” work to 
clearly address the emotional challenges that are intertwined with social 
and environmental justice work. For years, when I lived in the United 
States, I was overwhelmed with grief about the state of the world. I felt 
isolated in these strong feelings, as if I were the only one who felt this 
way. I was relieved when I discovered the approach of deep ecology 
supporter Joanna Macy. She explained that our feelings of anger, grief, 
fear, despair (any of these so-called “bad feelings”) are healthy normal 
reactions to much of what’s happening in the world today. When we 
wage war on each other, it is the normal reaction of a human to feel 
great distress about the cold-blooded killing. If someone threatens a 
forest that you have a deep connection to, it is natural and healthy to 
feel grief when it is hastily felled.  
Instead, we are shamed for having such feelings from a very young age: 
“Oh, you’re so sensitive! What a little cry baby!” By the time we are 
adults we may discover that we are living a life where a large part of 
our intelligence has been suppressed, and our energy bound up and 
constricted in keeping these feelings down.  
Despair and Empowerment work affirms that our feelings matter and it 
allows our natural intelligence to flow. We then remember that intuitive 
feelings have been around a lot longer than the thinking typified by 
strategic planning. Intuition and feelings helped our ancestors to survive 
for millions of years. If we acknowledge our intuition and feelings, we 
are better able to find solutions and act in positive ways.  
Volume 22, Number 2 91
For me, it is extremely valuable to weave spiritual beliefs into 
environmental and social change work in what is called “Spiritual 
Engagement” or “Conscious Activism.” Spiritual Engagement shifts us 
out of the dominant goal-oriented ways of looking at our work in the 
world. It is about compassionate action, acting from a place of peace 
and love within us. This means that we choose to engage not from a 
place of shame and guilt, a place of “shoulds,” but rather because we 
feel strongly moved; because the work brings us joy and deep 
satisfaction.  
Theologian Thomas Berry calls our work towards a harmonious Earth 
community, “The Great Work.” I believe that The Great Work starts 
with healing the relationships we have to ourselves and with each other. 
Our relationships to ourselves are often tinged with self-deprecation and 
flagellation and, at times, we speak most harshly to our dear loved ones. 
The Great Work reminds us to bring loving kindness into our daily 
lives. This is the inner revolution that must take place if any of our good 
efforts are to be binding. 
For many, matters of the spirit and the soul are separate from action. 
But certainly this separation is illusory, much like the separation we 
feel between ourselves and the Earth, or ourselves and each other. 
Rather than sitting in a meditation room to find enlightenment, we can 
go like the Buddha, sit under a tree and touch the earth as we reach 
towards self-realization. We have the opportunity to make every act a 
beautiful prayer—this is always within our means. So if a campaign or 
a project is not going well as far as the final goal is concerned, we still 
can choose to act from the heart, to continue to care for ourselves and 
each other, and to intend that these beautiful efforts will ripple outwards 
across the globe.  
After speaking for a number of years about the need for compassionate 
action on all fronts, I found myself very concerned that there might not 
be a truly peaceful action that we can take. Near where I live, we 
engaged in a Gandhi-style fast for a forest. Yet, I noticed that even 
these actions caused vexation to others. When we went into the State 
Forest office in Coffs Harbour, and sat in a circle praying and 
meditating for Pine Creek State Forest and the koalas that live there, the 
office workers were clearly distressed by our presence.  
Even the most peaceful walk may cause distress to those with whom we 
publicly disagree. By merely saying “no” when they say “yes,” we 
create waves of disharmony. Yet, if each of us waited until we were 
fully peaceful inside, would we have a peace movement, let alone an 
environmental or human rights movement? After much reflection, I 
realized that we can first do our utmost to resolve feelings of anger and 
The Trumpeter 92 
 
 
frustration and then, with clear intentions, we can design actions that 
are as peaceful as possible.  
As the Thai Buddhist activist Sulak Sivaraksa said a number of years 
ago, “If you’ve worked on loving the World Bank and extended this 
compassion to the Bank, and yet still they continue to do their 
destruction unabatedly, then you agitate.” I call this “Compassionate 
Agitation.” I reckon it’s a fine line to walk, but it is certainly 
worthwhile to put our prayers into action.  
It’s not always obvious what Compassionate Agitation looks like. In 
1979, a peaceful “hippy” protest to protect the precious rainforests 
occurred at Terania Creek in northern New South Wales. An amazing 
protest it was, as protesters sang their way through very tense situations 
while ancient trees were felled.  
In the fourth week of the protest, a few people besought with frustration 
took matters into their own hands. They sawed up some of the logs due 
to be trucked out the next day. Many of their fellow protesters were 
very disappointed and claimed that this action was violent. The police 
chimed in saying that it was unacceptable. Yet, after this, the logging 
stopped at Terania Creek. These forests are now in the Nightcap 
National Park. 
I don’t think that it is always violent to do economic harm to another. 
Sometimes when our words are not listened to, we might have to take 
stronger action. Much as we would remove a child’s hand from a 
stovetop, we might find a way to peacefully move the state aside from 
destroying the environment, local community, and so on. 
The action at Terania Creek arose out of anger directed at the loggers 
and the government who took what they claimed as their property. Yet 
the forests were here long before the economic and political system that 
sold them to pulp and paper mills. Likewise, the Aboriginal people 
were here long, long before the White people arrived or set down their 
laws. Perhaps an action like this could have been done with great peace 
in the peoples’ hearts, as a group ritual with a prayer for the forests. 
Perhaps it could have been made into a conscious act of beauty. 
It’s not always easy to decide on what Buddhism calls “right action,” 
especially when we are listening and watching while something 
beautiful is being systematically pulled apart. During the first blockade 
that I participated in, a state forest was recklessly logged. As the trees 
groaned under the roar of the chainsaws and the birds shrieked above 
me, I could not in any way determine what “right action” would protect 
the koalas and others that lived there. I still struggle with this issue all 
the time as places we love are being ruthlessly destroyed. 
Volume 22, Number 2 93
There are different lenses that we can look through to evaluate our 
actions. Through the lens of the current political and social systems, the 
laws and social mores, things are certainly messed up. Everywhere 
around us nature, basic human rights, and social justice are critically 
threatened. From this point of view, we do political lobbying and letter 
writing. We show awareness-raising videos and run media campaigns. 
Then there is the wider lens of “deep time,” the 13.7 billion year 
spiraling flow of evolution from the Big Bang to current time. Planet 
Earth, 4.5 billion years old, is undergoing what some scientists are now 
calling a mass extinction spasm, unleashed by human enterprises. In 
previous upheavals on the planet, only one tenth of one percent of all 
species survived. Yet, after 5 to 10 million years, all the biological 
niches were once again filled up with new and extravagant forms of 
life. 
Finally there is the Unity spiritual framework that states that we are all 
One. Everything is Consciousness or Self or God or, as quantum 
physics has discovered, all is energy and light waves. From this 
viewpoint, what we call reality is dualistic illusion. There is literally no 
difference between me and a tree and a logger and a star. From this 
viewpoint, there isn’t a problem here on the Earth. Being in the midst of 
a mass extinction spasm, violent wars and global climate change isn’t 
problematic, it’s just the way it is. 
While there is certainly some truth to this abstract perspective, there is 
an unfortunate way that this understanding is being misused to 
discourage people from taking action in the world. A woman attending 
one of my workshops recently confided to me that she is confused 
because her friends tell her she shouldn’t bother to work toward change. 
Action is inferior, less enlightened than the more superior “everything-
is-as-it’s-meant-to-be” attitude.  
Understanding the interdependence of all phenomena is certainly part of 
the journey to self-realization. However, regardless of our perspective, 
the times we live in call upon us to nurture fierce compassion. This too 
is part of the “enlightened self.” Through compassion, we are moved to 
engage in acts that ease suffering on the planet. Even if we find 
ourselves in the fortunate position of living in nirvana-like bliss, why 
not share it around a bit and help ease another being’s suffering?  
Since we’ve incarnated for such a brief notch in eternity, why not 
engage in acts of beauty and joy? We can certainly make a positive 
difference to the lives of other beings. In Loren Eisler’s story, “The Star 
Thrower,” a young man throws stranded starfish back to the sea, even 
though another man confronts him saying it is utterly pointless since so 
The Trumpeter 94 
 
 
many starfish are destined to die when the tide goes out. The young 
man says, with deep satisfaction in his voice, “It matters to this one.” 
So I try to throw a starfish back into the ocean whenever I can. It 
matters. At the end of the day, this is what feels good. Money won’t 
bring happiness in the last moments. It will be love, deep satisfaction, 
and friendships. 
If we don’t know which particular starfish to throw, we can keep our 
eyes and ears open, to witness what is happening on the Earth. We can 
make ourselves available and send it out to the Cosmos that we are 
ready. We can be on call for when we are needed. 
The rest will fall easily into place. 
 
 
Volume 22, Number 2 95


Earth, Spirit and Action: The Deep Ecology Movement as Spiritual Engagement

Kopecký, Petr

Nature Writing in American Literature: Inspirations, Interrelations, and Impacts of California Authors on the Deep Ecology Movement

 
 
The Trumpeter  
ISSN: 0832-6193 
Volume 21, Number 2 (2005) 
 
 
Maturity, Adulthood, Boxing, and Play 
1992Z Unpublished 
Arne Naess 
 
There are plenty of things which delighted us as children that can 
delight us the rest of our lives, if we let ourselves go.  
  
According to the Norwegian philosopher Harald Ofstad, ethical norms 
may be condensed into one formula: To take the serious seriously. 
Personal maturity I take to be intimately related to that. But maturity 
should be carefully distinguished from adulthood. Since childhood I 
have associated adulthood with being meticulously occupied with what 
is on the whole boring. Ethics may require us to do boring things, but it 
leaves most of us plenty of time for what is not boring, such as an 
infinite variety to be found in our playfulness. 
  
One of the antecedents to my playing with boxing gloves was throwing 
heavy bricks at each other. Our gang had three or four members. We 
were very fond of each other. We never had real quarrels and we never 
hit each other in anger or even felt an inclination to do so. In throwing 
bricks, there was an evident, probably never explicitly formulated rule: 
never to throw at somebody whose attention was engaged in avoiding 
being hit by a brick coming from a different direction. We had to be 
very alert and make a series of comical jumps, laughing all the time. It 
did not make the play less popular with us that the mother of one of us 
sometimes saw us and implored us to stop. It looked dangerous and 
aggressive. 
  
Playing with boxing gloves also looks aggressive but ahimsa, no-
hurting, is an absolute rule when we do it.1 If one plays without any 
instructor, sooner or later, a finger or a rib may break. (Both have 
happened to me). So now I engage in this play, I am sorry to say, only a 
few times a year, and only with highly competent boxers. They are able 
to control every millimetre of the movements of their strong arms. One 
sequence which lately has elicited much laughter, as much as is 
compatible with keeping our jaw from hanging down too far, runs as 
Volume 21, Number 2 35
follows: My heavyweight, tall, athletic boxing-friend (Bjørn Barland) 
sends a series of punches to my stomach which I am able to protect 
with my bony elbows. The loud noise this makes is remarkable and 
delightful. It sounds as if there was a real fight going on. My 
companion then all of a sudden reaches for my jaw. His disgustingly 
long arm must travel far, whereas I need only to lift one of my gloves 
less than ten inches in order now to protect my face instead of my 
stomach. With astonishing speed and marvellous elegance he again and 
again is able to ”hit” my face before my glove manages to move the 
few inches needed. Mahatma Gandhi would have laughed! 
  
The general rule in such play is to reach for the limit of the other's 
capacity. It implies that my good-humoured boxing partner mostly 
slows down his movements enough to ensure that I have a chance to 
defend myself. My expert playmate has a difficult time following my 
rule that hitting should be more than just touching but should be 
without real weight. It ought to be clearly heard as a hit. In between 
”fights” we discuss his work as a graduate student of the sociology of 
sport. 
 
Maturity implies taking seriously what is serious, but there is intuitively 
more room for (ecologically innocent) playfulness than ordinarily 
assumed. Some mammals have the capacity to be childishly playful all 
their lives. Why should we not be among them? 
  
For me, occasionally playing with boxing gloves is great fun. Mock 
aggression or dangerous behaviour patterns belong to many sources of 
play we have at our disposal. Joyful play with boxing gloves is one of a 
hundred of its kind. 
Note 
                                                 
1 Fons Elders was the first, I think, who publicly lamented my play with boxing gloves, 
see his amusing Reflexive Water, A Condor Book, Souvenir Press, 1974,  p. 274–278. For 
him, hitting must be incompatible with Gandhian non-violence. 
The Trumpeter 36 


Maturity, Adulthood, Boxing, and Play

Morito, Bruce

 
 
The Trumpeter  
ISSN: 0832-6193 
Volume 21, Number 1 (2005) 
 
Editorial 
Bruce Morito 
This issue of the Trumpeter marks the beginning of a series of issues 
about Arne Naess and dedicated to his work. It helps mark the 
publication of the Selected Works of Arne Naess (the SWAN Project, 
2005) put together through the caring efforts of Bill Devall and Alan 
Drengson with the help of many others. We are grateful for their efforts 
to address the need for a collected works. The next few issues of the 
Trumpeter will bring together in one place other work by Arne Naess, 
which may not have been published or which has been published in less 
accessible journals.  
Many readers of the Trumpeter will find going back to the roots of the 
Deep Ecology movement a refreshing reminder, while others will find it 
a welcome insight into the principles behind the movement. Much 
effort and sacrifice has gone into the making of these issues by Alan 
and Bill. At the time of this writing, Alan is in Norway with Arne and 
Kit Fai doing the final checks on the contents and organization for these 
issues. We hope the Trumpeter’s readership will find this series 
inspiring and helpful.  
The series is divided into two parts. Part One: Arne Naess, His Life and 
Work, is divided into four sections and begins with an introductory 
editorial by Bill and Alan as well as an essay “The Life and Work of 
Arne Naess: An Appreciative Overview” by Alan. The Naess articles in 
Part One are organized under four sections: Section 1 “Total Views, 
Forms of Life, and Open Inquiry”; Section 2, “Values, Systems, and 
Communication Research”; Section 3, “History, Education, and 
Practical Applications”; and Section 4 “Local Grounds and Personal 
Mythologies.” Sections I and II are included in this isssue. Sections III 
and IV of Part One will be published in a separate issue this fall.  
Part Two: Arne Naess, Life and Work, with Reflections by Others, is 
more tentative at this point. It will contain further works by Arne Naess 
and works on him by others. 
Volume 21 Number 1 1 


Editorial

 
 
The Trumpeter  
ISSN: 0832-6193 
Volume 21, Number 1 (2005) 
 
 
Cultural Anthropology: 
A New Approach to the Study of How to 
Conceive Our Own Future 
1984F unpublished 
Arne Naess 
 
Until after the Second World War, most cultural anthropologists 
thought that progress for non-industrial cultures was towards 
industrialization of the main kinds we have today: the East European, 
the Euro-American, and the Japanese. Now (in 1984) a substantial 
group of cultural anthropologists think that our present mass societies 
show deep imperfections, two of which may lead to catastrophic life 
conditions. These are, first, the threat to use war with destructive 
weapons as an instrument of politics and, second, the neglect of clear 
warnings concerning the declining ecological health of our planet. 
  
The awareness of these grave imperfections in our own contemporary 
kinds of culture has led cultural anthropologists to be much more open 
for ways to study other kinds of cultures, and to refrain from using a 
conceptual framework biased in favour of their own kinds. 
  
There are in the West, at least since Rousseau, scholars who extoll so-
called “primitive societies” and believe in a so-called “noble savage.” 
However, today we have a rich scientific literature about conditions in 
non-industrial societies. Careful research is going on all over the world. 
We are in a haste because if the present trend of destruction of non-
industrial cultures continues, many fewer will be left by the year 2000. 
  
There are traits of some non-industrial countries that are highly 
laudable, or at least positively interesting from points of view common 
in our societies. For instance:  
 
1. Work-hours very low, in some cultures about 3 hours a day 
2. Different generations work together 
Volume 21, Number 1 59
3. Sharing children in big families or groups. Avoidance of family 
isolation 
4. Local self-reliance 
5. Absence of big hierachies of power 
6. Absence of haste, more dwelling in situations by enjoying 
intrinsic values 
7. Non-mechanistic view of man and nature 
8. Great and frequent feasts in which all join 
9. Time for artistic and scholarly creation 
10. High level of mutual help. Sharing and community 
(Gemeinschaft) 
11. Ecologically sustainable economy and habitation 
12. High general cultural competence 
  
It is clear that some admirable traits of some of the non-industrial 
countries are compatible with realization of those values that we think 
we realize to a high degree in our societies. Therefore, the study of 
cultural anthropology can be used for planning the future of industrial 
societies. 
  
Comparing knowledge in non-industrial countries with knowledge in 
our societies, there are sometimes differences of deep philosophical as 
well as of general interest. This makes us see our own kind of 
knowledge and science from the outside, from points of view which 
make them highly special. This is admirable in some ways, but it can be 
culturally, politically and ecologically dangerous in other ways. 
  
The alternative movements in leading industrial societies have much to 
learn from cultural anthropology, especially to see how admirable 
cultural traits can be realized, and how destructive traits can be avoided. 
In general, cultural anthropology might profitably be used as a central 
source of information today in helping to shape our future. 
 
The Trumpeter 60 


Cultural Anthropology: A New Approach to the Study of How to Conceive Our Own Future

The Trumpeter  
ISSN: 0832-6193 
Volume 21, Number 2 (2005) 
 
 
Science in Ecologically Sustainable Societies 
1992AG 
Arne Naess 
 
When discussing general priorities of action in order to overcome the 
ecological crisis, supporters of the deep ecology movement inevitably 
disagree to some extent. One reason is divergent visions about future 
ecologically sustainable societies. Or disagreement is due to divergent 
time perspectives. One participant has in mind actions in support of a 
fairly probable state of affairs in a comparatively near future, another 
may think of a highly imaginative state of affairs perhaps centuries 
distant from our time. In this discussion, I shall start with disagreements 
about what the participants mean by the word science. I say “the word” 
because the participants have very different things in mind. 
 
Some supporters paint a dark picture of what they call “natural” 
science. “The less of it, the better.” Others draw a clear distinction 
between the so-called natural sciences—primarily physics, chemistry, 
and mathematics—and the humanities, accepting the latter, for instance, 
history and archaeology. 
 
There are today millions who would gladly spend a considerable part of 
their personal Gaia gift for certain types of research. Suppose society A, 
on the way to sustainability, introduces tough legislation and financial 
policy with the result that a new more powerful telescope cannot be 
financed. There is a minority in A who believe that their astrophysical 
research requires this telescope to solve some, according to them, 
extremely important problems. They persist in applying for funds, but 
to no avail. 
 
One way to resolve the conflict is to ask people who are eager to 
support continued development of telescopes to  inform others about 
their attitude. Say five per cent of the population are positive, that is, 
one million out of 20 million. If they, through their money grant (a kind 
of tax on the telescope), or through work hours in sustainability-
increasing prospects, or through lowering of their energy use, reduce 
The Trumpeter 16 
 
 
their contribution to unsustainability, the telescope project should be 
accepted. The Gaia budget permits it. The average per-capita 
contribution towards sustainability is not diminished, in spite of the 
production and operation of the telescope. Evidently, the long way to go 
permits variations. Some are vitally interested in big musical 
instruments like pipe organs, others in telescopes. 
  
Some people reject every kind of industrialism, wishing that there 
should be no factories of the modern kind; others require very strong 
limitations. Even such tasks as restoring old paintings today depend 
upon a kind of scientific enterprise that was created and melded by the 
wasteful Western economy. As I see it, the necessary tool of effective 
restoration of valuable old paintings today is contemporary science, but 
that does not imply an amount of energy (E) and resources (R) that is in 
itself excessive. That is, my norm and value priorities accept the ER 
involved. So does that of saving the art treasures of Venice.  
  
There is no necessary link between contemporary mathematics, physics, 
and chemistry and the vast modern scientific enterprise in general. 
There are formulae discovered by the weapons industry, for instance 
formulae discovered in the 1930s and 1940s by theoreticians hired to 
make atomic bombs, which can be used without making bombs. This 
does not imply that the  actual contemporary use of formulae is 
politically ”neutral” (whatever that may mean). But I cannot see a 
justification for a conclusion that there are inherent unecological 
features attached to every contemporary use. Also I see the justification 
of publishing such a conclusion using the very “science” the author 
warns against. But I do not accept a certain kind of determinism: that a 
tool, whether a formula like E=mc2, or a tool like the Wilson Chamber, 
should have a power of supporting the contemporary kind of wasteful 
scientific enterprise. The gigantic research and development budgets of 
the leading industrial states could be cut to one per cent of their size 
without endangering, for instance, the use of some parts of 
contemporary science in the battle against ecological unsustainability. 
An example is the use of solar energy. 
  
What I find very doubtful is the generalization of the specific character 
of contemporary, very special scientific enterprise to every kind of 
future scientific enterprise, for instance a Spinozistic scientific 
enterprise. What is the chance of realizing a Spinozistic scientific 
enterprise? Small, it seems, but not zero. 
  
It is always difficult to make clear whether something we say is part of 
a description of a utopia we cherish, or part of a program to fight the 
Volume 21, Number 2 17
ecological crisis. I trust that the many things said against science and 
the use of science are warnings against misuse of research efforts. 
  
Suppose five per cent of the members of a society with 20 million 
people ardently wish to devote their spare time to that enterprise. They 
may ask for a big telescope. Let us say its energy and resource budget 
when distributed among the one million require ten per cent of their 
“Gaia budget.” If only 250,000 people urgently asked for it, it would 
require 40 per cent, and would be prohibitive, resulting perhaps in 
supporters starving or living in tents. Suppose though, that they are 
willing to eat porridge twice a day and never travel except by bicycle 
and so on; their lifestyles would require so much less than the average 
in a green society as pictured in today's utopias, that it would permit the 
construction of a formidable telescope. 
  
Suppose the beautiful old myths about stars are revived,  
and myths about a certain beautiful little patch of light in the 
Andromeda-region gets its appropriate myth, appreciated deeply by the 
millions who contemplate the heavens and everything they see. If now a 
tiny minority says the patch is a world of stars far away, I think it only 
just to let this be treated as a new myth, and not be prosecuted as a 
mistake. But what if the sincere and devoted believers in the 
Andromeda Galaxy myth say that there are probably more than a 
hundred thousand million stars there? “Quantification! An absurdly big 
number!” some would say. 
  
A minority following an old Indo-European tradition defend the 
quantifiers. Many even bigger numbers are holy! Actually, if we read 
Sanskrit dictionaries it is astonishing how many words, at least 
hundreds, are proper names of enormous numbers. Sagara, according to 
one usage, means the same as our word ocean in a geographical sense. 
But sagara is also the name of a definite big number. Descriptions of 
mythical events often contained quantifications. Different from old 
Greek mythology, rarely big numbers, but often number mysticism. 
And the tradition of Pythagoras, that everything is number, continued 
through the Western Middle Ages and is very much alive today. 
Extreme anti-quantification attitude is a Western phenomenon. 
  
Therefore, some of us try to see how research and quantification 
function within different total settings, trying to verbalize parts of total 
views characteristic of the cultures. Today, the myth of material, 
unstoppable, global economic growth seems to dominate the life of 
people in the materially rich cultures. Its notion of being productive is 
separated from satisfaction of vital needs, discarding the dictum 
The Trumpeter 18 
 
 
“enough is enough.” All other myths and actions in harmony with them 
are classed as unproductive, whereas the manufacturing and 
constructing of things, especially big ones, are seen as eminently 
productive. The notions of production, productivity, and ways of 
production (Marx) do not refer to caring, to serve each other's vital 
needs in real communities. Because research and science have been 
used with extraordinary success in perverted kinds of products, a 
negative attitude towards them has developed.  
  
The historical knowledge about Babylonian, Chinese, Indian, and the 
sciences of other great cultures, including their “hard” sciences, is today 
considerable, but has little influence on what is taught in schools. 
Western provincialism dominates and is now exported worldwide. It 
has been uniquely successful in the use of thinking in terms of models 
and also in specifying rules of testability—interpersonal, intercultural 
rules how to test hypotheses and theories. The colossal threat is due to 
its focus on mindless economic growth. Only a tiny, practically 
vanishing, fraction of research and development budgets goes to 
research done in a Spinozistic spirit. Studies dealing with humans’ deep 
attitudes towards nature and of how they could be changed, just to 
mention an example, are neglected or not even seen as relevant in most 
schools, universities, of privately financed research institutions. 
  
Research on rainbows using the conceptual framework of mathematical 
physics seems to some people to reduce the status of the rainbow. 
Perhaps they think that a certain kind of view about what is, or the most 
real, an ontology of such a kind, is implied. That is, they perhaps think 
that the very methodology implies a certain kind of ontology. And the 
ontology believed to be implied is attributing higher status of realness 
to the physical abstraction than to what is perceived spontaneously. An 
answer in terms of physics is thought to assert what the rainbow really 
is in contrast to what it seems to be. 
  
But what could be in the methods, the procedures, and the actions the 
physicists use or perform, that necessitates the assumption of an 
ontology, a doctrine, of realness, of such a kind? I cannot find anything 
of the sort. I do not believe that people who have such views about 
mathematical physics should, in green societies, get the power to refuse 
grants to research in physics.  
 
Five per cent of the population transferring part of their personal Gaia 
budget to cover the ecological expenditure required in cosmology and 
physics is, in my view, an admirable procedure. Their personal lives 
will be ecologically more modest than the required average of the 
Volume 21, Number 2 19
member of their society. They “pay” what research “pollutes” by not 
using the full amount of their personal Gaia gift for personal affairs. 
 
Other groups of the society may be enthusiastic about other kinds of 
ecologically expensive activities. Some wish to travel far every year. 
Others love ecologically expensive vehicles, but see to it that they use 
them sparingly, trying to use their bikes as much as possible and in 
other ways make up for the great ecological cost of the fabrication of 
the vehicles. 
 
The Trumpeter 20 


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