Edward Goldsmith

This is a review of 'The Way. An Ecological World-View' Rider, London 1992.

The Way.

Although goldsmith’s environmental views make him one of the leading figures in the supposedly progressive environmental protest movement, his social views hark back to the ‘good old days’ of tory paternalism and patriarchalism. His copious use of terms such as Man, hierarchy, purpose, and order, derive from the political terminology of the 1940s and 1950s. It is bizarre that he tries to harmonize such views with tribalism and communitarianism. There aren’t many anarchists these days going around demanding order and hierarchy!

The main feature of ‘The Way’ is goldsmith’s adoption of lovelock's theory of gaia. However, goldsmith has a significantly altered many of lovelock’s ideas. Firstly, Gaia is purposeful whereas for lovelock it is not, "Ecology has to be teleological, for purposiveness is possibly the most essential feature of living things."[1] Correspondingly, all life forms in this purposeful system are also purposeful, "The overriding goal of living things is to preserve the critical order and hence the stability of the Gaian hierarchy of which they are a part."[2] Thirdly, whereas lovelock abhors the idea of oomans regulating the environment, this seems to be a major goal for goldsmith although just how far he'd take this notion is difficult to say, "For natural systems to achieve their goal of maintaining their own and gaian stability, they must be able to predict environmental changes."[3]

Goldsmith supports a range of what are commonly referred to as deep green positions. Firstly, the importance of intuition in understanding the world. Secondly, support for tribal peoples and tribalism, "It must follow that the optimum environment for man can only be that in which his hunter-gatherer ancestors evolved, one provided by a climax ecosystem."[4]; "Ecologically the temporary settlements of the nomads are the most desirable, because they have the smallest impact on the environment."[5]; "There is no place for the state or its specialized institutions in a society that seeks to recreate for itself a sustainable existence on a sustainable planet."[6]

Thirdly, some support for Animals, "Human welfare depends on extending the circle of co-operative, communal relatedness to encompass all things."[7] "The notion that man's mental procedures are categorically distinct from those of other animals is a gratuitous assumption based on no valid knowledge of any kind."[8]; "It is probably more realistic to see consciousness as a feature of organisms - embryonic among the simpler organisms, and more highly developed with the evolution of the brain and the neo-cortex."[9]; "There is no fundamental barrier separating man and other living things."[10] If there is no fundamental barrier separating oomans and other living things then it is strange that goldsmith supports tribalists killing and consuming Animals but not killing and consuming other oomans.

Fourthly, that nature possesses true wealth, "Our greatest wealth must be the favourable and stable climate that we have enjoyed for hundreds of millions of years; our forests and savannahs and fertile agricultural lands; our rivers and streams, springs and groundwater; our wetlands and coral reefs; our seas and oceans, and the myriad forms of life that inhabit them all - these are our real wealth."[11]

Goldsmith’s position on a world government is paradoxical. As a tribalist, he doesn’t support local, regional, national, let alone, global governments and yet because gaia is a purposeful and ordered hierarchy it would seem to need a global government to reach its goals and protect the global hierarchy. He believes, "The critical feature of the Biosphere is an order which can only be maintained if all life processes within the Biosphere are subjected to laws or constraints."[12] He doesn't explain what the global laws and constraints are which would ensure order and hierarchy. He doesn’t say what sort of institution is needed to police these global laws but clearly this is moving in the direction of a global government.

The idea of a world government is anathema to a person who elevates the ecological wisdom of traditional societies to such a high level. Goldsmith praises vernacular man because he displays, "homeotelic behaviour - which is to maintain the critical order of the Biosphere."[13] So, how exactly could tribalists dotted around the Earth ‘maintain the critical order of the Biosphere’ which spans the entire globe?

Goldsmith’s belief that tribal knowledge is capable of understanding how the Earth works is sheer fantasy. There is no way that tribal peoples could possibly understand the Earth’s global Carbon spiral, the ebb and flow of ice ages on Earth, the oceans’ deep water currents, the greenhouse effect (which was conceptualized only a century or so ago), the stratospheric ozone layer, etc. etc. It is all very well to argue that, "Man is cognitively adjusted to the environment in which he evolved."[14] but this is true only in a limited sense - it can’t possibly mean that oomans have an instinctive understanding of the Earth’s various life support cycles. Most of our understanding of geophysiological problems today depends on the knowledge derived from space satellites. How could tribalists possibly understand the tiniest fraction of gaia let alone work together, on a global level, to maintain the purpose of gaia? Ultimately, goldsmith is an ecologist not a geophysiologist like lovelock.