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90 HoumrilHawkins

could musten with the declining fortunes of the national Green parties inEurope, an effective confederal municipalist Green movement in the u.s.could demonstrate an alternative way forward. WHAT IS SOCTAL ECOLOGY?by lohn Clark

Social Ecology is a comprehensive holistic conception of the self, society,and naturei. It is, indeed, the first ecological pHlosophy to present adeveloped approach to all the central issues of theory and practice. It setsout from the basic ecological principle of organic uni$ in dfuersity, affirm-ing that the good of the whole can be realized only through the richindividuality and complec< interrelationship of the parts, and it applies thisfundamental insight to all realms of erperience.ln affirming such a holistic approach, Social Ecology rejects the dualismthat has plagued Western civilization since its beginning;s: a dualism thatsets spirit against mattet soul against body, humanity against nature, sub-jectivity against ofiectivity, and reason against feelings; a dualism that isintimately related to the social divisions that are so certral to the history ofcivilization - ruler versus ded, rich versus poo4 urban versus rural,"civilized" versui "savagef'male versus femalq in short, the dominantversus the dominated.ln opposition to this dualism, Social Ecology proposes a principle ofecological wlnleness, which Bookchin defines as 'a dynamic unity of diver-sity" in which "balance and harmony are achieved by wer-changing dif-ferentiation." As a result, "stability is a function not of simplicity and

Iahn Cla* teadta philosophy at Loyola Uniousity in New Orlwn* Author $many books and essays induding The Anarchist Momenh Reflections onCulture, Nature and Pon er (Blsck Rose Book, 7997) and most recentlyRenewing the Earth, an edited. allection o! essays inhonour ofMunay Book&in(Green Ptint). This es*y was lirst published in 7988 in n special numbu o/Telosdealing with "A Neoo Vision of the Worlil."

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