ECOLOGY OF EVERYDAY LIFE
144
As previously discussed, there are three moments to oppositional desire.
In the first critical moment, we begin to analyze social relationships or
institutions, assessing the extent to which they enhance or reverse the trend in
natural
evolution
toward
increasing
mutualism,
differentiation,
and
development. Here, for instance, we look critically at social relationships such
as the state and capitalism that inhibit full and direct participation of citizens,
reducing them to passive consumers of pre-packaged representatives. We look
as well at capitalist activity that hoards native lands, disenfranchising diverse
cultures into extinction, and driving species into extinction through pollution
and eco-system destruction.
In the next phase of oppositional desire, the moment of resistance., we
begin to resist these institutions, protesting specific harms that they cause,
while popularizing a general critique of the implications of their hierarchical
structure. A resistant dimension of oppositional desire for nature is expressed
by environmental groups who link the general problem of capitalism and the
state to particular moments of ecological destruction. For instance, during the
campaign against Hydro Quebec, spokeswoman Winona La Duke contested
the building of a system of dams at James Bay that would flood thousands of
acres of native land in Canada and the U.S., identifying both capital and state
structures as playing a crucial and devastating role in social and ecological
devastation. The
oppositional desire expressed by indigenous
peoples,
feminists, social anarchists, and social ecologists—all those fighting for social
and
ecological
justice—-represents
moments
of
resistance
against
the
qualitatively dangerous aspects of the hierarchical structure of the state and
capital.
Finally, oppositional desire would be incomplete if it were not fulfilled
by a reconstiuctive moment. For the struggle for freedom assumes two forms:
while ‘negative freedom5 represents the desire to negate, or abolish unjust
institutions, ‘substantive freedom5 is the assertion of that which must replace
those negated structures. Again, while negative freedom is a demand for
‘freedom from5 particular forms of injustice, substantive freedom is a demand
for the ‘freedom to5 create new institutions that will improve the quality of life
for all.
And so, as we move into the reconstructive moment of oppositional
desire, the moment in which we consider our substantive desires, we now face
a series of intriguing questions: what quality of social relationships is rational to
desire? What kinds of social relationships will allow us to further the
evolutionary trends toward social and biological complexity and freedom? And
what kind of political institutions will best facilitate the fulfillment of rational
social desire? Perhaps most important, we need to think about what objective
criteiia we may use to determine what constitutes social relationships that are