POSTSCRIPT
173
The call for an ecology of everyday life speaks not just to our immediate
physical needs for survival. In addition, it arouses the desire for a world forged
by social desire in all of its forms: a life redolent with personal creativity and a
quality of community life based on humane and ecological practices. Ecology
provides a lens through which we may take a long and often excruciating look
at our own lives, a chance to evaluate the quality of our relationships, both
local and global. And if we are not heartened by what we see, we realize that
we have an enormous challenge before us. For once we appreciate the
interconnectedness of life, we understand that we cannot simply work to save
ourselves or a certain species of plant or animal—we realize that we must
transform society as a whole.
The demand for an ecological society cannot be reduced to an individual
or personal quest for a better quality of life. As I have tried to illustrate, an
ecology of everyday life entails instead a rational social desire to establish a
quality of life for all people, a desire that ultimately requires a dramatic
restructuring of political, social, and economic institutions. It asks that we
transform our love for nature into an activist politics that strives to bring to
society the best of what we long for when we talk about “nature.”
This requires that privileged people reconsider attempts to simplify their
life styles, to, in addition, grapple with what I call “the complexity of
complicity”: a recognition that, despite the attempts of privileged people to
extricate themselves from systems of injustice through personal life-style
choices, because of the pervasiveness of overlapping systems of power, they
will always remain embedded and thus complidt within such institutions as
global capitalism, the State, racism, and sexism.
But instead of despising themselves for this privilege, or trying to assuage
their guilt by individually trying to lead simple lives, privileged peoples might
instead begin to redefine their guilt as “ineffective privilege.” They may identify
their privilege—whether it be based on physical ability, education, economic
status, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or nationality—and they may
transform this privilege into a potent substance to be used for social and
political reconstruction. Guilt associated with the privilege of money, race, and
education, for example, may be transformed into time, economic resources,
and information useful to political struggles. Privilege within complex systems
of hierarchy can be morphed from paralyzing guilt into an active process of
thinking rationally and compassionately about how to utilize particular
resources to dismantle systems of power.
Recognizing the complexity of complicity means accepting that there are
no simple or romantic escapes from the challenges that stand before us. We
realize that instead of seeking comfort within a people-less wilderness, we
must confront and rebuild social and political institutions—a task that entails a
long-term struggle that is far from romantic. It requires that we embark upon
the often arduous struggle of working with others to create ethical and rational
political organizations and movements. An ecology of everyday life transforms