Clive Hamilton on New Ecological Consciousness (Part-1)

Since we discussed about Global Climate Change last semester (not to mention the ever increasing debate) I thought it's appropriate to post a 2-part video I came across. In these videos (20+ minutes per video) Clive Hamilton talks about “Consumerism, Self-creation and Prospects for a New Ecological Consciousness” in a lecture series titled “Rethinking Our Place in Nature”. To learn more about Clive Hamilton click here.


For those who are wondering if they should spend more than 1hr on watching a video that does not interest them, here’s the content or topics that Clive Hamilton talks about (I have created & listed them in sequential order, and being a blog I have divided them into two parts for respective videos).


Topics in Part-1:-



- What has ecology taught us?



- Industrial revolution led humans to control nature.



- Recent discovery that nature is unable to satisfy human desires.



- Must change from triumphalism to humility.



- How?


:- need for New Ecological Consciousness


But, how?


one method: use reason to overcome appetites.



- Human reasoning has never been sufficiently powerful to change human behavior.



- Ecological Consciousness built on science can appeal to human reason but can’t appeal to inner sense of self.



- Must change self in essence and not relationship with natural systems.



- Existence of world of deeper reality behind everyday world.


“World hidden behind nature which renders nature possible” – Arthur Schopenhauer.



- Schopenhauer Vs Kant



- Every creature has a will to live equivalent to that of every human.



- Identification of self from nature:


“in man as in animal that does not think there prevails a lasting state of mind the certainty springing from inner most consciousness that he is nature, the world itself” - Schopenhauer.


An expansion of oneself with such appreciation.



- Metaphysical error and moral failure of instrumentalist approach to environment (environment as catalogue of resources).



- Emergence of new ecological consciousness will depend on emergence of sense of self and it’s relationship with natural world (and not much on change of belief and attitudes).



- How can humans construct sense of self?

:– by philosophical changes.



- Occurrence of structural change of present society from Productive Society (PS) to Consumption Society (CS).



- Features of PS to CS transition (Differences between PS and CS)



- Reinforcement of PS -> CS transition by other social changes.
Social reform movements in 1960’s and 70’s.
Collective democracy to individual self.



- Invasion of marketers before achieving answer to the quest of autonomous identity.



- Individuality (our current percept of individuality) of marketing society is pseudo-individuality.



- Need for radical re-thinking of relationship between humanity and natural world.
Current environmentalists use the approach of Green Consumerism.



Still Interested! Click here to watch part-1.