by Peyton Barrett, F25 Environmental Clinic student
Daniel P. Sulmasy, Director of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown University, wrote in a 2013 essay that “Every ethos implies a mythos.” He asserted that the actions we take are necessarily informed by the stories we tell ourselves “about some very basic questions such as the nature of the universe, the meaning of the human, the nature of value, the purposes (or lack thereof) of human freedom, and others.” To be effective advocates for the environment, it is not enough to have a firm grasp on statutes, regulations, and case law. It is also imperative to have a cohesive mythos about the relationship between nature and humanity. Pope Francis’ 2015 encyclical (papal letter) exemplifies how two competing ecological paradigms can emerge from differences in narratives.
Pope Francis entitles the modern, anthropocentric view of earth the “technocratic paradigm.” This mythos “exalts the concept of a subject who, using logical and rational procedures, progressively approaches and gains control over an external object” and is characterized by human domination, privatization, and commodification of nature. Under this paradigm, the relationship between humanity and nature is antagonistic and confrontational. Instead of seeing ourselves as being a part of nature, we view ourselves as separate from, and superior to, it. We are “masters, consumers, ruthless exploiters, unable to set limits on (our) immediate needs.” Humanity must conquer and subdue nature through ridding it of its mysterious qualities and endlessly exploiting its resources.
However, because humans are a part of nature, this paradigm also perverts human lives, especially those in poverty, into expendable resources. “One often has the impression that their problems are brought up as an afterthought, a question which gets added almost out of duty or in a tangential way, if not treated merely as collateral damage.” The technocratic solution to poverty and hunger utilizes the same internal logic that produces the problem: “economics and technology will solve all environmental problems…the problems of global hunger and poverty will be resolved simply by market growth.” This paradigm “has made it easy to accept the idea of infinite or unlimited growth…based on the lie that there is an infinite supply of the earth’s goods.”
Pope Francis asserts that “(t)here needs to be a distinctive way of looking at things, a way of thinking, policies, an educational programme, a lifestyle and a spirituality which together generate resistance to the assault of the technocratic paradigm.” For this purpose, he proposes “integral ecology” as a model for a healthy mythos with which to approach our relationship with nature. “Nature cannot be regarded as something separate from ourselves or as a mere setting in which we live. We are part of nature, included in it and thus in constant interaction with it.” Every human problem, such as poverty and injustice, implicates environmental concerns, and every environmental problem, such as climate change and biodiversity loss, implicates human concerns because “(w)e are faced not with two separate crises, one environmental and the other social, but rather with one complex crisis which is both social and environmental.”
When we learn to view ourselves as inseparable from nature, it becomes difficult to ignore the ecological crisis for the sake of convenience. “Our “dominion” over the universe should be understood more properly in the sense of responsible stewardship.” We are not masters over a planet that is inferior to us; we are fellow participants in the natural cycles of nature. We are “endowed with intelligence,” but this intelligence implies greater responsibility, not greater worth. Natural resources are not merely resources to be exploited, for “they have value in themselves.”
Pope Francis utilizes the Christian narrative as a mythos from which he derives his environmental justice ethos. However, it is by no means the only narrative by which a healthy environmentalism can be derived. If every ethos implies a mythos, it is incumbent upon every practitioner of environmental law to ask themselves what their mythos is and how their narrative about humanity’s relationship with nature affect the way they advocate for the earth. Extensive knowledge of statutes and regulations won’t be persuasive or sustainable unless grounded in a vision of the human-nature relationship.
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