The Social Psychology of Compassionate Activism: Its Relevance to Averting Serious Environmental Disaster
by
Mitch Hall
Abstract
Research into the social and psychological roots of compassionate activism illuminates essential elements of how we can avert serious environmental disaster. To help build more effective movements of committed environmental activists, I review the evidence for what motivates people to dedicate their life energies to altruistic caring. First, I review the literature about the motivations of environmental activists, other altruists, and rescuers. I then review the literature on the psychology of bystanders and deniers of the environmental crisis. Next, I consider the interpersonal relationship contexts through which people develop caring traits toward fellow humans, other species, and the earth. The first of these contexts entails meeting the biologically based, developmental and attachment needs of human beings from the earliest stages of life. Then I discuss the necessity to meet human survival needs through social, economic, and ecological justice. Embracing nonviolence as a sacred, core value of human culture is the theme of the following section. The three dimensions of practicing nonviolence discussed in this essay are childrearing, transforming war cultures into peace cultures, and diet. In concluding, I consider how the caring relationships and altruistic activism needed to create ecologically sustainable cultures on earth could also contribute to human happiness.
Statement of the Problem
A third or more of the four million species on earth will go extinct this century, if current rates of environmental destruction persist (Union of Concerned Scientists, 1994a). The World Health Organization (2000) concludes from recent studies that many times more human beings are dying from the effects of human-caused pollution than from the combined effects of war and terrorism. Other well-known indicators of the extremity of our environmental crisis, to name only a few, include global warming, the depletion of the atmospheric ozone layer, topsoil depletion and salinification, the destruction of sea life, and the depletion and pollution of potable water. The latter condition is estimated to be killing over 12 million children per year (Union of Concerned Scientists, 1994a). Clearly, the environmental crisis is a cause of extreme suffering for much life on the planet. Yet only a minority of people are actively engaged in reversing the practices that cause this devastation. Understanding what differentiates activists from bystanders and adversaries might be useful to those working to build a critical mass of environmentally conscious citizens.
The Psychology of Environmental Activists, Other Altruists, and Rescuers
What do we understand about the psychology of altruistic activism for the environment, human rights, and peace? Horvath’s review (1999) of the literature on activism emphasizes that activists are more knowledgeable and concerned about the dangers inherent in the issues they adopt than are members of the general public. This has been found to be true of peace and environmental activists. Although accurate information is necessary, it is not sufficient to stimulate people to take action. For example, Finger (1994) observes that public opinion surveys throughout the world reveal that most people are aware of environmental problems and believe that they need urgent attention. However, his empirical research in Switzerland reveals “there is indeed little causal relationship between environmental value orientations, awareness, concern, information, and knowledge acquisition on the one hand, and behavior on the other” (p. 158). Similarly, Horvath (1999) found that “awareness of the issues by itself is usually not enough to induce people to engage in successful coping action” (p. 221). If information is not enough, what else is needed? Finger’s research (1994) identifies three factors: previous environmental activism, experiences with nature, and exposure to environmental catastrophes.
Previous environmental activism. Having engaged in activism, people are more likely to
continue to be activists. A key to such constancy of purpose appears to involve a sense of meaning, purpose, or calling that is found through the activism. Kovan and Dirkx (2003) conducted a qualitative study among long-term, committed environmental activists to investigate how they renewed themselves and transcended the danger of “burning out” because of challenging working conditions and the obstacles to success that they faced. What gave these activists their staying power? The researchers found that the activists’ struggles entailed significant transformative learning experiences that led them to see their labors as a calling that defined their purpose in life.
Experiences with nature. Hartig, Kaiser, and Bowler (2001) found in a study with university students that those who saw more potential for personally benefiting from psychologically restorative experiences in nature did more to protect the environment, such as by driving less and by recycling. In an increasingly urbanized world, this study highlights the importance of experiential learning programs that bring people of all kinds into nature and the wilderness for at least limited periods of time. The National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) and Outward Bound are two such programs.
Exposure to environmental catastrophes. Activism stimulated by such disasters as Love Canal is described in Edelstein’s work on Contaminated Communities (1988) and Bullard’s anthology, Confronting Environmental Racism (1993). Activism includes reaching out to other victims. As Ellis, Greenberg, Cody Murphy, and Reusser state, “Transforming their own trauma into a vehicle for helping others is a well-recognized aspect of healing for those who have been victimized” (1992, p. 53). However, not all those exposed to environmental disaster become activists (Ellis et al., 1992, p. 45). Catastrophe alone does not guarantee that people will awaken from inaction or denial and begin to work for ecological sustainability.
Being able to narrate one’s personal life story meaningfully within the context of nature can motivate activism on behalf of ecological balance. Kitchell, Hannon, and Kempton (2000) found that members of two environmental groups used storytelling as a way of forming the members’ identities and changing their behaviors. Cvetkovich and Earle (1994), in their case study analysis of “the construction of justice” in a land management dispute, observe, “Story structure has been shown to mediate decisions and affect the credibility of evidence” (p. 171). Whereas environmental issues are often presented in terms of data and scientific theory, this study reminds us that we humans need to find our identities and allegiances reflected in the context of meaningful stories that engage our feelings and imaginations as well as our intellects.
This recognition of the need for compelling stories is at the heart of Thomas Berry’s (1988) response to the environmental crisis. He calls for a new, powerful creation story compatible with scientific discoveries, yet also compatible with human dignity and with the need for envisioning the earth as our home. Roszak’s erudite critique (1992) of the mechanistic cosmology of classical science and of the soulless psychology that emerged within its frame of reference implies that such constructs do not give us an inspiring story that connects us with the earth or with one another. By contrast, Roszak finds, such new, heterodox scientific visions as the Gaia hypothesis and the Anthropic Principle give us a story of being at home on earth.
Horvath (1999) identifies three significant factors, beyond knowledge, that motivate people to become activists. (1) Self-efficacy, which is an empowering sense of our ability to effect change. When we believe our efforts can make a difference, we are more likely to initiate action and to persevere. (2) Perceiving that one’s own wellbeing is at stake. This is especially true when parents feel responsible for the wellbeing of their children. “Indeed, many of the grass-roots activists…are ‘housewives’ whose concern for their children, their homes, and their communities is transformed into outrage and ultimately into political action on behalf of others” (Ellis et al., 1992, p. 51). (3) Norms and values of significant others who are in our reference group and for whom we hold positive feelings. For example, “The best predictor of whether people purchase solar equipment is the number of acquaintances they have who own such equipment…. we can deduce three ways to enhance the consistency between pro-environmental attitudes and pro-environmental behaviors: join an environmental organization, maintain a sense of personal responsibility, and tell others about intentions to do environmentally responsible actions” (Winter, 1996, pp. 78, 69).
A meta-analysis of 128 studies on environmentalism, Hines, Hungerford, and Tomera, 1986/1987) finds that environmental concern in this country is more prevalent among people who are (1) better educated, (2) young, (3) urban, (4) Democrats, and (5) women. Plausible reasons can be deduced for these findings. The better educated are better informed about environmental issues. The young have more at stake in the future of the planet. Women are more often caretakers, especially of the young, and this may lead them to be more concerned about environmental issues. Democrats tend to be more liberal than Republicans and, as we shall see below, liberals tend to favor environmental protection. Note that these findings relate to concern, which does not necessarily translate into action.
Adams (1987/1995) developed a psychological model of peace activists based on his interpretation of the documented lives of several noted leaders. I believe his findings have meaningful implications for environmental activism as well. According to Adams, the activists he studied shared certain core traits that he contrasted with their opposites: (1) the acquisition of values and purpose, versus alienation; (2) the mobilization of anger, versus fear and pessimism; (3) engagement in action, versus armchair theorizing; (4) affiliating effectively with others, versus anarchism and individualism; (5) actualizing personal integration, versus burnout; and (6) attaining world-historic consciousness, versus sectarianism.
Adams’ research was based on the life stories of famous leaders in movements for peace and social justice. Environmental activists may need credible and inspiring role models, as well. There have been many notable environmental leaders with inspiring visions, such as David Brower and Percy Schmeiser, but they have not had the popular appeal and impact of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Junior. Perhaps the emergence of environmental leaders of such stature could make a significant difference in spreading the environmental message to larger populations.
Adams’ model of peace activist psychology is consistent with some of the other studies already cited with regard to the importance of affiliation, a sense of meaning, and self-actualization. However, Adams’ model neglects empathy and compassion as key features in the motivations of activists, although I think that empathy and compassion are presupposed by each of the factors in his model. The world-historic consciousness of which Adams speaks is based on universal empathy, recognition that we are all interdependent parts of the whole of life.
Emotions
Adams’ findings on anger (1986) as an emotional motivation for constructive activism merit comment. By contrast, fear tends to inhibit rather than to inspire action. “Instead of changing their attitudes, people tend to become more resistant to change when they are made afraid” (Adams, 1987, 1995, p. 36). Roszak (1992) and Winter (1996) also believe that environmentalists are not likely to inspire constructive action through fear. They both critique the environmental movement for having committed strategic errors in trying to motivate more people toward ecologically responsible behavior through “scare tactics and guilt trips” (Roszak, 1992, p. 35). Likewise, Finger (1994) found that media coverage of environmental damage instilled more fear in people, which led them to seek more information as a substitute for purposeful, pro-environmental action.
Indignation may lead to more action, but it needs to be guided by vision and balanced by other emotions such as compassion in order to be helpful. A more positive approach may help others to get in touch with their own appropriate indignation over policies and practices that threaten all our lives. Likewise, direct nature experiences may stimulate love and appreciation of the environment.
Defense Mechanisms
Psychological defense mechanisms, which typically develop early in life, serve to defend against disquieting emotions such as anxiety. These unconscious psychological maneuvers include rationalization, intellectualization, displacement, suppression, repression, denial, reaction formation, projection, and sublimation. Environmental activists need to take their own defense mechanisms into account and also to be aware of how their messages and actions are liable to elicit the defense mechanisms of others. Since the environmental crisis threatens all life on the planet and since it calls for profound changes in our ways of life, confronting it with full awareness will, of necessity, elicit strong emotional reactions and possible defenses against them. Therefore, as Winter wisely observes,
The feelings that we defend against will not be pleasant: anger, sadness, disappointment, shame, or fear, or whatever feelings we have because of our planetary predicament will be uncomfortable. These feelings are legitimate reactions to our situation, and our attempts to block them only stand in our way of true healing. Without the direct expression of such feelings, part of our psyche must be allocated toward arranging a defense of them, thus robbing our full intelligence for finding creative solutions. (1996, pp. 147-148)
This perspective on the need for full awareness of our feelings has major implications for environmental activism. Finger (1994) concludes his report on the relatively limited effects of environmental education with a recommendation, supported by the findings of other scholars: “One might ask…whether it might therefore be more pertinent for environmental educators to directly address the individuals’ experiences of fear and anxiety, i. e., precisely those experiences that prevent them from going beyond the standard environmental behavior” (p. 159). In other words, environmental activists need to relate empathically to people’s feelings in order to inspire relevant action. Feeling the emotions that fuel this pessimism could help release the energy bound up in defense against them so that we become more empowered for the formidable tasks of saving the earth. This pessimism is itself part of the environmental crisis. It needs to be addressed as a high priority because, “If we persist in defining ourselves as doomed, human nature as beyond redemption, and social institutions as beyond reform, then we shall create a future that will inexorably proceed in confirming this view” (Oliner & Oliner, 1988, p. 260).
The Developmental Psychology of Rescuers
What causes a person to become an activist? One factor could be his or her developmental history. Research conducted by Oliner and Oliner (1988) about the altruistic rescuers of Jews in Nazi Europe can contribute insights rooted in developmental psychology into the character traits of courageous activists. Forty years after the end of the Nazi holocaust, Oliner and Oliner conducted and interpreted in-depth interviews of approximately 700 persons who had lived in Nazi-occupied Europe—406 rescuers, 126 nonrescuers, and 150 survivors. Rescuers were “ordinary” human beings in most respects who also had highly developed altruistic character traits.
What distinguished rescuers was not their lack of concern for self, external approval, or achievement, but rather their capacity for extensive relationships—their stronger sense of attachment to others and their feeling of responsibility for the welfare of others, including those outside their immediate familial and communal circles. (Oliner & Oliner, 1988, p. 249)
What motivated these rescuers? The Oliners identified three primary sources of their altruistic motivation: “heightened empathy for people in pain, internalized norms of social groups to whom they were strongly attached, and for a small minority, it was a question of loyalty to overriding autonomous principles rooted in justice and caring” (1988, p. 249). Many of the most important features distinguishing rescuers from non-rescuers related to how they had been raised. The rescuers were raised with “close family relationships in which parents model caring behavior and communicate caring values” (p. 249). Discipline in these families is described as “lenient” and “almost imperceptible” to the children. In order to help the children to distinguish right from wrong, the parents communicated with the children, provided lots of reasoning and explanations of “why behaviors are inappropriate, often with reference to the consequences for others.” Physical punishment was rarely, if ever, used in the rescuers’ families of origin, and, if used, was never gratuitous or a means for the parents to act out their own frustrations and aggression. “Parents set high standards they expected their children to meet, particularly with regard to caring for others…in a spirit of generosity, without concern for external rewards or reciprocity.” The parents’ own behavior was congruent with these standards. In other words, the parents were good and consistent role models. They did not shame the children. They pointed to failures as valuable learning experiences, rather than as evidence of character defects in the children. This kind of childrearing provided the children who later became rescuers with security, a strong sense of family attachment, and an internalized sense of self-worth. Out of such families of origin the rescuers of Jews in Nazi Europe emerged. Having been cared for with loving-kindness, they learned to extend such care to others, even to stigmatized strangers.
I believe the Oliners’ findings about rescuers hold great relevance for the environmental crisis. Their research shows the developmental origins of deeply felt and extensive altruism. At the same time, their research about the rescuers’ childhood treatment in their families of origin is consistent with what we know from attachment theory about the childhoods of secure, psychologically healthy people in general (Cassidy & Shaver, 1999; Lewis, Amini, & Lannon, 2000). This view is held by deMause (2002) with regard to what he calls the “helping mode” of parenting. If we have not benefited from such childhoods, we can still learn empathy in the context of later caring relationships and transformational experiences (Hurley, Miller, & Luck, 1990; Kovan & Dirkx, 2003; Sorokin, 1963). Environmental activists who want to help more people transform from being bystanders or deniers into becoming activists need to develop sincere strategies of empathic communication to facilitate altruistic transformation.
The importance of empathic relationships to altruistic behavior was highlighted in the Oliners’ study. Rescuers came from diverse background and social classes. Many had been in humble, working-class jobs.
What most distinguished them were their connections with others in relationships of commitment and care. It is out of such relationships that they became aware of what was occurring around them and mustered their human and material resources to relieve the pain… They inform us that it is out of the quality of such routine human activities that the human spirit evolves and moral courage is born. They remind us that such courage is not only the province of the independent and the intellectually superior thinkers but that it is available to all through the virtues of connectedness, commitment, and the quality of relationships developed in ordinary human interactions. (Oliner & Oliner, 1988, p. 260)
I propose that interpersonal “relationships of commitment and care” can be the secure base out of which more and more people become aware of what is occurring in the ecosphere around us and become inspired to protect the web of life.
The Psychology of Denial of Environmental Destruction
Having reviewed the psychology of activists and rescuers, I would now like to consider research findings about the psychology of bystanders or deniers of environmental destruction. Let’s look again at the Oliners’ research findings as they pertain to non-rescuers. In contrast to the “extensive” personalities and relationships that defined the rescuers, the non-rescuers were found to have “constricted” personalities.
Constricted people experience the external world as largely peripheral except insofar as it may be instrumentally useful. More centered on themselves and their own needs, they pay scant attention to others. …Whereas extensive individuals are marked by strong attachments and a sense of inclusive obligations, constricted people are marked by detachment and exclusiveness. (Oliner & Oliner, 1988, p. 251)
The theme of experiencing the external world as “peripheral except insofar as it may be instrumentally useful” is relevant to the exploitative and neglectful practices that contribute to the environmental crisis. How do constricted people get that way?
The bystanders whom the Oliners studied had weak family attachments throughout their lives. In their childhoods, parental “discipline relies heavily on physical punishment, …often routine and gratuitous” (1988, p. 251). The parents engaged in little reasoning and explaining. “Family values center on the self and social conventions; relationships with others are guarded and generally viewed as commodity exchanges. Stereotypes regarding outsiders are common” (p. 251). The non-rescuing bystanders tended to be insecure and suspicious of others. They had limited information and limited social skills, and also encountered little diversity in their lives because they avoided interactions with people from different backgrounds.
While acknowledging that “extensive” and “constricted” are merely useful heuristics and not absolute categories, Oliner and Oliner found, “Knowing only whether someone was characterized by an extensive or a constricted orientation enabled us to predict who would be a rescuer or a nonrescuer for 70 percent of the individuals we studied” (1988, p. 253). These are quite robust findings.
Are there parallels between the constricted orientations of nonrescuers in the Nazi era in Europe and the personalities of bystanders who deny the environmental crisis? Milburn and Conrad (1996) cite research that shows “a clear connection between authoritarianism and opposition to environmental protection” (p. 201). Authoritarianism is defined as a character orientation marked by “rigid adherence to conventional moral standards; a harsh, punitive attitude toward out-groups as well as those perceived as social inferiors; and a glorification of authority figures” (p. 56). Authoritarians also shun introspection, glorify toughness, are cynical, and project their own sexual and aggressive impulses onto others. “Antipathy toward the environment and environmentalism is often associated with the punitive, authoritarian attitudes we see as the result of high levels of childhood punishment and denial” (p. 204). Why does authoritarianism predispose to anti-environmentalism? Milburn and Conrad postulate that the authoritarian
belief in the right of human beings to dominate, and even destroy, nature may in fact be the ultimate expression of denied rage. These themes of power and toughness, which are central to the authoritarian personality, appear to underlie many segments of the anti-environmental movement. (p. 204)
This repressed, underlying rage stems from the punitive upbringings the authoritarians had experienced as children, and it is displaced onto out-groups such as environmentalists. One study found that “individuals who hold authoritarian attitudes express hostility toward the environmental movement, rather than toward polluters” (Milburn & Conrad, 1996 p. 205). Interestingly, although authoritarians tend to believe in stringent punishments for those who break laws, they make an exception for polluters. Major polluters, such as industrialists and the military, are in powerful positions, analogous to the positions of the punitive parents whom authoritarians tend to idealize.
In another study, undergraduate students who scored high on Altemeyer’s right-wing authoritarian scale believed that environmental issues are “blown out of proportion by sentimental people” (Milburn & Conrad, 1996, p. 205). Milburn and Conrad analyzed several books attacking the environmental movement and found them “loaded with undocumented statements, misinterpretations of research, and factual errors—all reflecting the effects of denial on thinking processes” (p. 210).
Why would authoritarians be in such denial of the evidence of the environmental crisis? Milburn and Conrad (1996) speculate, “It may be that predictions of environmental catastrophe and death are actually very disturbing to authoritarians and evoke a need to deny their own potential weakness” (p. 219). This speculation has empirical support in studies about the effects of the fear of death among conservative authoritarians. Milburn and Conrad report on two experimental studies in which Greenberg and coworkers asked people first to think about their own deaths and then to answer some questions. In these studies, highly authoritarian conservatives, but not liberals with low authoritarianism, expressed “significantly higher levels of punitiveness toward deviants” and “an increased dislike for dissimilar others” after thinking about their own deaths (Milburn & Conrad, 1996, p. 219). Similarly, Bleifuss (2003) reports that Jost et al. had found in an extensive literature review of studies on political conservatives that, “Priming thoughts of death has been shown to increase intolerance, out-group derogation, punitive aggression, veneration of authority figures and system justification” (p. 9). I believe that the background of the environmental crisis, because it primes thoughts of death, may be a hidden causative factor in the current neoconservative rollback of environmental protections, increase of imperialistic war making, decrease of social services for those in need, capitalist “system justification,” and aggressive globalization (i. e., corporate imperialism) initiatives.
In the preceding discussion on the psychology of environmental destruction, three terms--constricted personality orientation, authoritarianism, and political conservatism-- have been used to characterize people who are likely to show little, if any, empathy, compassion, and altruistic action on behalf of those who are more vulnerable or in support of environmental protection. While the terms may not be equivalent, they are highly correlated. Most authoritarians are political conservatives with constricted personalities. They pursue self-interest in disregard of the needs of others.
Milburn and Conrad (1996) distinguish conservative denial from liberal denial, and this distinction is relevant to our discussion. “Conservatives have a tendency to deny the evidence of others’ suffering as well as feelings of weakness within themselves, while liberals are more likely to deny external evil…and their own aggressive feelings” (p. 8). Acknowledgement of the environmental crisis necessitates recognizing the evidence of others’ suffering and of one’s own vulnerability as part of the web of life. Consequently, strongly defended conservatives continue with business as usual and may even heighten their environmentally damaging policies if presented with information about the ecological crisis. Environmental activists need to recognize as empathically as possible that conservative denial of the environmental crisis may be a forceful defense against the conservatives’ underlying fear of their own vulnerability and death. Liberal environmental activists also need to recognize their own aggressive feelings. The anger, which Adams cites positively as an energetic source of activism, may, nonetheless, interfere with the capacity to empathize with conservatives. Empathy for those with whom we disagree can potentially increase the likelihood of constructive communication. Empathy does not imply agreement or approval. Rather, it entails realistic recognition of how people feel and think, along with respect for the fact that their life experience has led them to their positions, for better or worse.
Views of Nature
Dake (1992) also associates people’s patterns of social relations with their views of the environment or, as he called them, their “myths of nature” (p. 21). He quotes from one study that finds “‘adherence to a certain pattern of social relationships generates a distinctive way of looking at the world; adherence to a certain worldview legitimizes a corresponding type of social relations’” (p. 28). According to Dake’s research, members of authoritarian groups see nature as “perverse or tolerant,” as well as “robust” (p. 29). They are inclined to leave decisions about environmental risks up to experts. Participants in egalitarian social networks see nature as “fragile,” and favor “precautionary principles of environmental management” (p. 29). Individualists see nature as “benign” and believe in free enterprise, competition, and laissez-faire policies. Members of fatalist cultural groups see nature as “capricious” and themselves as unable to effect change. People with an “autonomous” orientation are asocial. With regard to environ-mental activism, the most likely prospects come from egalitarian groups. People with the other orientations are more likely to be bystanders or anti-environmentalists.
Meeting Humans’ Developmental Needs for Empathy and Care
In the preceding review of the literature on activists for the environment, peace, and social justice, as contrasted with that on bystanders and deniers of the environmental crisis, important personality differences emerged between the two groups. Activists and rescuers are more likely to be extensive, altruistic, informed, aware, egalitarian, open to diversity, empathic, inspired by a self-transcending mission, and closely affiliated with others in relationships of commitment and care. Moreover, as the Oliners’ research (1988) reveals, they are much more likely to come from families of origin where they are treated non-punitively, with respect, reason, nurturing care, and expectations of living up to high ethical standards as modeled congruently by their caregivers. Bystanders and deniers of the environmental crisis are much more likely to be constricted, self-absorbed, uninformed and unaware, authoritarian, politically conservative, closed to diversity, indifferent to the suffering of strangers, and weakly attached to others in relationships that are largely instrumental. The bystanders and deniers are more likely to come from punitive families of origins with weak attachments.
Recent research in the fields of neurobiology and attachment theory (Lewis, Amini, & Lannon, 1996; Pearce, 2002; Schore, 2003; Siegel, 1999) would suggest that the extensive, altruistic rescuers the Oliners studied had grown up with their biologically based developmental needs for secure attachment being met. Such upbringings would favor the optimal neurological development of the centers in the brain necessary for experiencing empathy and compassion for others. These centers include the orbitofrontal cortex, particularly in the right hemisphere, and the hippocampus (Pearce, 2002; Schore 2003). By contrast, the cold and punitive upbringings of the constricted bystanders to holocaust atrocities (Oliner & Oliner, 1988) and of the deniers of the environmental crisis (Milburn & Conrad, 1996) are likely to produce attachment disorders and lesions in the brain centers needed for experiencing empathy and compassion. The lesions result in a reduction of the neuronal matter in the affected centers by up to 40 percent. Studies of the history of childhood in Western civilization (deMause, 2002) reveal that the kind of childhood experienced by the constricted bystanders has been the statistical norm, while that experienced by the rescuers, and presumably other altruists, has been the exception. In developmental perspective, it is not surprising, therefore, that so relatively few people in Nazi Europe were rescuers. The Yad Vashem project was able to document about 6,000 rescuers (Oliner & Oliner, 1988). Likewise, if you believe deMause’s historical interpretations of childrearing patterns, it is not surprising that so few people have become fully aware of the accelerating environmental crisis and actively engaged in preventing it from turning into an even more serious ecological disaster.
The above discussion of the developmental history of altruism is not intended to be narrowly deterministic. Many people who experience punishment and trauma in childhood overcome it and may become altruists, thanks to any combination of transformative experiences (Hurley, Miller, & Luck, 1990; Sorokin, 19963), psychotherapy (Lewis, Amini, & Lannon, 2000; Schore, 2003), and the support of compassionate emotional witnesses to their suffering (Miller, 2003).
Research on differences between activists and bystanders suggests that we need to take care of the biologically based developmental needs of human beings for empathy, nurturance, care, and nonviolence, especially in childhood, if we are to expect human beings to care for the earth. The addictive, compulsive consumerism that hastens planetary destruction has been viewed as a desperate attempt to fill an inner void (Kasser & Kanner, 2004; Riebel, 2001).
Those whose primary needs were not satiated become the insatiable. The emotionally starved are the mega-greedy that cannot stop devouring and acquiring. We are the only animal that consumes itself to death. We are the future eaters, driven by bottomless despair and longing for love lost. (Robin Grille, personal communication, November 24, 2003)
On the other hand, I propose that people whose attachment needs have been met early in life are more likely to become naturally capable of caregiving later in life. This includes providing for the kind of natural environment in which caring, fulfilling, and healthy lives are possible.
Meeting Human Survival Needs: Social, Economic, and Environmental Justice
The basic resources for human survival are distributed in a far from equitable fashion, and this contributes to scarcity for numerous people.
“The 225 richest individuals have a combined wealth of over $1 trillion, which is equal to the annual income of the poorest 47 percent of the world’s population, or 2.5 billion people. By comparison: ‘It is estimated that the additional cost of achieving and maintaining universal access to basic education for all, basic health care for all, reproductive health care for all women, adequate food for all and safe water and sanitation for all is roughly $40 billion a year. This is less than 4 percent of the combined wealth of the 225 richest people in the world’ [U.N.H.D.R.1998]” (Gilligan, 2001, p. 82)
That such egregious imbalances of wealth and power can pass for normal to anyone is a sign of denial and callousness. Yet governments, laws, and ideologies defend these inequalities. About 18 million deaths a year worldwide are due to hunger, lack of sanitary water, and other consequences of relative poverty (Gilligan, 1997). This is more deaths than those due to armed conflict.
Fortunately, some people have been actively making the connections between extreme social stratification and environmental devastation. The environmental justice movement combines a focus on human rights and social and economic justice issues with environmental concerns (Bullard, 1993; Montague, 2002b; Pinderhughes, in press). It combines at least eight different movements--civil rights, occupational safety and health, indigenous peoples and native land rights, toxics, third-world solidarity, human rights, environmental, community-based activism, sufferers and survivors of environmental illnesses, and international zero waste and clean production movements. Moreover, labor unions have joined in the anti-globalization movement, and they can provide a countervailing force to environmentally destructive and inhumane corporate domination. For example, the United Auto Workers have taken a stand against NAFTA and the FTAA, stating “Ten years ago, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) began eroding workers’ rights, good paying jobs, and the environment” (Solidarity, November 2003, p. 28). The potential of the environmental justice movement, in alliance with other progressive forces for peace and justice, is great. “Together they could create a massive counterforce that could take us off the earth-destroying path that our unelected leaders have chosen” (Montague, 2002a, p. 2).
Embracing Nonviolence as a Sacred, Core Value of Human Culture
If life as we know it is to be saved from serious ecological disaster, nonviolence needs to become a sacred, core value of human cultures. In using the word “sacred,” I am not referring to any particular religious tradition. Rather, I mean a widespread spiritual awakening regarding the interdependence and sanctity of all life. Violence in childrearing, as we have seen, is harmful to the child and produces an adult less likely to engage in altruistic activism. The structural violence of extreme socioeconomic stratification leads to excess deaths and much preventable suffering. It also adds to the destructive pressures on the environment. The environmental crisis itself can be considered violence against the earth, other species, and humanity. The right to a viable, toxin-free natural environment needs to be considered one of our fundamental human rights. Earlier, we have already seen a profile of nonviolence in childrearing. This section will briefly discuss two other dimensions of nonviolence in action and it implications for the environment: transforming war cultures into peace cultures, and the nonviolence of a vegetarian diet.
Transforming war cultures into peace cultures. Militarism and war are among the major contributors to our environmental crisis. Nuclear testing, the manufacture and deployment of bombs, land mines, defoliants, depleted uranium, and large-scale military use of petrol-fueled vehicles are all direct environmental threats. “In the United States the Pentagon is responsible for one third of the nation’s toxic wastes, producing more pollution than the top five multinational chemical corporations combined” (Winter, 1996, p. 100). These toxic wastes are only those within our nation’s borders, where at least there is the potential for citizens to participate in the environmental impact statement process and in holding the government accountable (Miller & Painter, 1991). No such legal restraints pertain to the ecological impact of wars fought overseas. The U.S. military has been using a radioactive substance, called depleted uranium or U-238, in combat since the early 1990s. U-238 is used in ammunition shells, in the armor plating of tanks, and as ballast in missiles and aircraft (Caldicott, 2002). This extremely toxic substance has a half-life of 4.5 billion years. This means the land, water, air, and life forms in the areas where it is used are henceforth contaminated for countless generations. Epidemic increases in certain cancers and in birth deformities have been noted in the areas where these weapons have been used (Caldicott, 2002). The same is true for the military use of defoliants, such as the dropping in Vietnam of tons of Agent Orange, which contains extremely toxic dioxins, that cause multiple, chronically debilitating, or fatal, health problems (Physicians for Social Responsibility and the Environmental Defense Fund, 1994). In effect, the military is waging a war against the environment and against all who live and breathe in it.
Just as important, expenditures on these military activities and materials divert money from other causes. With about 52 percent of the U. S. national budget dedicated to the military, social and environmental needs are sacrificed to military might. “Military expenditures are a key part of the problem: they place a major drain on national resources, and when budgets get tight, governments are more likely to maintain spending for the military rather than for social needs” (Union of Concerned Scientists, 1994c, p. 4).
The military drain is enormous: $15 to $20 of every $100 spent by central governments now goes to military purposes, triple their budgets for education, eight times their budgets for housing. Reducing military expenditures by a mere one quarter would finance the solutions to pressing environmental problems. (Winter, 1996, p. 101).
War is violence against humanity and against the earth. Nonviolent alternatives to settling disputes among nation-states can make an enormous contribution to environmental restoration. The growing global peace movement is concurrently an important part of the movement to prevent serious environmental disaster.
Vegetarianism – a small personal step with environmental consequences. Our daily meals can be opportunities for the practice of nonviolence with significant consequences for sustaining the environment (Rifkin, 1992; Robbins, 2001). Substantial evidence supports this contention. A vegetarian diet leaves a lighter ecological footprint on the environment. For example, 1.4 billion people could be fed by the grain and soybeans eaten by U. S. livestock (Robbins, 2001, p. 292). Modern industrial meat production also involves excessive use of pesticides, hormones, antibiotics, and the production of so much waste that rivers are contaminated and oceans near estuaries are now sites of “dead zones.” Furthermore, meat is an institutionalized yet invisible form of violence (Joy, 2002). Choosing a vegetarian diet, which is safe for most people, is a way of manifesting the value of nonviolence in daily life. Among its many other benefits, vegetarianism can help save the rainforests, reduce water pollution, save topsoil, reduce fossil fuel consumption, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, lower the risks of global warming, and feed millions of hungry and starving people (Riebel & Jacobsen, 2002; Robbins, 2001).
Concluding Comments
As discussed in this paper, caring and empathic human relationships are a necessary source for the altruistic, environmental activism that is needed to avert further serious ecological degradations and extinctions. When caregivers are empathic and nonviolent in childrearing and set an altruistic example, the children grow up more likely to become compassionate activists and rescuers. Dealing with the humanitarian crisis of poverty, racism, and inequality is an essential element of dealing with the environmental crisis.
Fortunately, this element of compassionate childrearing, which I have described as needed to save the planet from human-caused destruction, is also what is most likely to produce greater human happiness. Winter (1996) notes the findings of empirical research that most people who are asked about what makes them happy mention “satisfying close relationships with friends, family, and romantic partners” (p. 107). By contrast, those people who are most focused on consumerism and the accumulation of wealth are the least happy (Kohn, 1999). “Close, caring relationships may be among the casualties of a life devoted to getting rich” (Kohn, 1999). Actually, it appears that the lack of caring relationships from the beginning of life leads to materialistic obsessions and does not merely derive from them. One research project among 18-year-olds found that those “for whom financial success was especially important turned out to be disproportionately likely to have mothers who were not very nurturing” (Kohn, 1999). These findings are consistent with the research previously reviewed about the constricted personalities of bystanders (Oliner & Oliner, 1988). On the positive side, researchers have found that
pursuing goals that reflect genuine human needs, like wanting to feel connected to others, turns out to be more psychologically beneficial than spending one’s life trying to impress others or to accumulate trendy, fancy gizmos and the money to keep buying them. (Kohn, 1999)
Recent research about the health benefits of altruistic activism demonstrates that working for the good of the planet is good for us. Drury (2003) and associates conducted in-depth interviews of 40 activists from diverse backgrounds who had been involved in over 160 collective actions, including protests against environmental damage. The research reveals that the activists derived long-lasting feelings of wellbeing and reductions of stress, anxiety, depression, and pain. A key to the benefits, according to the research, was the sense of unity, mutual support, and collective identity that the activists experienced from joining others in pursuit of the common good. Decades ago, Sorokin’s research (1963) had reached similar findings about the health benefits of creative altruism. It is important, however, to do what is possible to prevent and treat burnout, which can mitigate these advantages.
Recognizing the need for solidarity in actions that support the earth and all disadvantaged and oppressed people, Pilisuk and Parks (1986) state, “If there is to be a coming together, it will depend upon our recognizing how much we need one another in the continuous fight for a more caring social order” (p. 199). Recognizing the personal alienation at the core of this earth-destroying civilization, they write,
If there is a cure to be found for our aloneness, it will not only be in our coming together as individuals, but in our connecting into circles, tied to other circles of all people and of all cultures. In this connecting, the boundaries of individual circumstances, of city, and of nation will merge with the boundaries of nature, and we can become allied once again in reverence for all our living earth. These connections appear to be part of the Tao of survival. They are not only paths of political commitment, but also a state of mind and of heart.
The transitions from ‘you or me’ to ‘you and me,’ from ‘me’ to ‘all of us,’ are profound. They will not, however, enable us to draw blood from a stone. The obstacles of aggressive competition, of troubled economies, and of radically differing ideologies will remain. It is our connections, perhaps only our connections, that will help us transcend such differences and focus upon an interdependent and loving world. (p. 201)
In the above statement, Pilisuk and Parks call for the growth of the kind of altruistic, empathic, compassionate, collaborative activism that this essay posits as needed for averting serious environmental disaster.
I believe that attending to the psychological dimensions of the environmental crisis, as discussed in this essay, is one of the most pressing needs for environmental educators, researchers, and activists. If we can do this to the extent required, we can move from the prevailing mood of pessimism to optimism about the prospects for our species and for our planet. Together we can save the earth from further environmental destruction. We can maintain the biosphere as hospitable to life in all its wondrous diversity. We can create ecologically sustainable human cultures. We can bring the impact of the human species into balance with our earth’s carrying capacity and life-supporting limits. We can make ecological sustainability a guiding principle of our lives and social institutions. We are blessed with the creative visions and voices of many environmental innovators and inventers. We can adopt ecologically appropriate technologies and practices. We can reverse the destructive patterns that threaten us all. We can continue to mobilize the growing movement for ecological sustainability, environmental justice, human rights, and peace. Together we can do this, and we can do it nonviolently and compassionately.
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