num_pages: 196
description: Murray Bookchins frank assessment of the disaster we are heading toward at increasing speed is as much a work of ethics as it is of environmentalism. The four essays that comprise it share the view that as he puts it our ideas and our practice must be imbued with a deep sense of ethical commitment. Whether he is critiquing the market economy the state or the ideacommon to both capitalists and certain left materialiststhat human beings are motivated solely by greed and self-interest Bookchin ever reminds us of the ineffable values of freedom self-consciousness and social harmony.Though first published in 1986 Bookchins framework still applies. The moral relativism of the 1980sthe politics of lesser-evils and risk vs benefit calculationshas morphed into what we now refer to as both-sidesism and the risk vs benefit calculations of yesterday are the 100000 acre burn scars seen throughout the American west today. Beyond moral relativism or moral absolutism is an ecologically based ethicsone that sees our selfhood reason and freedom as stemming from natures variety and resilience. Bookchins social ecology refuses to separate society from nature. As such one can consider it a philosophy of participationwe cannot develop ecocommunities that arent participatory. We cant save ourselves and the planet without an ethics of freedom. This edition with a new introduction by Bookchin scholar Andy Price is a breath of fresh air for a left that seems to have forgotten basic truths.
language: English
title: The Modern Crisis
publisher: AK Press