In search of the primary causes of the ecological disaster

A revolutionary take on the relationship between environment and civilization, human ecogenetics shed a new light on the very functioning of the human mind and its possible dysfunctions, as primary causes of damages made to nature.

It asks an essential question, brushed aside up until now by the scientific world : for which reason artifacts created by our intelligence exceed so often our own capability to adapt, and the one of other living species ? Why theses artifacts seem so indispensable whereas they are not compatible with the requirements of the natural environment ? There seems to be a a biological or philosophical contradiction that ought to be cleared.

Once clearly phrased, these questions open the way to a radically new vision of relationships between mankind of the planetary ecosystem. All human activity must be reconsidered not only through the prism of its ecological drawbacks, but also regards to its inner purpose : does it fulfill a genuine or fake need ? What is the origin of this fake need ? Does it amount to blaming human nature in itself or rather what it became currently, shaped by the culture.

Traditional ecology centers its action on environment degradation processes and their material causes. It doesn’t focus on psychological factors, or even psycho-pathological ones that are at their root. It is nonetheless here that can be found the key to any and all longstanding reform towards real environment protection and restoring.

Historical basis for ecopsychology

Paul Shepard is a pioneer in the domain of ecophilosophy and ecopsychology. He initiated the reflexion on the effect on human psychology and human destructive behaviors towards environment. For him, eco-suicidal habits take root in an « ontogenic paralysis » that developed since the onset of agricultural practices, turning point where civilization believed being able able to cut itself from the natural habitat. Human ecogenetics goes further in the chain of potential causalities: the point is here to decrypt modifications of the functioning of mind that drove our forebears and us into environmentally destructing behaviors, of which the rise of agriculture was only an Initial symptom. We still have to elucidate the precise causes of these changes, altogether with the vicious circles they created and which now threaten the ecosystem and biosphere.

The ecological problem in its whole is bounded to the human mind inner working. Inventiveness, desire, will, illusion, extrapolation, fascination, occultation, dependence, self-centredness, sloth, avidity, fear, cowardliness, conformism, unhappiness, neurosis, paranoia, perversion: all these aspects are entangled. They determinate each interaction between humans and their environment and are subjects to all kinds of deregulations.

Why do we feel for instance, like the planet’s resources were somehow infinite and forever available ? What are the unconscious impulses responsible for our dependence on consumerism and its power of contagion ? Does the demographic explosion stem from humans’ natural instincts or from a deviation of these instincts ? From where might come the forces determining many men into pursuing an action we do know that is danger to the planet’s future ?

Starting hypothesis

The question is finally to know if the psychic functioning underlying each one of our inventions and behavioral change takes part of the natural working of the human psyche, or if it shall be considered as a pathological state for which our science doesn’t have yet accounted for. In other words: Might the origin of planetary degradation be looked for in a systematic insanity of global scale, in the medical meaning of the word ? Then would still remain the duty to see where this madness starts and where it stops. And above anything else: what are the causes…

You will find here the first ecological approach trying to shed some light the reciprocal connection between psychic functioning and environmental destructions, so as to define a kind of culture in all its aspects (social structures, norms of behaviors, diet and agricultural conceptions) which would compatible with the genetic data of the living world, and also individual happiness. It proposes thus a real revolution in thoughts and acts.

You will be able to convince yourself by browsing through the various pages of this site, each one exposing another face of this overwhelmingly important problem.

If you want to read deeper on this topic: click on the right button of your mouse, and all the commentated topics will appear highlighted. Then click on the highlighter expressions to let the commentary pop up. You will then be granted access to around a hundred articles, amounting to a two hundred pages book on human ecogenetics…

Good reading !