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Seeing Green: The Politics of Ecology Explained by Jonathan PorrittReview by: Ronin W. DoughtyEconomic Geography, Vol. 61, No. 4 (Oct., 1985), pp. 395-396Published by: Clark UniversityStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/144067 .

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BOOKS 395

chroniclers and the early European travellers to provide the setting for a discussion of prob- lems, interpretations, and reevaluations. Hys- lop provides a new map of the road system, which he compares to earlier ones; he makes new estimates of the total road length; he points out some of the great complexity of the system which had been overlooked by pre- vious workers; and he discusses at length the constructions directly associated with the road such as bridges, chaskiwasi (huts for message runners), and tampu (halting places sup- posedly a day's journey apart). Spacing, pre- ferred locations, and variation in architecture and its arrangement are discussed, and where appropriate, related to the geographical situa- tion, proximity to Cuzco, the Inca capital, and/or the nature of the ethnic group through whose terrain the road is passing.

In summary, there is a lot of interesting new data here, some excellent discussion and comparison, and some intriguing specula- tions. The major things which somewhat mar the study are some annoying editorial over- sights and an inevitable lack of detail in the apparently hastily drawn sketch maps which accompany the text in Part 1. For most readers Part 1 will be more detailed than they will care to read except perhaps in the summary sec- tions; for the specialist in a given Andean area, the descriptions will not be detailed enough with regard to either architecture or ceramics. But, for said specialist, the survey could pro- vide a starting point for future work, for Hys- lop's study is certainly an important contribu- tion to the field with regard both to the new data presented and to the annotated summary of the previous work of others. In any case, anyone whose research interest lies in the Andes will be well advised to read Part 2 and those sections of Part 1 which apply to his own special area; even a non-specialist will find things of interest in Part 2; and everybody will enjoy the pictures.

DONALD E. THOMPSON

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Seeing Green: The Politics of Ecology Ex- plained. By JONATHAN PORRITT. Oxford: Blackwell, 1985.

"Ecology seems to have a way of either making complete sense or making very little sense at all," observes Jonathon Porritt in See- ing Green, his attempt to explain and promul- gate what he terms "the politics of ecology."

The key to Porritt's argument, and its greatest strength, is his insistence that ecological poli- tics, the "green philosophy," entails a whole new way of seeing, and a new concept of being in the world. Without this Gestalt-like shift, ecology (the philosophy, not the science) appears irrational and hopelessly impractical. To "see green" is to acknowledge and em- brace the unity of being, to love and respect the intimate web of physical and psychical relationships we discover between the land, air, water, plants, and other animals. Man is not separate from or above this realm of con- nectedness. His proclivity, particularly in the modern age, to see himself as superior or dis- tant leads inevitably to the increasing disease of body and mind, on both personal and social levels.

Porritt's book is inspired by the Green Movement in Europe, particularly by the Green Party successes in WVest Germany, and the less successful activities of the Ecology Party in the U.K. for which Porritt is a leading spokesman. It is not a book about party poli- tics however; only a few pages are given to the history, activities, and political platforms of these parties. To those already sympathetic to the green perspective, this is unfortunate. "Green" actions have been so much rarer than words, especially in America where the earlier environmental movement proved inspira- tional to later European adherents, but left the status quo largely unchallenged, that a book about the nuts and bolts of the Green Move- ment would be welcome indeed.

But Porritt's purpose is different. In his own words, "it's an attempt to give voice to some of the inspirations and frustrations of being green." The emphasis is largely on the frus- trations-the frustrations of seeing the envi- ronment continually manipulated and abused for short-term interests; the politics of left and right, both of which accept the basic premises of industrialism, materialism, and indefinite if not infinite economic growth; and the inertia of citizens too numbed by governments, media, business, and education to even see alternatives for their general alienation from the world. Porritt is an angry man, and Seeing Green is an angry book, despite the author's attempt to shine a light on a new path.

Though Porritt writes that he does not want the book to be "another catalogue of eco- doom," over a third of it is just that. His targets are many and the familiar one: resource deple- tion, population growth, environmental deg- radation, nuclear energy risks, pollution, the

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396 ECONoMIc GEOGRAPHY

threat of thermonuclear war, unemployment, economic injustice, and social estrangement. Porritt's discussion of these problems is valu- able in that he emphasizes their ties to the prevailing world view which frames reality in such a way that radical alternatives are simply impossible. He is especially eloquent in dem- onstrating the absurdity of nuclear deterrents as a defensive strategy, and how such absurd- ity appears rational to policy makers trapped in the language of conventional warfare and competitive nationalism.

Yet the general tenor of Porritt's critique belies his own hopes to establish a new way of seeing. He is still knocking at old, familiar doors, reacting against the old rather than creating the new. Even in the chapters dealing with green alternatives, one senses that these are individual responses to present problems rather than a genuine shift in the political paradigm. They are presented as the alterna- tive to the problem, e.g., decentralization instead of centralization, or voluntary simplic- ity instead of demand stimulation. Such di- chotomies are an earmark of modern western thought. This conflict is apparent in several passages, most notably when he writes that the green philosophy must be argued from the vantage point of "enlightened self-interest" to be more acceptable to the public, regardless of how cynical this may appear. This may be practical politics, but it is certainly not a new world view.

Porritt presents the green alternatives to our modern dilemma in the second half of the book: "Ecologics" deals with the fact that many people are not even aware that their rights to a healthy and supportive environ- ment are being denied. Porritt details this "political determinism" and redefines genuine self-interest, wealth in both its spiritual and material dimensions, and healthy economic growth. The goal of green economics is sus- tainability and social justice, two ideals often deemed incompatible. The basis is libertarian (although Porritt denies the role of ideology in his new paradigm); decentralization and self- reliance are the cornerstones of the new econ-

omy. Additional proposals follow this libertar- ian model: unilateral disarmament, with- drawal from NATO, non-nuclear defense, self-reliant local economies, rural and urban solar power and other locally generated re- newable energy sources, and direct rather than representative democracy.

These alternatives have all been presented before, although Porritt does well in bringing them all together. Yet, the inner connections and unifying spirit are still sadly lacking. The quality of vitality and wholeness, the "old wisdom" which Porritt and others, both inside and outside the "green" movement are seek- ing to rediscover, cannot be implemented from the outside. It must be generated from within and flow from the process of transfor- mation itself. Such a process is then necessar- ily open-ended; answers cannot be mandated at the beginning. This process calls for pro- found and creative exploration of other ways of seeing, not black-and-white critiques of what's wrong and right. More interesting and creative ways derive from other sources such as Joseph W. Meeker (The Comedy of Survi- val: Studies in Literary Ecology. New York: Scribner's, 1974) and Christopher Alexander (The Timeless Way of Building. New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), both of whom are prepared to wrench us from tired mind sets of which Porritt is so conscious.

Chapter 14, "Spirits of the Future" comes closest to breaking through to a more unified vision of metaphysical reconstruction. If Por- ritt had used a wider variety of sources (no book in his bibliography was written earlier than 1973), perhaps he could have tied his political ideas into the wider philosophical and even literary current of thought concern- ing alienation and rebirth in the modern world. As it is, Seeing Green straddles the fence between practical environmental poli- tics and embracing a new way of thinking. It finally fails in both.

RONIN W. DOUGHTY

University of Texas at Austin

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