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Crisis and ecovillages
The creation of ecovillages was from the outset a reaction to an anticipated (or,
according to others, ongoing) crisis: their inhabitants believe that current ecological,
economic, social and moral processes are leading the Earth and human society
towards disaster. The concept of the eco-village is a critigue of processes that are
seen as negative (the global economy, global power elite, consumer culture,
ecological crisis, depressed countryside, urbanization, modern slavery, etc.), to
which they respond with a radical attempt at reforming their lives. Thus, one of
the motivations for organizing ecovillages is the interpretation of current world
processes as unsustainable and self-destructive, hence the vision of a complex
collapse. It is therefore worth reviewing the broader context of their concept of
crisis (for the concept of crisis, see Farkas 2022).
Figure 4. Nagyszékely, Hungary. Photo: Judit Farkas, 2010
Some writings on natural science and environmental history describe the second
half of the 20th century, more precisely the period following the Second World
War, as an era of technological optimism and, at the same time, ecological ignorance
(see Carson 1962; Lovelock 1979.) This is understood to mean that the rapid
scientific and technological progress that occurred after the war offered solutions
to many problems (disease, food, energy, mechanization, etc.) and established and
further increased a boundless faith in progress and science. Moreover, the voices
that drew attention to the environmental problems behind this development
seemed to be superfluous concerns. It was the book Silent Spring, published in
1962 by one such author, Rachel Carson, that was able to make many people
understand the problem and, as a result, to trigger the great green movements of