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What can I hope for (from politics)? 1. What do the Greens want? They are seeking forms of social coexistence suitable for the patient remedying of the terrible consequences of the Pyrrhic victory over nature and to reconcile with each other the people ready to jump at each others throats for the means of survival. This section will not treat of politics. I previously sought to provide an account of the crisis of industrial society from the perspective of a critique based on ecological insights. I presented the worldview of ecology from the reverse, as I think is right. For social movements tend to develop in opposition to something; not for abstract goals, but in the defence of very much concrete interests. They do not demand something previously non-existent, but rather act in the conviction that they are merely trying to restore the normal order of things. Therefore, if we wish to understand their motives, we most first of all see what they are defending and against what. Well, their decisive argument is the scent of freshly cut hay and of linden trees. Birdsong. It cannot come to pass that we should have to live without these. It must not happen. However, we are at the point that many no longer understand it and even more misunderstand it. Yet I am speaking not of the defence of nature, but of something, the lack of which would destroy my own life. The Greens started to organise themselves when their conception of the good human life came under serious threat. One simply could not occupy oneself with anything else. The galvanising force of the sense of threat and of spontaneous dissatisfaction were, however, insufficient in themselves. Sooner or later, they also had to point out the way of warding off the danger they sensed in the world. 99
