Oldal 110 [110]
OCR
108 | Tue PaicosoPuy or Eco-Pozrrics Whoever mentions ecological self-restraint merely reveals thereby that at the bottom of his/her heart, they holds good to be bad and that they would prefer what they must sadly now call bad. In contrast, the basis of the ecological worldview is the conviction that good is truly good and bad is really bad. The struggle against what is bad requires no selfrestraint from us. Quite the contrary: it liberates. Whoever does not feel this should not worry about it and, above all, should not attempt to convince others of it. 2.... and how can they achieve it? Let us have no illusions: the glaciers are melting, the drinking water is being polluted, debt is mounting, jobs are decreasing and the number of hungry, uneducated, ill, hurt and therefore desperate people is increasing worldwide — and it is all for nothing, for the overwhelming majority maintains its steadfast belief in the validity of the common explanatory theories, i.e., in the necessity of the existing social order. ‘They view the increasingly alarming disorder around them as a mere technical mishap; inconvenient obstacles on the difficult road towards the established good goals. The plentiful choice of means is guaranteed by the increasingly dazzling development of science and technology and for their fair distribution no better solution is known than a combination of some sort of free competition and the welfare state. This belief is based on three preconceptions: that material plenty can be increased ad infinitum, that the democratic state and the operation of the market economy correspond to their original purpose and finally — and above all — that plentiful choice and the democratic institutions make it possible for everyone to decide what goals to follow; reaching them depends primarily on the individual. As regards the illusion of infinite growth, its refutation is today quite widely known. We have encountered it within this book; the perspectives of the ecological critique of the market economy were also examined. Now we take a closer look at the basic principle of free society, the autonomy of the individual — or what is meant by it; that is, independent choice. ‘The conclusions will be of use in clarifying the relation of the Greens to democracy. We seek the political conditions, the fulfilment of which will enable the realisation of the green goals outlined in the previous chapter. We must return to the point that living beings are able to give a sovereign answer to the challenge of nature from a system-based
