Personal lives, planetary needs

The discussion thus far draws in the world of social relations external to the self mainly in terms of their reflexive impact on self-identity and lifestyle. However, personal decisions also affect global considerations -- the link in this case is from `person' to `planet'. Socialised reproduction connects individual decisions to the very continuity of the species on the earth. To the extent to which the reproduction of the species and sexuality become uncoupled, future species reproduction is no longer guaranteed. Global population development becomes incorporated within internally referential systems. A host of individual decision-making processes, linked through these systems, are likely to produce unpredictabilities comparable to those generated by other socialised orders. Reproduction becomes a variable individual decision, with an overall impact on species reproduction which might be imponderable.

We can trace out yet further connections between lifestyle options and globalising influences. Consider the related topics of global ecology and attempts to reduce risks of nuclear war. In broaching ecological issues, and their relation to political debates, we have to ask first of all why they should be so much the focus of attention today. The answer is partly to be found in the accumulating evidence that the material environment has been subject to more far-reaching and intensive processes of decay than was previously suspected to be the case. Much more decisive, however, are the alterations in human attitudes relevant to the issue. For the fact that nature has `come to an end' is not confined to the specialist awareness of professionals; it is known to the public at large. A clear part of increased ecological concern is the recognition that reversing the degradation of the environment depends upon adopting new lifestyle patterns. By far the greatest amount of ecological damage derives from the modes of life followed in the modernised sectors of world society. Ecological problems highlight the new and accelerating interdependence of global systems and bring home to everyone the depth of the connections between personal activity and planetary problems.

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Grappling with the threats raised by the damaging of the earth's eco-systems is bound to demand coordinated global responses on levels far removed from individual action. On the other hand, these threats will not be effectively countered unless there is reaction and adaption on the part of every individual. Widespread changes in lifestyle, coupled with a de-emphasis on continual economic accumulation, will almost certainly be necessary if the ecological risks we now face are to be minimised. In a complicated interweaving of reflexivity, widespread reflexive awareness of the reflexive nature of the systems currently transforming ecological patterns is both necessary and likely to emerge.

The issue of nuclear power is at the centre of these concerns, and of course forms a link between ecological issues more generally and the existence of nuclear weapons. Debates about whether or not nuclear power stations should continue to be built and, if so, what their relation should be to existing sources of material power exemplify many of the questions raised in the area of life politics. High-consequence risks are involved, some deriving from long-term, incremental factors, others from more immediate influences. Technical calculations of levels of risk here cannot be completely watertight, because they cannot wholly control for human error and because there may be factors as yet unforeseen. A person who wishes to become informed about debates concerning nuclear power will find that experts are as radically divided in their assessments as in other areas where abstract systems prevail. Unless some other -- so far unknown -- technological breakthrough is made, the widespread use of nuclear power is likely to be unavoidable if global processes of economic growth carry on at the same rate as today, and even more so if they intensify.

Decreasing dependence on nuclear power, or seeking to eliminate nuclear power sources altogether, either in particular regions and countries or on a wider scale, would involve significant lifestyle changes. As in other areas of the expansion of internally referential systems, no one can be quite sure how much damage to human life and to the physical environment might already have been done by existing nuclear power sources; the evidence is controversial. We come back again to personal questions of socialised biology and reproduction. As one author has

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put it, `our sperm, our eggs, our embryos and our children' are `in the front line' in the struggle on the `toxic frontier'. ¹²

As the proponents of `deep ecology' assert, a movement away from economic accumulation might involve substituting personal growth -- the cultivation of the potentialities for self-expression and creativity -- for unfettered economic growth processes. The reflexive project of the self might therefore be the very hinge of a transition to a global order beyond the current one. The threat of nuclear war is also linked to the reflexive project of the self. As Lasch says, both throw the problem of `survival' into sharp relief. Yet one might equally well say that they both throw into relief the possibility of peace: harmonious human coexistence on the global level and psychologically rewarding self-actualisation on the personal plane. The issue of nuclear weaponry enters life politics as a positive appropriation as well as a negative one. It shows with particular clarity the degree to which the personal and global are interconnected because, as in the case of potential ecological disaster, there is nowhere anyone can go on earth to escape. Military technology has become more and more complex, a series of expert systems about which it is difficult for the layperson to get much specialist knowledge (in some part because of the secrecy with which weapon systems are surrounded). Yet this very process makes the potential outbreak of nuclear war no longer just a specific concern of military tacticians and political leaders, but a matter which impinges on the life of everyone. Operating under a negative sign, the danger of nuclear confrontation coincides with other aspects of the life-political field in stimulating reflexive awareness of the socialisation of nature and its implications for personal life.

Date: 2016-04-22; view: 841