2014/4, стр. 447 - 459

OUR ENVIRONMENT OR OUR LIFE! THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE TWENTIETH-CENTURY NORWEGIAN ECOPHILOSOPHIES TO THE DEBATE ON INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT AND ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION

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Silviya Serafi mova
Bulgarian Academy of Sciences

Abstract. Against the background of the debate on industrial development and environmental protection the aim of this article is to clarify one of the main objectives of the twentieth-century Norwegian ecophilosophies, namely, the rehabilitation of the normative validity of the intrinsic value of nature, which has been sacrificed in the name of strengthening technological optimism.

Keywords: Twentieth-century Norwegian ecophilosophies, ecopolitics, industrial development, technological optimism

1. Ecophilosophy or Ecopolitics? What Comes First?

Examining the genealogy of the Norwegian ecophilosophies presumes to analyze the socioeconomic and political prerequisites on both local and global level since Sigmund Kvaløy’s1) ecophilosophy aims at providing reasonable philosophical grounds for relevant ecopolitics.

According to Bredo Berntsen, Homo technicus gradually begins to dominate Homo sapiens (Berntsen, 2011: 180) in time, when the world control is focused on transferring all forms of being into sources of exploitation relying on the excuse of using the whole potential of being as such. The first time when the debate about Norwegian ecopolitics comes to light was in the early 1970s (1970 – 1975). It happened against the background of the urgent necessity for justifying the increasing number of discussions regarding ‘economic growth versus environmental protection’ (vekst vs. vern) debate, which started in the mid-1960s.

Due to the influence of the activism of snm2), whose informal leader was Sigmund Kvaløy, many new civil initiatives took place. Their climax was the demonstration for preserving Mardala’s waterfall in 1970 (Ibid: 164). One demonstration showing how for the first time, the civil disobedience provoked new concerns about environmental protection in practice (Ibid). A crucial moment in expanding ecoactivism was the adoption of Gnadhi’s philosophy of non-violence, which was introduced by Arne Naess3) and zealously supported by Kvaløy respectively.

Thus, the vision of what an ecologically responsible politics became a crucial part of the Norwegian philosophical debates. According to Naess, the latter should be driven by what he calls Ecosophy T4) because it embodies the opportunity to see the necessary connection between politics and human ecology (Naess, 1976: 25). However, the main problem arising from exploiting such a definition is how different ecosophies (since Naess himself recognizes the pluralism of personal ecosophies) can get a normative validity within the public discourse, which not to lead to social and political relativism.

One of the most significant philosophical issues, which ground the necessity of developing relevant ecopolitics, is how economic growth gradually becomes incompatible with nature protection. It provokes the crucial question of whether the conflict arises from what K. Høyer calls “genuine ethics of conservation” (Høyer, 2011: 58).

In this context, we prefer to talk about ontological ethics rather than about genuine one, which is defined by Høyer as a useful instrument for human survival. If we adopt the conception of the ontological ethics, we may avoid the contradictions following from the second part of his statement, namely, to avoid equalizing the process of survival with the one of preservation leading to the examination of the latter within the framework of ungrounded anthropocentrism. Taking into account the role of the technological and economic development, we may paraphrase Høyer’s statement saying that genuine ethics is a useful instrument for the survival of nature, which in turn reflects upon the human survival rather than upon the humankind’s preservation Høyer and P. Naess also claim that a typical common characteristic of the Norwegian ecophilosophies is that the growth criticism is based on ontological and ethical grounds (Høyer and Naess, 2011: 200), although they explore them as separate premises against the background of the international degrowth movement.

The degrowth itself is conceptualized within the debate ‘economic growth vs. environmental protection’ since it is a signifi cant part of recognizing the necessity of introducing normatively valid ecopolitics. The main methodological problem in such debates is to clarify to what extent the ecopolitics can benefit the modifi cation of ‘versus’ into ‘and’-mode again without annihilating one of the aforementioned components; neither environmental protection to annihilate the economic growth itself, nor does the latter to uncontrollably utilize nature as such.

2. Ecophilosophy and/or Ecosophy. The Struggle to Find a Place

Influenced by the common work with Arne Naess and Nils Faarlund5) as well as by the activist initiatives of snm, Sigmund Kvaløy develops his own conception of how Norwegian ecophilosophy should look like as a sociocultural and political project. The strive for differentiating his ecophilosophy from Naess’ Ecosophy T is not a matter of only adopting different words, but also of reconsidering the common philosophical grounds, which should be embodied in different contexts as long as Naess and Kvaløy do not share one and the same vision for the most relevant (environmentally friendly) social model. Some of the illuminative theoretical features of Naess’ and Kvaløy’s conceptions are concerned with the prototype characteristics of what we call experiential philosophy, namely, with recognizing the normative value of self-realization, with the common commitment to preserve the biosphere etc.

However, it is problematic whether if we define Naess’ philosophy as a “holistic, relational, total fi eld image” and Kvaløy’s one as a philosophy of nature understood as a “diversifi ed process” in its openness and change (Jakobsen, 2011: 186) respectively, the dilemmas will be solved. According to Naess, the idea of Ecosophy T is a result of developing philosophical grounds of ecology, while Kvaløy’s ecophilosophy is a “short version of the environmental philosophy” (Naess, 1976: 22). The aforementioned difference is outlined as a fundamental one. It is recognized as a distinction between one descriptive university discipline (ecophilosophy) and the search for norms and values (ecosophy) (Ibid), where the suffix ‘soph’ comes from the Old-Greek word for wisdom.

While Naess defines his project as rooted in an ecologically oriented social anthropology, Kvaløy argues that adopting the methods of sociology and social anthropology is not enough. Man is such a being, which can “conquer” the world by using a miraculous technology; however, regarding the basis of his existence, he is still primitive (Kvaløy, 2001: 743). Comparing the ethical grounds of both projects, we see a proof in favor of the thesis that Naess and Kvaløy implicitly share a similar vision of ontological ethics. Kvaløy claims that we need to deepen the opportunities for empathy, to build ethics; to ensure politics, which is careful for the whole living society (Ibid: 744). In this context, he defi nes ecophilosophy as a philosophical attempt at studying nature by exploring the ecosystems (Ibid). According to him, the ecologists have developed a worldview that is similar to the one of the Eastern philosophy. The prefi x ‘eco’ (øko) is the one signifying that modern ecophilosophical thinking is indebted to Gandhi’s ethics, which provides a fellow feeling with the whole nature (Ibid).

Examining the specifi cations of that fellow feeling is illuminative for outlining some significant conceptual differences. Kvaløy explicitly emphasizes the role of ethics for grounding relevant ecopolitics, while Naess prefers to talk about gestalt ontology, although the ontology in question meets the requirements of ontological ethics6). On a macro methodological level, it means that if Kvaløy provides ecoethical reasons for justifying ecopolitics, Naess relies on social anthropology for disenchanting the faults of already working social scenarios.

Going back to Kvaløy’s ecophilosophy, we raise the hypothesis that it is an experiential ecophilosophy, whose prototype characteristic is the normative value of wholeness understood as being ‘in process’. The latter should be interpreted as equivalent to the definition of ‘in progress’, taking into account that the progress itself is not a product of the technological expansion. Furthermore, ‘in process’ is equivalent to ‘in progress’ from the perspective of the complexity of nature, where the progress is not recognized as a strive for achieving aim by aim, but rather as revealing the potential of new life energies.

Regarding Kvaløy’s ontological ethics, one of the first points he mentions is that what he calls complex society, “misses an ethical objective in human understanding” (Kvaløy, 1978: 208). In this context, we talk about ethics since the lost surplus of meaning is a matter of a lost moral understanding, which in turn leads to the incapability of moral learning.

On the other hand, maybe one of the most significant consequences of growing industrialization is that the natural imbalance becomes recognizable as a technocratic balance diverting the whole idea of normative validity due to the fact that the idea of tempo turns into the most illuminative representation of time. The aforementioned changes imply the necessity of justifying the principle of compensation at the expense of the one of correlation, i.e. the “irrigations of culture” and “free time’s offer” imposed through apparatus and electronics should compensate the broken social connections (Ibid: 209). We claim that Kvaløy’s appeal for reconsidering the assumptions for a meaningful life embodied in a living democracy is a fi ght for rehabilitating the idea of necessity within ontological ethics, having an initial unquestionable value as long as it derives from life as such.

2.1 The Know-How of Ecology

According to Trond Jakobsen, the problem with Kvaløy’s and Naess’ ecophilosophies is their ‘closeness’ to biology and ecology. They have not “elaborated in depth the analysis of the distinction between the transitive and the intransitive dimension” (Jakobsen, 2011: 195); e.i. between ‘being as a process and change’ and ‘being as a part of wholeness’ (Ibid). However, we can question whether the latter is an intransitive dimension since ‘being a part of nature’ is not being, but becoming, which bears implicit ontological connotations.

What we call a common background of ontological ethics is conceptualized by Jakobsen as a matter of ontological grounds, arguing that we should talk about ecologism rather than about physicalism. His thesis benefits the better understanding of the normative value of sciences for justifying ecophilosphies’ potential. Jakobsen claims that Norwegian ecophilosophy is “anti-reductionist and holistic, nonanthropocentric” representing reductionism “in a different sense” (Ibid: 180). The type of non-traditional reductionism is grounded in recognizing ecology as “an ontological model for environmental philosophy” (Ibid: 184). On the other hand, Kvaløy’s ecophilosophy is defined as a philosophy of ecological sciences as long as the concept of complexity is interpreted as having its basis in ecology (Ibid).

Another methodological benefit of adopting Jakobsen’s theory is that it stresses the role of philosophy for turning ecology into a prerequisite for determining relevant ecopolitics. What Jakobsen calls ‘to formulate an ecophilosophical approach with relevance to ecopolitics’ (Ibid), illustrated by Kvaløy’s conception of the equilibrium state in which no form of being is able to expand at the cost of others, shows where to search for a model of the steady state society.

What are the reasons laying behind Naess’ vision of the fundamental role of ecology and to what extent they differ from the ones posed by Kvaløy? According to Naess, ecology is the one that has taught us to respect the big common play in the biosphere (Naess, 1976: 16). It gives us a hint how to justify the decentralization on the social level without questioning the status of the local communities (Ibid: 242). Last but not least, the field of the human ecology is the deep ecology7) movement, which recognizes its aims by referring to the researchers’ results in the scope of ecology itself.

Against the background of Naess’ and Kvaløy’s similar visions concerning the role of ecology for ecophilosophy, we agree with Høyer’s statement that Norwegian ecophilosophy should be understood as a philosophy of involvement (Høyer, 2011:

63). It is the presumption grounded in human ecology that provides a relevant understanding of biological interactions in the public discourse, which are justifi ed due to one preliminary mutual engagement.

2.2 Complexity vs Complication. The Fight against Servoglobe

Kvaløy’s theory regarding the contradiction between the initial complexity of nature encompassing the diversity of life forms and the complication, which pretends to govern the artificial diversity created by man, is crucial for both Norwegian ecophilosophies and ecopolitics. The main reason is that it contributes to the clarification of the genealogy of the ‘economic growth vs. environmental protection’ debate. In turn, the dialectical tension between complexity and complication is inflicted by the pretention of the complication to become the complexity with a capital letter.

In this context, Kvaløy outlines how the problem of the national ecopolitics soon explodes on the global scene as long as national is stigmatized as local by contrast to establishing the new normative validity of the global itself. Thus, the extrapolation of the global conflict is conceptualized as the one of Gaia vs. Servoglobe representing the clash between two different worlds, the one of constructivism and the one of improvisation (Kvaløy, 2011: 99).

While the Gaia theory gained popularity in the Norwegian public discourse in the late 1960s, mainly by the works of some well-recognized ecologists (Dag Østerberg and Ivar Myrstad), the Servoglobe phenomenon appeared for the fi rst time in Christian William’s book Fistful of Digits (1968) (Ibid).

According to Kvaløy, Norway accepts computerization “with a great naivety” (Ibid: 100), which should be overcome due to the necessity to stop computer violation of privacy imposed by the EU’s Big Brother scenario for control (Ibid). His critiques against growing technocratization are based on the double bind meaning of primitive interpreted in two different contexts. Within the technocratic discourse, naivety is recognized as following the rationality of the primitive understood as the one, which is prima facie unmediated. By contrast, the relevant ecopolitics should disenchant the naivety of taking the complication as if it is complex: e.i. to take the former for granted since the management of the natural dynamic systems is interpreted as problematic from the perspective of social constructivism.

In turn, Servoglobe is the name of a supra-nationally run ‘global supercomputer’; an artificial intelligent system “coupled to a global network information created partly by economic globalization forces, partly to serve mankind’s survival in the face of a destructively simplified natural biosphere” (Ibid: 101). Thus, Gaia is recognized as “too messy for rational management” (Ibid). Striving for perceiving complex as if it is complicated, while increasing the strength of the self-propelling processes rooted in the impossibility of realizing the aforementioned management, Servoglobe causes its own death.

On a macro methodological level, it means that pretending to fight chaos, Servoglobe falls into a vicious circle because it results in chaos again, revealing different sides of it. Also, the fear of the empty space (terror vacui) becomes visible since it does not come from man, but from nature itself, although the man is the only one who consciously anticipates it. In this context, we reach the conclusion that Servoglobe is unsuccessful in the way it pretends to find a panacea for the fear in question.

Last but not least, we argue that the myth of the final solution is the worst myth of technocratization because it encourages the formula ‘goal justifies the means’ to be adopted. Servoglobe itself is recognized as a final solution, which requires elaborating philosophical grounds rather than technocratic ones. Within the scope of sciences, the researchers’ solution is to try to provide answers in tune with the law of entropy and the theories of chaos. However, it does not give us a hint how people to be taught to live with that fear and still to keep finding the meaning in life.

The latter is tightly concerned with the problem of self-realization analyzed in the Norwegian ecophilosophies, namely, how people can fi nd firm reasons for fulfi lling their potential due to the one of the ecosystems. A possible solution for specifying the aforementioned grounds can be seen in what Høyer (referring to Kvaløy) calls a distinction of life strength and survival one (Høyer, 2011: 50), taking into account that life is always ‘more’ than the survival as such. Kvaløy himself gives the difference between qualitative and quantitative another name, although sharing the same logic. He talks about a clash between qualities and parameters as long as complexity should be referred to qualities, while complication – to mechanical parameters (Kvaløy, 2011: 103).

It is the double bind meaning of the specification of ‘more’, (whether it will be considered within qualitative or quantitative terms) that makes the contradiction between normative validity of complexity and complication visible only by the process of comparison. In other words, the contradiction arises, when qualitative ‘more’ is compared to the quantitative one because it automatically raises the debate which normative validity matters ‘more’.

What is the Norwegian contribution to that crucial debate? On a macro methodological level, it shows that the tragedy of the species becomes the tragedy of time. The clash is provided by the need for compensating the lack of general solutions with short-term ones, which to be justified in a long-term perspective. That is why we claim that the tension of the new time tragedies is a result from the time compression for the sake of the surplus of being. The fi xation mechanisms benefit personalizing tragedy and thus multiply its unsuccessful representations by recognizing the consumption of what Naess calls a top norm, a norm, which justifies the normative validity of the rest.

Going back to the new time tragedies dominated by the ontological pretention of time compression, we will examine Kvaløy’s differentiation of organic and mechanical time. In this context, we claim that time compression is strengthened not only by the myth of the last solution, but also by the one saying that organic time can be artificially extended to eternity. Projections of the latter are well-depicted in what Kvaløy calls a distinction between meaningful work and mechanical one (Kvaløy, 2011: 106), based on the tension between organic and mechanical time respectively (Ibid: 103 – 104).

While complexity refers to the existence of something real, the complication is a product of human intellect “taken to express the real world” (Ibid: 103). Thus, the tension between complexity and complication is recognized as driven by the tension between organic and artifi cial diversity as long as it is the complexity that provides diversity in “structure, function and communication” (Høyer, 2011: 49).

In this context, organic time characterizing complexity is expressed through the idea of rhythm as a part of the natural processes since it is a movement in itself (Kvaløy, 2011: 103). In turn, the mechanical time grounding the complication model is recognized as an “intellectual invention” (Ibid) that quantifies natural time and makes culture as such possible. On the other hand, overexposed normative validity of the latter leads to what Kvaløy calls awareness of natural time, which simplifies nature entities by imposing the work of the Advanced CompetitiveIndustrial Dominion (ACID). On a macro methodological level, the contradiction between meaningful work and mechanical one stemming from the aforementioned time distinction gives an answer to the question why harmonization should not be equalized with the harmony itself, keeping the dialectical diversity of nature.

To the two different types of time examined by Kvaløy, the Norwegian philosopher Arne Vetlesen opposes the compression of time and space interpreted as a form of the most primitive narcissism (Vetlesen, 2011: 30). Annihilating time and space (Ibid: 29) takes place due to the omnipotence of technologies that allow us “liberation from the constraints of distance and the frustrations of waiting” (Ibid). The latter are justified as ontologically driven contrasts, which contribute to differentiate possible from impossible. It is a part of the project to create one unquestionable ‘here-and-now’ model, called by Vetlesen “gigantic production of presence” (Ibid: 30) that makes the world bigger by becoming smaller.

Making the bigger smaller is possible only if the aforementioned omnipotence, in its pretention to annihilate absence in the name of encouraging fulfi lling desires, lacks the diversity of presence between past and future. Compressing time and space is a process, which aims at compressing fears and desires, e.i. it strives to eradicate all possible fears at the expense of multiplying all possible desires.

Furthermore, the technological invasion is the one of the simulacra forcing us to make a difference between absence and loss. If the absence is the other face of the omnipresence, the loss is the elapsing being for itself of the aforementioned facticity, which becomes factitiousness (un-naturalness). On a macro methodological level, it means that the loss is the elapsing naturalness not only of nature, but also of the unnatural pretending to be the only one possible nature.

Kvaløy makes an important statement about two types of culture based on two different visions of time, which justify two different types of aesthetics, namely, the one of Western culture whose climax is the engineering perfection of the Greek temple and so called stop-time aesthetics of the Eastern one represented in the Sherpa house; in an organic structure decaying day by day (Kvaløy, 2011: 104 – 105).

The myth of perfection contradicts the stop-time aesthetics since the latter is ontological aesthetics supported by the understanding of nature as a home project (oiko-logos). The ontological aesthetics grounds the presumption that the houses should be homes by nature because they should behave like a living organism following the organic rhythm. In turn, the myth of teleological perfection that dominates Western culture is strengthened by the ideology of the static harmony, which has its grounds ‘here-and-now’.

Due to the myth in question, the world understood as a living organism is opposed to the one functioning as a machine, as a global spaceship that will substitute Gaia (Ibid: 110). That is why the conflict-fertilization, emphasized by Kvaløy, is recognized as a result of the invasion of the hyper-aesthetics, according to which small and organic is never beautiful.

2.2.1. Our Environment or Our Life! The Technological Dilemmas in Ecopolitics

Kvaløy describes the society, which is grounded in the total control over environment as a techno-capitalistic one (Høyer, 2011: 49); a defi nition that contributes to disenchant how the living laboratories of nature have been turned into a preoccupation with laboratory studies (Odum in von Wright, 2011: 131). The aforementioned definition is very illuminative for clarifying how the capitalist society is justified by the uncontradictory recognition of the monopolization of knowledge, which determines the global vision of ecopolitics.

Regarding ethics, we can talk about different types of engagement; one problem, which is pointed out by Naess in his illuminative book Ecology, Community and Lifestyle (Økologi, samfunn og livsstil) (1976) and quoted by Arne Vetlesen, namely, that the engagement in nature is reduced in favor of the one in technology (Vetlesen, 2011: 25). We claim that those types rely on different visions of ethics, precisely, on the one of ontological ethics, when we talk about nature and on what we call ethics of compressed time respectively. An illuminative illustration of the latter is von Wright’s explanation of typical environmental questions, which are “what we should call technological problems” (Wright, 2011: 119). Current ethical debate in science is opened by technology in statu nascendi as long as its employment presumes acquiring a particular understanding of the value of goals and means.

On a meta methodological level, the problem is provoked by the well-known issue of normative validity, e.i. by the pretention to ascribe one and the same validity to different goals and means, in our case – to the ones of nature and technologies. On a micro methodological level, it clarifies how the normative validity of environmental issues is wrongly recognized as a normative validity of the technological ones, which leads to the wrong presumption technological solutions to be defi ned as environmental ones by analogy.

What Wright calls ‘a provocative pessimism’ (Ibid: 117) can be compared with Kvaløy’s conception of spontaneous experience of nature, whose normative validity also encompasses the unpredictable, which goes beyond man’s capacity as a bystander. What is unpredictable for man is realizable within life’s predictability because the latter does not arise from the perspective of the bystander, but from the one of nature’s dialectics.

The sad conclusion is that the patterns of complexity are substituted with the ones of complication. We have forgotten to see the full dimensionality of things through the initial transperspectivity of nature giving preference to our own perspective, which has been recognized as the one with a capital letter. A process, which leads to a vicious circle grounded in the way the subjectively held point of view recognizes itself as an objective judgment due to the normalization of the subjective insights, understood as arguments with unquestionable validity.

As Vetlesen claims, how we perceive something, determines how we are disposed to treat it (Ibid: 42).

He emphasizes one more significant aspect, which is relevant to Kvaløy’s theory too. Technology is a means for decontextualizing the meaningfulness by reducing it to a sum of different meanings, which can have an independent normative validity deriving from the human potential to give a meaning. Vetlesen argues that technology is a way of making something accessible by breaking its preexisting and particular context (Ibid: 31).

The main methodological concern, which arises is that there is no such a thing as a pre-existing context because all the forms of being are born in a context. One problem, whose logic is similar to the one of the problem of unpredictability. It is the reconsideration of the idea of the lack of pre-existing context that makes possible what Vetlesen calls “letting things be in the fullness of their dimensions” (Ibid: 35).

3. Conclusion

Going back to the debate of economic growth and environmental protection, we reach the conclusion that one of the main objectives of the twentieth-century Norwegian ecophilosophies is the rehabilitation of the normative validity of the intrinsic value of nature, which has been sacrificed in the name of strengthening technological optimism. That is why we claim that philosophical eco-pluralism in Norway is not a matter of adopting different understandings of what a genuine ethics is, but rather a result of providing different ways of defi ning the concept of industrial development in respect with the aforementioned preservation.

Regarding ethics, we prefer to talk about ontological ethics rather than about adopting Høyer’s definition of genuine one, which may cause survival to be wrongly equalized with the preservation itself. It is important to outline that while Kvaløy talks more explicitly about the fundamental role of ethics in building relevant ecopolitics, Naess refers to gestalt ontology, although the latter is adopted by him as meeting the requirements of ontological ethics.

Furthermore, we emphasize the infl uence of the technological invasion, which provides the substitution of ontological ethics with moral relativism grounded in the overexposed trust in man’s potential. The latter provokes the establishment of the twentieth-century Norwegian ecophilosophies as experiential ones, whose prototype characteristic is the rehabilitation of the normative validity of selfrealization functioning as an intrinsic part of nature’s one.

In turn, the methodological difference between Naess’ Ecosophy T and Kvaløy’s ecophilosophy is recognized as deriving from the different visions of how the most relevant ecopolitical model should look like.

Also, we refer to T. Jakobsen who makes one more relevant specifi cation, namely, that no one knows what metaphysical or ontological view of nature, humans and society can be derived from ecology as well as whether such ecologism may turn out to be “too simple” (Jakobsen, 2011: 185). Talking about ontological dependence would lead either to a form of determinism, or to falling into the trap of relativism because there are no unquestionable reasons for outlining objective forms of dependence between ecology and society. That is why we argue that instead of ontological model, we may talk about ontological ethics, which to be considered as a paradigm for evaluating the normative validity of the horizontal interrelatedness on the levels of ecology, ecophilosophy and ecopolitics.

Regarding the aforementioned examination, we reach the conclusion that the prototype characteristic of A. Naess’ model is the rehabilitation of nature’s multiple representations since the diversity of the ecosystems comes from nature itself. Furthermore, it is the cultural diversity benefiting the recognition of the process of decentralization in the field of ecopolitics that, by analogy with the natural one, contributes first, to discern politics from ideology embodied in different utopias and, second, to talk about different ecopolitics rather than about ecopolitics with a capital letter. It clarifies how to question monoculture as an artificial form of centralization as well as to restrict the use of so called hard technologies at the expense of the soft ones.

Discussing the role of technologies, we see the micro methodological projections of the Servoglobe’s vicious circle implicitly outlined by Kvaløy, namely, how mankind’s tragedy driven by the feeling of being a temporary species in the universe is turned into Homo Consumens’ one.

Judging by those investigations, we reach the conclusion that Kvaløy’s distinction between organic and mechanical time in neglected in the name of the wrong equalization of the organic time with the free one; a tendency provoked by the growing normative validity of the model of complication disguised as the one of the only possible complexity.

Going back to what Høyer says about organic diversity, we argue that it is diversity in question that makes the process of harmonization irreducible to harmony since the dialectical tension between different contradicting life forms, or any other forms of being, is embodied in nature’s way of development understood as an evolution.

The compression of time imposed by the technological invasion of simulacra provides the compression of time and space at once due to the performative power of the formula ‘here-and-now’, when the consumption is defined as a top norm in the sense of Naess. Last but not least, it is an inevitable effect of adopting the principles of meritocracy as a matter of environmentally unfriendly politics.

In tune with those statements, we raise the hypothesis that the fundamental difference between the models of complexity and complication is based on the justifi cation of the myth of perfection that is tightly concerned with the one of the final solution regarding the genealogy of the Servoglobe. That is why we argue that the monopole of knowledge makes wholeness to be equalized with holism rehabilitating the conflict-fertilization by imposing the ideal of a total pseudovisibility.

Substituting equilibrium with balance as a socially constructed pattern is done by man for the sake of isolating the unpredictable. In this context, the globalization makes one more problem visible. It justifi es the work with categories per se (such as economy per se, technology per se) trying to impose in an uncontradictory way the negation of only one category, the one of nature per se.

NOTES

1. Sigmund Kvaløy Setreng (1934 – 2014) is a Norwegian philosopher and ecoactivist who, together with Arne Naess and Nils Faarlund, contributes to the establishment of the Norwegian ecophilosophies.

2. Snm movement (Cooperation groups for nature and environmental protection) (Samarbeidsgruppene for natur-og miljøvern) was established in 1969 by Kvaløy who (together with Naess) was one of its informal leaders.

3. Arne Naess (1912 – 2009) is one of the most famous Norwegian philosophers and mountaineers whose name is associated not only with the development of the Norwegian philosophy of science, but also with the one of Ecosophy T named after his cabin Tvergastein.

4. Ecosophy T is defined as a philosophy of ecological harmony or equilibrium. A philosophy understood as a kind of sofi a (wisdom), which is openly normative and which contains norms, rules, value priority announcements and hypotheses concerning the state of affairs in our universe.

5. The name of Nils Faarlund (1937-) is associated with the conceptualization of the philosophy of outdoor life (friluftsliv). Together with Naess and Kvaløy, he took part in so called anti-expeditions to Nepal (1971) (expeditions, whose main aim was experiencing the joy of the way itself rather than conquering of peaks).

6. Regarding Naess’ critics against ethics in favor of gestalt ontology, we argue that it is the ontological ethics that grounds the platform of deep ecology. The latter is based on horizontal interrelatedness, which makes possible to talk about the holism of man’s experience in respect with other living beings. Naess claims that it is possible through a set of gestalt shifts, while we argue that the shifts in question are incorporated in what we call moral experiential gestalts. The latter contribute to understand how through cultivating sensitivity towards Otherness, man’s self-realization becomes impossible without the realization of nature.

7. Naess’ Ecosophy T is introduced against the background of so called by him long-range deep ecology movement. By contrast to the so called shallow ecology one, it should focus of the philosophical grounds of the environmental issues in a long-term perspective.

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