Is it not frustrating to notice that it is still so difficult today to empower human beings to change their behavior towards nature? What is the reason that explains this failure as well as those in relation to the massive challenges of modernity? Why do people continue to pollute, to make things dirty or harm others?
The answer seems quite simple, particular identities prevent us from having a global impact. So, when we think in terms of nation, religion, sex, ethnic group etc. we tend to put our own interests (and those of the group to which we belong) first, at the expense of others. Why do people continue to waste food or deforest, for example? Simply because the consequences of their acts do not affect them directly and because they are obviously lacking empathy towards those who will suffer from their acts.
To solve the problems of our time (climate change, poverty, etc.) it is necessary to develop an identity which supplants all the others and which is strong enough to be beneficial for all the human beings. Humanism was for sometime the solution but we realize today that it is a limited concept which explains new streams of thought such as antispecism which denies any hierarchies between all species for the benefit of cooperation and harmony between living beings. It is because we believed in the superioriority of man that we destroyed the nature and continue to do so. It is more than essential today to see that we seek to challenge dogma because human beings suffer(directly or indirectly) the consequences of their carelessness towards plants and animals.
The ecological consciousness is the result of the process in which the humanity had entered and which allowed them to become emancipated partially of certain yokes: patriarchy, hierarchical organization of races. It is right now necessary to strengthen the identity according to which any life has the right to live. Faith in a universalist identity far from communitarianisms (religious, ethnic, specist, etc.) is the only one which is capable of chasing away our current devils so that we can really chase human progress.
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