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[…] Accordingly, we are fed a steady diet of reproaches by liberal and misanthropic environmentalists alike about how “we” as a species are responsible for the breakdown of the environment. One does not have to go to enclaves of mystics and gurus in San Francisco to find this species-centered, asocial view of ecological problems and their sources. New York City will do just as well. I shall not easily forget an “environmental” presentation staged by the New York Museum of Natural History in the seventies in which the public was exposed to a long series of exhibits, each depicting examples of pollution and ecological disruption. The exhibit which closed the presentation carried a startling sign, “The Most Dangerous Animal on Earth,” and it consisted simply of a huge mirror which reflected back the human viewer who stood before it.

I clearly recall a black child standing before the mirror while a white school teacher tried to explain the message which this arrogant exhibit tried to convey. There were no exhibits of corporate boards of directors planning to deforest a mountainside or government officials acting in collusion with them. The exhibit primarily conveyed one, basically misanthropic, message: people as such, not a rapacious society and its wealthy beneficiaries, are responsible for environmental dislocations – the poor no less than the personally wealthy, people of color no less than privileged whites, women no less than men, the oppressed no less than the oppressor.

A mythical human “species” had replaced classes; individuals had replaced hierarchies; personal tastes (many of which are shaped by a predatory media) had replaced social relationships; and the disempowered who live meager, isolated lives had replaced giant corporations, self-serving bureaucracies, and the violent paraphernalia of the State.

— Murray Bookchin, Society & Ecology (via fuckyeahmurraybookchin)

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Reblogged 5 months ago from stellikerk (Originally from ) 483 notes View comments