Caroline Lucas, she of the Watermelon Party (Green on the outside, red in the inside) has won a prize that, strictly speaking, shouldn’t exist.
Caroline Lucas, Green MP for Brighton Pavilion and Green Party leader has been named ‘Ethical Politician of the Year’ in the 5th annual Observer Ethical Awards. Lucas beat David Cameron, and former climate secretary Ed Milliband, in picking up the award for the third time. Her previous two wins were in 2009 and 2007.
This award was granted by the observer, and if you visit their Ethical Awards page, it become entirely clear that “ethical” does not mean “ethical” at all, but rather “Environmentalist”. Indeed, just look at the URL:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/observer-ethical-awards-2010
Apparently ethics is now a sub-set of environmentalism. So, these awards aren’t about ethics, they’re about environmentalism. And the leader of the environmentalist party won an award for environmentalism. Ok, no big shock. Here’s the thing: Ethics and politics don’t go together. Indeed, they can’t go together.
I really have no gripe with the rest of the awards; I’m no anti-environmentalist. I am, however, an anti-political environmentalism, as indeed I am anti-politics generally. The way I see it, if there’s one sure fire way to make sure we end up living in the Capital Wasteland, it’s putting all natural resources under State control. Either than or nuclear holocaust. To be honest, statism will more than likely provide both. But I’m digressing here.
Politics and ethics aren’t easy bedfellows. That’s because there’s nothing ethical about politics. Politics as we know it consists entirely of: Using the force of the state (which is unethical) to coerce (which is unethical) otherwise peaceful citizens into a) giving up their preferred way of life (unethical), b) giving up their justly acquired property (unethical), c) obeying the rules of a small section of society under threat of severe punishment (unethical), and also d) committing violent, coercive acts against citizens of other Nation States that they can claim no possible right over (VERY unethical).
There’s very little politics can do that is ethical, since ultimately, the power of politicians comes, not from namby-pamby “social contracts” (which you never knowingly signed, cannot rescind, and cannot see the terms of) or from any sort of “God given right”, but ultimately from the use of, or the threat of use of, violence against you. What Lucas, as a Member of Parliament, does, is work as yet another embodiment of this established violence. That’s her job. That’s her role. To claim she is “ethical” makes a mockery of ethics.
Oh, and did I point out- initiating violence isn’t ethical. That’s kinda important.
Pic related. It’s what is ethical.
As an environmentalist/ecologist I have it the other way around: being ethical means being green. Since:
There are no politics, economics, or society without ecology – civilisation is a top-heavy pyramid which depends on a healthy landbase (not so healthy, biodiversity is a scale on red right warning now; peak oil has occured, etc). Ethics through this lense results in being green for the solutions to environmental ills and all the ills of society that flow from it, a fundamentalist belief in capitalism as somehow equating to a natural state of man, and the deaths of millions in some countries because we cannot organise ourselves economically very effectively in such large numbers, the a-ethical and a-moral practices of politics, consumerist culture and profound disconnection from our natural habitat.
Lucas’ fault is to dirty her green credentials by getting involved in the ‘nuanced’ (ie, sociopathic) world of politics. Yes, oxymoron – one cannot be unethically political and be green which is a subset of ethics. The Green Party has also gone a step closer to this by ending their collegiate leadership approach in favour of one leader who can ‘embody ideals and carry messages’. By the time they get any meaningful number of seats they will be as corrupt as the rest of Westminster.
“There are no politics, economics, or society without ecology – civilisation is a top-heavy pyramid which depends on a healthy landbase”
So what do you think Plato was discussing 2500 years ago before there were even words for “ecology” or “environmentalism”?
So what do you think Plato was discussing 2500 years ago before there were even words for “ecology” or “environmentalism”?
@Katabasis – There’s no reason to suppose that, suitably adapted with a modern materialist philosophy rather than the metaphysical Forms of Plato, ecology and environmentalism need violate the eudaimonistic principle of Platonian Ethics.
As Alastair says, it’s all very well arguing about what justice is – as the Politeia does – but the material environment to which we are collectively exposed and for which we are collectively responsible pre-exists any community, however it is organised, and must therefore be taken into account. Which it is not, by Plato.
The reason for this is fairly simple; Plato’s ideal communities in the Politeia and Nomoi dealt with societies which were farmers and cottage producers. They were not having the same impact on the environment and, as various inscriptions dating grain sent from the Bosphorus and Egypt to wealthy Athens in the fourth century attest, did not produce even such a surplus as to be safe from famine for the relatively small population they did have.
Moreover, Plato deals with the Greek world – large tracts of the earth were at that time inhabited by nomadic tribes, not the populous civilisations that produced much larger surpluses and eventually gave birth to our own.
Factoring this into the equation, Plato’s injunction that justice is ‘to do one’s own business and not be a busy body’ (an interesting inversion of Pericles’ epitaphios in Thucydides) can be seen to violate his own eudaimonistic principles. Or, if you prefer the argument which Socrates employs against Thrasymachus, if a just system is one in which no one makes mistakes and laws are made in the interests of all, an environmentalist mentality is inherent to Platonian ethics.
Factoring this into the equation, Plato’s injunction that justice is ‘to do one’s own business and not be a busy body’ (an interesting inversion of Pericles’ epitaphios in Thucydides) can be seen to violate his own eudaimonistic principles. Or, if you prefer the argument which Socrates employs against Thrasymachus, if a just system is one in which no one makes mistakes and laws are made in the interests of all, an environmentalist mentality is inherent to Platonian ethics.