2.3 Possible scenarios: the informed choices we can make

As we are faced with the current global and planetary crisis, some solutions have been and continue to be put forward. One type of response is that of denial : a refusal to accept neither the consequences nor the aporia of today’s civilizational model, or any significant change, for that matter. In this case, the status quo, or maintaining “good old temporal order,” steers the selection of transformations that are promoted. We would be wrong to underestimate this trend, multifaceted as it is, which manifests as socially and technologically alienating innovations in many social, cultural, economic and political spheres.

However, positive transitionary processes oppose negative ones¹ and such processes can be deployed in four scenarios.

We have called the first scenario superficial reformism as it is characterized by a refusal to acknowledge the gravity of the crisis at hand and to therefore radicalize the transition. This transition aims to depart from the status quo, though it is limited to minor adjustments at the margins, or worse, to a desire to reinforce capitalist stances, thus paving the way for a hypercapitalist model.² Superficial reformism aims to preserve today’s lifestyle at all costs : a fundamentally extractivist economy that promotes hyperconsumerism and is founded on colonialism. This first scenario often has the same concrete effects as negative transitionary processes.

Superficial reformism presents as a hyper conservative response and defends all advancements that promote individualism, personalism and consumerism. It relies on turning a blind eye to the facts, including scientific ones. It denies the deeply social causes of inequality and climate change. It emphasizes the utopia of natural resilience and a good conscience, reassuring us that everything will work out in the end, as has been the case for all of human history.

We have named the second type of transformation in-depth reformism. It promises a real metamorphosis, but is limited to major technological changes. Through technology, it aims to stem the negative impacts of production, consumption and economic wealth accumulation within the capitalist regime. With this in-depth reformism, we find new forms of work organization (uberism, algorithms…), recommendations for responsible consumer habits (zero-waste) and the early stages of a collaborative economy.

Coasting on neoliberal ideologies, in-depth reformism, depends on technological ‘innovation’ to sustain a strong economic growth all while, as social acceptability obliges, incurring low social costs and exerting a minimal negative environmental impact³. This solution is less about slowing the course of development than about reducing the impact of the negative ‘externalities’ that it causes by more radically integrating a circular economy and sustainable development goals into its discourse and proposals.

A third scenario for a transition comes in the form of socio-democratic revolutionism, which presents a social and ecological metamorphosis of the modern developmental framework without necessarily redefining the cultural basis of advanced modernity. The current vision for socio-democratic revolutionism is expressed in a plethora of ways : everything from degrowth paradigms to convivialism to participatory socialism, all the way to ‘democratized, decommodified and decarbonized work…’

Socio-democratic revolutionism consolidates a number of proposals, both pragmatic and theoretical, that, though they rarely converge, share the fact that they have worked in silos. These proposals have the goal of bringing together social and technological innovations. This option is being explored by a thousand and one so-called realistic utopian experiments⁴.

At the roots of socio-democratic revolutionism is a ‘post’ transition : post-capitalist, post-productivist, post-industrial, post-economicist, post-patriarchal, post-colonial, post-consumerist and sometimes pro-veganism… Its roots are grounded in the momentum of revolution, dating easily as far back as the late 18th century, a period when our relationship with modernizing development was slowed by the emergence of a persistent and recurring counter-hegemony. This counter-hegemony paved the way for ideas about subsidiarity, decentralization, local ‘autonomy’ and the ‘slow’ movement, i.e. slow development in the likeness of slow food, slow cities, slow science…

A fourth type of transition can be imagined in the form of radical revolutionism. This kind of revolutionism promotes a complete transformation, which would entail redefining cultural orientations, as well as organizational and institutional forms, which have been the source of various civilizational and societal models. According to Cléo Collomb, a transition of the like must be based on ‘relational ontology’⁵.

Radical revolutionism, which is an extension of the third type of transition, goes beyond the post-capitalist model by subscribing to ‘extensionism’. This model is in a pre-gestation stage. In terms of ethics and aesthetics, it would be a significant pivot as it proposes a new zeitgeist and a fundamentally emancipatory cultural orientation.

The radical revolutionism movement is a renewal of our original relationship with Nature. It invites us to think about and act upon profound transformations, entailing difficult choices and calling for a great deal of humility, modesty and respect for the constituent substance of matter and life’s fundamental processes and dynamics. Thus, the path forward relies on keywords, proposed by mostly intellectuals or utopian creators who have invited humanity in all its diversity and complexity, and continue to do so, to sever ties in an extreme and radical way, or to overturn the status quo, as proposed by Michel Beaud (1997, p. 246⁶.

More and more people are saying, “We’re headed for a ‘wall’; we’re moving faster and faster. Today, that which is irremediable is possible – in existing forms or ones yet to be conceived of – even if it can still be cast aside. It is not optimism to object and say that all will work itself out, but rather ignorance. To speak about problems and risk is not a sign of pessimism, but of a spirit of responsibility. Evaluating perils and their sources and restituting primacy to values in order to devise strategies and execute them : there lies optimism. The task at hand is certainly more than any one person can handle. But it may be accomplished once we reject the current collective resignation, assume the responsibility that our great power lends us and choose objectives and priorities that restore meaning to our future.

Such a radical and revolutionary upheaval would allow us to renew our way of thinking and to concretize as much our ‘social interests’ and our ‘relationship with time’ as our ‘relationship with Nature.’ This upheaval would allow us to live together in a way that takes inspiration from the complex thinking highlighted by Edgar Morin⁷. The most developed example of this stance can be seen in the ‘deep ecology’ philosophy. ⁸ ⁹

Innovation in all forms – social, technological, legal, cultural, economic, political, epistemic– would follow the path of ecosystemic evolutionism in niches where the evolution of the human species would integrate itself harmoniously into evolutionary and developmental processes acting on other species inhabiting their bioregion, thus contributing to a continuous and balanced transformation of natural ecosystems. As far as we understand, radical revolutionism encourages a political imagination that respects ‘extensionism’.

Faced with the intentions and goals of these four scenarios, it is clear that, when it comes to decision-making, a key issue lies, on one hand, in the ability of governments to act, and, on the other hand, on the will of populations and organizations – small, medium and large alike – to engage in plans that are more or less reformist, but also more or less revolutionary.

At the very least, these four choices refuse to accept the status quo (conservative negativism). Their goal is participation in re-founding, whether it’s minimal (superficial reformism) or more advanced (in-depth reformism), a partial upheaval (socio-democratic revolutionism) or a total upheaval (radical revolutionism). In practice, from the four listed scenarios, certain proposals will overlap with others, or can be integrated in various ways from different perspectives.

Notes

1
The methods for presenting different arguments and modes of transition can vary. See : René Audet (2015). “La transition écologique au Québec : Discours et coalitions d’acteurs autour de trois modèles de transition”, https://cidd2015.sciencesconf.org/52411/Communication_CIDD2015_ReneAudet.pdf.
2
For example, see : Alain Cota (2018). L’hyper-capitalisme mondial. Paris, Odile Jacob.
3
One of Bill Gates’ most recent books (2021), How to Avoid a Climate Disaster : The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need, published by Knopf, clearly illustrates this mode of transition.
4
This movement is increasingly polymorphous and changing. Squatters, self-managed social or cultural centres (okupaciones), punk communities, modern or self-managed schools, Atheneum schools, co-ops and reclaimed factories (more or less self-managed), co-owned land, liberated territories (Neozapatist Chiapas, the recent Oaxaca commune), eco-villages all affect Latin America and add dimension and extraordinary vitality to the alternative dream of community. (Antony, 2016, section 91 / https://journals.openedition.org/chrhc/5480)
5
Collomb, Cléo (2011). “Ontologie relationnelle et pensée du commun”, Multitudes, vol. 45, no. 2, pp. 59 – 63.
6
Michel Beaud (1997). Le basculement du monde, Paris, Éditions La Découverte.)
7
Morin Edgar (2005). Introduction à la pensée complexe, Paris, Seuil, coll. « Points / Essais » (no 534).
8
Most developed, in the sense that deep ecology shares the most central aspects of environmental ethics with other theories such as The Land Ethic, biocentrism, ecocentrism and integral ecology. For information on several of these topics, see : Vinh-De, N. (1998). Qu’est-ce que l’éthique de l’environnement ? Horizons philosophiques, 9(1), 87 – 107. https://doi.org/10.7202/801093ar.
9
In considering nature as only a substance to be objectified by science and a resource to be exploited by technology, modern humanity has engaged in self-mutilation. Its conscience has been fragmented, cut off from reality, left as an artifact. According to Alan Drengson, in the Renaissance and the Modern era, technocratic paradigms began progressively overtaking the organic paradigms of the religious societies (Christian or otherwise) enshrined in our cosmos and in the Creation. If, on one hand, there is alienation of man and nature, then deep ecology seeks to save nature by restoring the unit of the Self : Bill Devall’s Ecological Self, a self that extends to nature through ethics but also through empathy. (Falk Van Gaver, https://observatoiresociopolitique.com/plongee-en-ecologie-profonde-jeudi-12-decembre-2013/).