The Three Ecologies

The Three Ecologies (Guattari, F, 1989)

Guattari challenges the current state of the world and the dominant institutions and schools of thought. He proposes the investigation of three ecologies: the environment, social relations and human subjectivity.

Guattari identifies the world;s problems: unemployment, loneliness, boredom, anxiety, neurosis and places the fault of these on: i) the global market and ii) the control of nations – e.g. police and military.

His views are that there are bipolar tendencies in the world – left and right, black or white, right or wrong. His view is that this “objectivity” causes problems and that a subjective approach is needed. He is against reductionism and believes that simplicity is not the key, but a multitude of views. His thoughts are that there are no right or wrong models for success, rather, modules that are part of the whole. Guattari places strong emphasis on criticizing the economic, social and psychological disciplines and suggests that we should reconsider these. Finally he concludes the only that the only way forward is to articulate a new subjectivity, an updateable social perspective, a re-inventable environment.


Personal Comments:

Guattari’s problematism is partially obsolete these days, since it was written just a few years before the Internet was available to later become as widespread as it is today. His fear of polarized views or fused “one right way” views is rather unfounded (in the advanced nations) since the Internet has led to a proliferation of opinions, views, thoughts, expressions and feelings. He is correct in his assumption that social, psychological and techno-scientific ways are changing, and that these are evolving – this is obvious when comparing the childhoods of 20-something year olds today with those of their 40 something year old counterparts. Society has “gone online” with social networks now being more “virtual” than ever. It seems that there will continue to be a massive change in social values, technology, ecology and the personal psychology. On that basis, it is important to observe and study change. However, any attempt to write-off any foundations of the past such as psychology, science, economic political and social models – without a deeper understanding of their failure - is naive and unrealistic. Guattari’s views are critical of these institutions but he doesn’t seem to propose any feasible, realistic alternatives. Technology and science today, two decades since his work was published, has lead to resolving many problems from the ecological perspective, which ironically in the last decade has become a high priority in the political scene. To contrast this, an example is the increase in anti-social behavior for instance that is a result of the devastation of traditional value systems combined with the lack of new value systems. Having the luxury of hindsight, the problem may not be the current state of things but the lack of a next level.