Environmental politics lecture 4: Environmental authoritarianism and fascism

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Pre-amble
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Green outside, brown(shirt) inside.
Ideological continuities between Nazism and environmentalism.
What does it mean that they meshed well?

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Gillman
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Genealogy: linkages between env and fascism. Proto-fascists were rejecting modernity too.
Rejected industrialisation, urbanisation, rationality and capitalism.
Destroyed the German connection with nature.
Instead:
Romantic attachments, folklore, mysticism.
Racialised it: destruction is Judaism, connection with nature is German Volk.
Pseudoscienti c justi cation in early ecology.

Nazi spin:
Anti-modernism
Anti-anthropocentrism
Racialised ecology
This shit informed nazi practice.
The nazi green wing was pretty active. Agri and industrial in uence. Nazis had some pretty far
reaching env policies enacted.

What does this mean?

What does genealogical con uence suggest. Ecology and env is indeterminate. Care for nature
can be coopted by anyone. Also monsters.
So we need to be careful how eco/env is given meaning in political contexts.

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Anti-modern naturalism and nationalism
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Romantic anti-modern nature
- Nature not something to be dominated by humans
- It’s something to commune with
- Mystical shit
On the other hands:
- Connecting with nature was framed as a nationalist thing though. Nature was nation.
- Volkish movement: powerful cultural disposition. Nature mysticism + (???).
- Rejected modernity
- Industrial capitalism killed traditional practices
- Return to the wholeness of life in sync with nature.
- These motherfuckers had a fucked up politics: create a natural empire. Rootelessness was
caused by the jews through rationalism modernity etc. etc. The jews killed nature. So the
Jews needed to be exterminated.
- Early ecology: Haeckel: How organisms interact with their environments (social darwinist racial
purist etc.)
- It was intensely reactionary
- Apply bio categories directly onto society (the world is the biological reality)
- Implications:
- Human were nature, so fuck anthropocentrism
- Scienti c veneer for racist nationalism
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 Another vehicle: Youth Movement
Wändervogel
- neo-romanticism, nature mysticism, hostility to reason
- Env conservation, expeditions and immersion in nature
- Right wing hippies (later absorbed by nazis (hitler jugend etc.))
Reject modernity, reject reason etc.

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Env and nazi ideology
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Eternal and unyielding natural order: Human agency is nothing compared to nature
- So fuck human anthropocentrism
- Anthropocentrism only valid when nature has been created for man, Which nazis reject. Man
is just a link in nature
- Systems of human life must be modelled on nature and organised according to xed laws of
nature. A Perfect Natural order
- If we don’t follow the Natural Order, distorter will follow.
Emphasis on organic holism:
- Parts of a whole can’t exist independently of the whole. Whole is all that matters, fuck the
parts.
- E.g.: Coordination of all parts and organs for the bene t of the One and Superior Task of life
- Nazi’s transpose this idea onto society. Ecological-biological holism unto society
- Authoritarian implication: Individual is meaningless and can be sacri ced, for the totality is all
that matters.
- Racist implication: That which well-beings the well being of the whole (the whole=the whites/
pure) the Other (the degenerates (e.g. Jews black, gays)) must be destroyed.

Nazi practice
Green wing of the nazi party
- re ected in agri, industry and law
Agriculture:
- Mass scale organic farmers for: re-ruralisation and back to harmony with nature
- Ecologist head of agri ministry. So a lot of support for this kinda shit.
Industry:
- Headed by the green wing.
- Massive construction projects were tried to be greened. End result needed to harmonise with
nature/landscape around it
- Rules were established for this (protect wetlands etc.
- Advocate for landscape
Laws:
- 1933: battery of env law approved
- Reforestation
- Animal protections
- Preservationist shit that blocked industry
- Demand respect for sacred German forrest
- Guidelines for safeguarding nature/natural monuments. Required consultancy with nature
reserves. Restrictions on natural resources.

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Env and genocide
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Nazi env provided basis for genocide.
- Anti-humanism and preoccupation with natural purity fed into genocide
- Modernity was personi ed in the jew so kill them
- Modernity’s damage was due to destructive in uence/character of the race
- To correct degradation, to return to nature, eliminate the bad race.
- Legacy of eco-fascism: Genocide developed into a necessity under the cloak of env protection.
Ideology leads to outcomes through thought. It’s not an inherent thing. (It’s like my populism
argument.)
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Environmental authoritarianism
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Li and Shapiro
China be world leader on climate?
I mean Liberal dems aren’t doing shit.
Is china a beacon of hope/a good political model?
If lib dems are unable to tackle clim change, maybe embrace state coercion as a means to env
repair.
Li and Shapiro: no.
We aren’t seeing authoritarian environmentalism. The goal isn’t environmentalism. It’s
environmental authoritarianism. Environment is a justi cation for the end of authoritarianism.
Environmental concerns can be used to entrench autocratic rule.
Expand regulatory scope of env and env adjacent issue = expanding/legitimises reach.
Incorporates non-state actors to increase discursive control, non-state make the state stronger.
It has made env progress through this. Practical and structural (constitution shit) progress.
But, it has not been purely successful.
China pollutes a fucking lot.
There’s a bunch of entrenched pollution problems. And internationally it doesn’t do great either.
The progress china has made, has been achieved at a huge social costs (breaches of freedom).
Env auth is normatively unpalatable and env underwhelming.

It takes the form of forced relocation.

This allows for paci cation of borderland areas while being green.
This suggests the goal isn’t environmentalism, the goal is entrenching authoritarian control.

Environmentalism and the growth of state power

Increased outward manifestation of state power.
- By moving people, building shit, a mark is left. This mark signals the impressive and oppressive
power of the state.

Increased inward experience of state power.

- Green initiatives at home allow deeper penetration into the lives of the population (e.g. point
system, moral bank).

Basically env can be good for auth resilience.

China and high modernism

Mastery and control central to Chinese project strategy. It’s typically modern in that way.
People are mastered and controlled and the environment is increasingly controlled.
Chinese authoritarianism is an inherently modernist project.

Two contracts:
Eco-fascists (anti-mod) and eco-auth (pro-mod) can turn to coercive politics.
- Suggests, env views of modernity are politically indeterminate
Environmental coercion and illiberalism are present in the west too:
- E.g. REDD+
- The IO does the coercive env policy
- Also, Climate crisis has been used and is being used to tighten borders and boost nationalism
The fascisisation of env is already happening
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How to avoid this icky shit?
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Gillman 1:
- Stop using catastrophic/apocalyptic narratives
- Used to be used to counter denial. But denial isn’t the problem anymore and just allows for
neo-ecofascism.
- Instead more temperate narratives
Gillman 2:
- Importance of historical awareness
- Understand how past fascists adopted this shit, we can prevent it this time round
- So hist argument connected to prescriptive content? (Vague to me idk)
Gillman 3:
- Cautions agains applying “Natural” “scienti c ” concepts to societies
- To confuse the constructed and immutable is to kill deliberation —> coercion
Li and Shapiro
- Environmentalism can be used a Trojan horse
- Overt env can be covert auth
- Suggests we should interrogate pol implication of di erent courses of env action
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