Missed Opportunity: The Strategic and Rhetorical Miscalculations of Deep Ecology

The first chapter of the project analyzes Deep Ecological philosophy, presented by Arne Naess, and its inability to coalesce as a social movement because of Naess’ strategic belief that an open philosophical template, as well as a rhetorical strategy of being instructive, instead of rhetorically moving Deep Ecologists towards engaging concrete plans towards change to mitigate destructive human environmental practices, as the most effective strategy. The second chapter analyzes the Dark Mountain Project and the ways it has grown out of Deep Ecology, and the ways the Dark Mountain Project is misguided in its interpretation of the works of Robinson Jeffers as a figure to move humanity towards mitigating unsustainable human/more- than-human relationships. The third chapter proposes John Steinbeck as a more pragmatic intellectual godfather through his work. Steinbeck was scientifically literate, he embraced an adequate Deep Ecological environmental ethic, and he was willing to explicitly address the ways capitalism was a root cause of alienating human/more-than-human relationships, and he was the most effective at moving his audience to address the irresponsible relationships with other humans, as well as more-than-human nature, that is created by capitalism