The Philosophy of Social Ecology

Essays on Dialectical Naturalism

De: Murray Bookchin, Todd McGowan - afterword

Narrado por: James R. Cheatham

What is nature? What is humanity's place in nature? And what is the relationship of society to the natural world? In an era of ecological breakdown, answering these questions has become of momentous importance for our everyday lives and for the future that we and other life-forms face. In the essays of The Philosophy of Social Ecology, Murray Bookchin confronts these questions head on, invoking the ideas of mutualism, self-organization, and unity in diversity, in the service of ever-expanding freedom.

Refreshingly polemical and deeply philosophical, these essays take issue with technocratic and mechanistic ways of understanding and relating to, and within, nature. More importantly, they develop a solid, historically and politically based ethical foundation for social ecology, the field that Bookchin himself created and that offers us hope in the midst of our climate catastrophe.

©2022 The Bookchin Trust (P)2022 Tantor

Too complicated

One probably needs to have a hefty philosophical background of Hegel and other related philosophical concepts in people to truly grasp the theories and arguments posed in this book

Google Murray Bookchin

A must read/listen like all of Bookchin’s work. Hope more titles are added for this important thinker.

Pure jargon headache.

I've never encountered anything quite like this. jargon piled upon jargon and references to past thinkers. I get that in the philosophy world It's a shortcut to just name someone and you're supposed to know their angles and ideas, but this is the least listenable thing I've ever tried to get through, even as someone who spends a lot of time at academic reading. I actually felt undeniably angry while listening to this book. Absolutely miserable writing.
Luckily audible allows you to return books, which I did about halfway through attempting to listen to this short but arduous work. I had no problem returning it because I wasn't retaining anything I was hearing even after skipping back and re-listening multiple times to some parts. It's not clear to me who he wrote this for, but I do know as someone who's concerned about environmental affairs that this is one of the reasons we're not getting anywhere... so many of the people with great ideas don't know how to make their ideas accessible.

Obfuscated Depressurized Ether

i.e. nothingness, but hidden behind complicated words to sound smart. I’ve heard the stereotype of an academic picking random words from a hat and forming them into unintelligible sentences and then receiving praise for it but this is my first time actually reading such material. It’s amusing for a while, but not when you’re the one paying for it.