'DEEP ECOLOGY'
"My standard example involves a non-human being I met forty years ago. I was looking through an old-fashioned microscope at the dramatic meeting of two drops of different chemicals. At that moment, a flea jumped from a lemming that was strolling along the table and landed in the middle of the acid chemicals. To save it was impossible. It took many minutes for the flea to die. Its movements were dreadfully expressive. Naturally, what I felt was a painful sense of compassion and empathy, but the empathy was not basic; rather, it was a process of identification: that “I saw myself in the flea.""
Arne Naess, "Self-realization: An Ecological Approach to Being in the World," in Deep Ecology for the Twenty-First Century, ed. George Sessions (Boston and London: Shambhala, 1995), 227.
Arne Naess, "Self-realization: An Ecological Approach to Being in the World," in Deep Ecology for the Twenty-First Century, ed. George Sessions (Boston and London: Shambhala, 1995), 227.
Images 1. Magnetic termite nests: the ‘high-rise’ profiles of magnetic termite mounds dominate this Australian grassland landscape, their flattened faces catching the evening sun. Photograph by Martin Harvey. In Built by Animals: The natural history of animal architecture, by Mike Hansell (Oxford: OUP Oxford, 2007).
2. Amoeba case: a single-celled amoeba (Difflugia coronata), an organism with no nervous system, is able to build this intricate, portable sand grain house. Photographer unknown. The Natural History Museum, London. In Built by Animals: The natural history of animal architecture, by Mike Hansell (Oxford: OUP Oxford, 2007).
3. Golden bowerbird on its bower: a male golden bowerbird stands on its perch between the two substantial stick towers that characterize his bower, holding a white flower to be placed as a decoration. Photograph by Michael and Patricia Fogden. In Built by Animals: The natural history of animal architecture, by Mike Hansell (Oxford: OUP Oxford, 2007).