The Environmental Politics of Sacrifice

6. The Sacred and the Profane in the Ecological Politics of Sacrifice

6 The Sacred and the Profane in the Ecological Politics of Sacrifice Karen Litfin A Crisis of Meaning If progress is synonymous with increased consumption of goods, does ecological sustainability entail the end of progress? “We’ll all have to make personal sacrifices,” we often hear, which, given the equation of progress with material accumulation, can only be heard as a gloomy prognosis. But what if our culture’s concept of sacrifice is upside down? What if, rather than being a painful exercise in self-abnegation, sacrifice is actually “a celebration of consumption and being consumed?”1 What if, rather than being either a superstitious act of futility or a heroic act of altruism, sacrifice is understood as a fundamental law of the cosmos to which humans can align themselves joyously? This chapter articulates a life-affirming perspective on the politics of sacrifice, a perspective that is rooted in a cosmology of interdependence that understands people as an integral part of a participatory universe. This reading of sacrifice helps to address the crisis of meaning implicit in concerns about “the end of progress.” The “environmental crisis”—really a creeping megacrisis, in which the exponential expansion of human populations is coupled with even greater increases in consumption—is generally understood as a material phenomenon. This many tentacled crisis includes the mass extinction of species, unprecedented climate change, unsustainable resource depletion , and myriad pollution dangers. While the widespread formula for quantifying environmental degradation, I = PAT,2 is a useful thumbnail sketch of the material dimensions of the crisis, it is silent about the deeper ideational forces at work. If human behavior is rooted in systems of meaning, as I believe it is, then the environmental crisis must be 118 Karen Litfin understood as a crisis of meaning. Human action, relationships, and their material effects are a reflection of human consciousness.3 The prevailing materialist framing of the crisis inevitably sends a bleak and moralistic message to the mainstream public in high-consumption societies, or at least one that is received as such. The common perception is that sustainable consumption will entail sacrifice, which in turn implies unwanted limitations on personal freedom and comfort. Ironically, this perception of sacrifice as negative and limiting is shared not only by those who oppose policies aimed toward sustainable consumption, but even by many environmentalists themselves. The primary difference is that the former see such sacrifice as morally and politically offensive, while the latter view it as necessary. This places environmentalists in the awkward position of appearing to dictate through policy what, in the minds of many, should be personal lifestyle choices—thus the embittered accusation of “eco-fascism.” Less strident global consumers, on the other hand, may simply succumb to paralyzing guilt. As Mitchell Thomashow notes, the blame-guilt circuit involves “feeling victimized and exploited by a situation that is out of one’s control, that was unexpected, or for which someone else was initially responsible. This casts a disquieting shadow, becomes a place of perpetual suffering, in which people shift from blame to guilt to denial, powerless to take action, and plagued by doubt. Rather than being moved to action, they are immobilized by guilt.”4 Yet across the spectrum from green to antigreen, and including the immobilized guilt-ridden, there is broad agreement that sustainable consumption will require personal sacrifice and varying degrees of selfdenial . At first glance, this consensus might seem surprising. Yet, as I will argue, it is symptomatic of a deeper cultural ontology to which both sides subscribe. In cultures premised on individualism and a notion of progress as consumptive accumulation, sacrifice will inevitably be understood as fundamentally constraining, painful, and self-abnegating. From this perspective, such a “reflexive focus on sacrifice funnels scholars, activists and policymakers alike into a dismal, depressing, and anti-democratic politics of change.”5 There is, however, a far more uplifting perspective, one that recognizes the need for major reductions in consumption by global overconsumers, yet frames that recognition in light of an affirmative view of sacrifice. One point of entry to that perspective is through the root meaning of The Sacred and the Profane in the Ecological Politics of Sacrifice 119 sacrifice, derived from sacre (sacred) and facere (to make).6 Rather than engendering a sense of limitation and constraint, true sacrifice is a gift that enlarges the giver by linking him or her to forces and wider circles of identification beyond his...