Nested Ecology: The Place of Humans in the Ecological Hierarchy

2 Personal Ecology

14 TWO Personal Ecology .................................................................................................................................... Defining Ecology .................................................................................................................................... Ernst Haeckel (1866) coined the term ‘‘ecology’’ to describe the study of interactions or relationships among organisms that influence their organismic form and function. This popular term is of great antiquity. Ecology is a derivation of the Greek word, oikos, which literally means ‘‘home,’’ ‘‘household,’’ or ‘‘a place to live’’ and was the principal concern of the ancient Greek philosopher Theophrastus (Anton, 1999). So conceived, to be an ecologist is to be a ‘‘householder,’’ and acting in an ecological fashion is the equivalent of what I call ‘‘householding.’’ ‘‘Householding ’’ involves making a home in the world and taking care of all those duties and responsibilities that are associated with establishing and maintaining a household and home. Narrowly conceived, householding (personal ecology) entails taking care of oneself. More broadly conceived, it involves caring for one’s community (social ecology), and at even broader levels, householding involves caring for the planet (environmental ecology ), caring for the universe (at least our corner of the universe, as in the case of cosmic ecology), and honoring the divine (spiritual ecology). Personal Ecology versus Human Ecology .................................................................................................................................... This chapter concerns the primary realm for ecological identity: personal ecology. Personal ecology is conceptually similar to but distinctly different from the related discipline of human ecology. Central to the concept of human ecology is the understanding that humans are also animals. Conse- PERSONAL ECOLOGY 15 quently, human ecology focuses upon humans as fellow creatures sharing the planet with other creatures and entities and seeks to understand how human behavior and culture influence and transform the world’s environment . Human ecology of necessity embraces a variety of disciplines, including human development, environmental ecology, and evolutionary biology (Levine, 1975). The literature of human ecology has assumed two distinct formats. In the first, human culture is placed within the context of nature for the purpose of assessing the impact of human society upon the world. The work of such writers as Frederick Steiner (2002), David Orr (2002), Gerald Marten (2001), and Charles Southwick (1996) is illustrative of this approach. By way of comparison, the work of Urie Bronfenbrenner (2005) and his contemporaries Stephen Ceci (1996) and Robert Cairns, Lars Bergman, and Jerome Kagan (1998) emerges from the perspective of developmental psychology and human development, construing human growth, behavior , and culture from within the context of a set of nested ecological systems. While both approaches contribute to an understanding of human interactions with other ecosystems, I contend that Bronfenbrenner’s human development approach is more nearly reflective of the perspective that I refer to as ‘‘personal ecology,’’ whereas the ‘‘human ecology’’ perspective espoused by Orr (2002), Marten (2001), and others is more akin to the concept of ‘‘social ecology’’ that will be discussed in the next chapter. In comparison to human or social ecology, personal ecology is more psychologically or psychosocially oriented. Unlike human ecology, which assumes the perspective of humanity’s relationship to the environment, personal ecology is by definition ‘‘personal,’’ assuming an individual perspective on the environmental, social, and cultural systems within which the lives of people are embedded. Personal ecology becomes important conceptually because it provides insight into what motivates, fulfills, and satisfies the needs of individuals. An underlying assumption of this book is that unless individuals find ways of creating and sustaining meaningful lifestyles (which we will discuss in terms of functioning within fulfilling personal ecological systems) there is little chance that they will contribute to sustainable social ecologies or, for that matter, even value sustainable environmental ecologies. Unfortunately, personal ecology has received less attention in the ethical and ecological literature than have human, social, and environmental ecologies. This comparative inattention demands that 16 NESTED ECOLOGY this chapter begin with an attempt to understand what ‘‘personal ecology’’ implies and how it relates to ecological ethics. Perspectives on Personal Ecology .................................................................................................................................... The term ‘‘ecology’’ is etymologically rooted in the Greek words oikos and logos, which, taken together, refer to household knowledge, or household pattern (Cobb, 2002). So construed, ‘‘ecology’’ begins in the home and involves structuring the household. Consequently, the term ‘‘ecology’’ necessarily entails defining one’s place in the world through the process of making and sustaining a home in some particular place, locale, or community where one is rooted and through which one is sustained. Alternately, I like to think of personal ecology as involving the process of personal ‘‘householding.’’ While Rutledge...