What does the term ecofascism mean to anarchists?

Question

Is it something some anarchists might find desirable? Or something to be fought against and avoided?

To me it seems to mean (in the contexts that I've heard it used) essentially "rule of ecology", putting the environment as priority over everything else.

Answer 1

I've always understood the term to be referring to the use of ecological/green concerns with nationalist/protectionist politics of exclusion, drawing heavily on the history of fascism (particualrly naziism's) use of pagan traditions and reverence for the land, but extending to current (or at least '90's era) politics. I would hope all anarchists join me in rejecting such obvious third-positionist politics.

Where it gets a bit more muddy is that the term has been primarily wielded (if not outright invented) by North America proponents of Social Ecology to paint anarcho-primitivism, deep ecology and, more generally, anti-civ green anarchism (which I feel is being redundant, but am making explicit since the folks who use this broad brush also claim the green anarchist mantle) as being part and parcel, or at least naively complicit with right wing efforts to harness the "ecology movement."

Merely defining ecofascism as "rule of ecology" or, to paraphrase, putting the earth first (see what I did there...) is too simple. Deep ecologists (many of whom are decidedly not fascists, even when I don't agree with them) would fall into this category. That isn't to say that there can't be fascists who are deep ecologists, but it is most certainly not the case universally. Shit, there are folks who were outright bigots but were still more anarchist than fascist in tendency (Ed Abbey being the most glaring example), but to even focus on them ignores many others who have been both eco-centric and clearly anti-fascist.

Whatever the case, it is a term so laden with baggage that it is better to leave it cold with corpses like Murray Bookchin.

Comments

http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/janet-biehl-and-peter-staudenmaier-ecofascism-lessons-from-the-german-experience

Here is a link to the most prominent text I am aware of that uses the term, which I am linking to because, to the best of my knowledge, this is where it gained a toehold in North American anarchist circles. Haven't and probably won't read it completely, but I thought if we are talking about the definition of what it means, it would be useful to cite a text that actually uses the word.

Answer 2

The term means nothing.

With due respect to Ingrate's scholarly response (which is both informative, and measured in its dismissal)...

Eco-fascism, along with eco-terrorism, is a bullshit phrase cooked up in furtherance of the on-going "green scare".  If you like trees more than money, you have declared yourself an enemy of capitalism (and  its sock-puppet, the State), and will thus be subjected to character assassination by the usual suspects.

If you observe the world around you, and react with your basic common-sense and sense of basic fairness, you will find yourself an anarchist in spite of yourself.  Address individual issues like desertification, suburban sprawl, sealife poisoning, etc, etc, as symptoms of an underlying sickness (global corporate capitalism).  The various single-purpose protest groups are just like the black hoodies we toss in the broken glass - useful to a point, but no further.

The first, only, and final arbiter of the value of anything is your own conscience (sorry, can't think of a better term here).  If you have trouble with a part of some platform, then there is probably something wrong with it; so cut out the parts you find useful and call it something else.
"Take what you need, and compost the rest."

(my apologies if this response drifted a bit from the specific, i could copy most of it to every question.)