Ecotherapy Book

I wish I had read this long ago. I found the Deep Ecology of Arne Naess much more nuanced than what I have read in EarthFirst! (maybe more philosophical compared to the more applied works of Dave Foreman and others).

In particular, the thinking was more Spinozan or phenomenological than I had expected, with strong discussions around gestalt and the embodied subject.

"Gestalt formation crosses boundaries between what is conventionally classed as thinking as separated from emotion. The tertiary qualities tend to be separated from the gestalts and referred to as merely subjective emotions. The overcoming of this prejudice has profound consequences for environmentalism" and Naess suggests that the "Verbal deterioration of gestalts implies deterioration of the culture."

This perspective reminds me of McGilchrist's Master and His Emissary with the drift from right to left brain dominance. How does one sustain a more holistic worldview in a linear, abstracted left-brain world?