is the 'deep ecology' movement 'beyond organic'?

After rereading the beyond organic thread, https://permies.com/t/24786/Organic , I got to thinking if maybe the deep ecology line of thinking is just that, even way beyond?
It has many ideas in line with permaculture although is possibly off the chart for many?

I am just going to drop some links and bits of thought from those involved in the movement and would love some feedback.

https://www.deepecology.org.au/home/about/what-is-deep-ecology/

https://earth.org/deep-ecology-an-often-misunderstood-theory/

https://ecologistics.org/what-is-deep-ecology/

https://ecologistics.org/what-is-deep-ecology/

 “The fundamental insight of deep ecology is that underlying all of the symptoms of environmental problems, there is the illusion of separation between human beings and the natural world”

-John Seed  

thinking like a mountain pdf
https://www.deepecology.org.au/blog/2022/02/27/thinking-like-a-mountain-pdf/

 ... in 1984, Arne Naess and fellow author George Sessions published a short dispatch containing the eight main fundamental values of deep ecology:

Inherent value: All things, human and non-human, have value.
Diversity: Richness and diversity of life forms contribute to the realisation of these values and are also values in themselves.
Vital Needs: Humans have no right to reduce this richness and diversity except to satisfy vital needs.
Population: The flourishing of human life and cultures is compatible with a substantial decrease in human population. The flourishing of non-human life requires such a decrease.
Human Interference: The present human interference with the non-human world is excessive, and the situation is rapidly worsening.
Policy Change: Policies must therefore be changed.
Quality of Life: The ideological change is mainly that of appreciating life quality rather than adhering to an increasingly higher standard of living.
Obligation of Action: Those who subscribe to the foregoing points have an obligation directly or indirectly to try to implement the necessary changes.

https://ecologistics.org/what-is-deep-ecology/

I am not much into movements and other social environmental philosophy ...

I feel that the best way I can help the environment is to live a life that promotes permaculture.

Bill Mollison said:
If you only do one thing, collect rainwater. If we lose the forests, we lose our only teachers.

This is also a favorite quote by Bill Mollison:

“Sitting at our back doorsteps, all we need to live a good life lies about us. Sun, wind, people, buildings, stones, sea, birds and plants surround us. Cooperation with all these things brings harmony, opposition to them brings disaster and chaos.

What I know about permaculture I have learned from this forum and the wonderful people who share their knowledge of all kinds of different things from permaculture, plants, cooking, health, etc.

The way nature uses patterns fascinates me so I try to incorporate patterns into my daily life.

This last year I have learned so much from nature.  The way seeds are washed away with the rains and how wildflowers are planted by these rains.

I have learned to live with the weeds. The ones I disliked the most have moved out of my space.  The ones that are trying to invade my space get pulled up little by little as I walk my dog.

I also enjoy seeing my wildlife on a daily basis living their life within nature.

Again, permaculture is living with nature

thank you Anne for pointing out many of the similarities to deep ecology!

I like to think that the deep ecology line of thinking is off the scale and maybe even aligned with Paul's HUSP ideas.

Here's a bit more...

 As George Sessions points out in the preface to the book he edited, Deep Ecology for the 21st Century, “The Long-Range Deep Ecology movement emerged more or less spontaneously and informally as a philosophical and scientific social/political movement during the so-called Ecological Revolution of the 1960s. Its main concern has been to bring about a major paradigm shift- a shift in perception, values and lifestyles- as a basis for redirecting the ecologically destructive path of modern industrial growth societies. Since the 1960s, the long-range Deep Ecology movement has been characterized philosophically by a move from anthropocentrism to ecocentrism, and by environmental activism.”  

Thanks for this thread, Judith!

The most useful quote I'd pull from the links at the top is this:

About ten years later, in 1984, Naess and fellow author George Sessions published a short dispatch containing the eight main fundamental values of deep ecology:

Inherent value: All things, human and non-human, have value.
Diversity: Richness and diversity of life forms contribute to the realisation of these values and are also values in themselves.
Vital Needs: Humans have no right to reduce this richness and diversity except to satisfy vital needs.
Population: The flourishing of human life and cultures is compatible with a substantial decrease in human population. The flourishing of non-human life requires such a decrease.
Human Interference: The present human interference with the non-human world is excessive, and the situation is rapidly worsening.
Policy Change: Policies must therefore be changed.
Quality of Life: The ideological change is mainly that of appreciating life quality rather than adhering to an increasingly higher standard of living.
Obligation of Action: Those who subscribe to the foregoing points have an obligation directly or indirectly to try to implement the necessary changes.

It makes sense; and it is one part of the equation to my eyes.

The points given have a sense that human impact is typically negative and should be reduced. That seems to be the case in the present day, on a societal level. (Or really, the excess of any organism’s impact can decrease biodiversity. Look at emerald ash borer. And these days, Dutch Elm Disease probably has a positive role in biodiversity because of how it creates patchwork sun/shade and enriches soil and makes snags in forests, but doesn’t totally destroy the elm populations. That is another whole discussion though.)

On an individual or family level, the level where we can see things going on, it far more often means increasing our individual positive impact, both on ourselves and on the ecology, which is sort of what permaculture is about.

It reminds me of garlic mustard. I used to pull more garlic mustard before I knew them. I would think, more or less dogmatically, invasive plant that I am supposed to pull! Too many!

Many people find they feel similarly when they don’t have a felt sense of oneness with the ecology. Pulling garlic mustard is minimizing the human impact, so it’s good, right? Except what does one eat that isn’t garlic mustard in the winter months? And what of the health problems this good wild food might prevent or cure?

Then after a few winters I got it. They were one of the only greens that stayed green through the whole winter; they were excellent nutrition; and besides that, they tasted better in the colder seasons. Eventually I began to gain a wondering reverence for garlic mustard and now only pull them if it’s part of something more broadly positive. Garlic mustard is a controversial example but with enough time exploring our connection with any plant, we learn to moderate our impact to maximize biodiversity throughout the ecosystem, and with our particular form of intelligence we can be particularly effective at doing just that. The way I harvest garlic mustard is not in order to exterminate them but for food, and since it is good food and plentiful, I pick a greater quantity.

The more people are afraid to pick ramps, the less they will notice what an overharvested patch looks like versus a dense thriving one. The more afraid and ashamed we are of our own impact, the more we tend to outsource it to unseen channels in ways that are very harmful. A small amount of this fear keeps us in line and not overstepping our bounds as human beings. But, I like to think that most people love the earth to some degree, and if the people who are ashamed of their impact because of their love, were given the encouragement to make an impact, a positive one, make a splash, and do it well, that would be very powerful. With all the worry and the love and the impact of our own hands, that perhaps is what it means to be a real human being on this earth.

Robin Wall Kimmerer talks about how the earth loves us, and sometimes even gives thanks to us. The more we encounter this in our direct experience the more the ecological shame begins to fade away, and the more we are able to encounter our own impact in a realistic and practical manner. There is oftentimes a great hill to climb, because of the ingrained but (I believe) mistaken ideas that the earth must hate us for all of the impact we have had. There is a reckoning to face, slowly, gradually, taking each thing as it comes up, depending on how much we have harmed the earth. But by no means does it mean we are doomed with the affliction of an eternal rift between ourselves and nature, as people tend to think, if unconsciously. It is an active, not a fixed, relationship: with the desire and courage to do good, we can overwhelm that rift and find that nature is more forgiving than we had assumed.

Arne Naess’ may be my favorite modern philosopher, and his work was integral my master’s thesis, “Seeking Self-Realization through Wilderness Service Learning.” Diving into Naess and the philosophy of Deep Ecology while doing trail and restoration work in national parks and other Wilderness areas as praxis for my master’s was a great primer for getting into permaculture.

It seems like Naess’ Tvergastein hut in the Norwegian highlands was undeniably his place based Norwegian mountain permaculture project. His asceticism and embrace of solitude is probably unrealistic for broad application, but he didn’t seem to think we all have to be the same as he was. To me, Deep ecology is about simply realizing we are all connected and share a deep form of self-interest in respecting all life and helping it continue to flourish. In many ways, through Deep Ecology Naess was trying to describe a conceptual tree with roots in Eastern monistic traditions like Buddhism and Taoism as well as Spinoza, Kant and Hagel from western philosophy.

In his 80s, Naess was guiding a canoe day trip off the Norwegian coast when a couple of college students (one of whom was an old friend of mine) in the paddling group became overwhelmed by the wind picking up. He towed them a few miles to safety, sharing naturalist observations along the way. It probably helped that, until it was literally freezing inside his mountain hut, Naess used to do push-ups to warm up instead of firing his wood stove.  “Why use precious subalpine soil-building wood to heat a space which is 99% air and 1% me?” (paraphrase).  Of course we would love to share Rocket Mass Heaters with him, but the guy lived his values, and valued life. It may seem as a “philosopher,” he may not have been as pragmatic as we often aspire towards being in permaculture. But Naess was also a mountaineer and lifelong steward on the ground. His work was essential in getting Norway to embed the rights of nature and biodiversity into their constitution.

In teaching Permaculture, I often draw on Naess and his well articulated foundations in Spinoza  and Eastern Monism to convey how deeply rooted the Ethics are in humanity’s highest ideals. I strongly recommend checking out Naess’ work, as well as Spinoza’s unimpeachable treatise, “Ethics”.

On a related topic I researched in my master’s while dating the Norwegian woman in the canoe, I’d also recommend looking up Folkhegskole (Folk High Schools). These embody many permaculture principles as a common gap year of hands on practical educational for Scandinavian young adults. These share roots with the Tennessee Mountain School, and could be a model for permaculture education.

excellent Ben!
I appreciate your connections to and knowledge of deep ecology.

I have a tendency to become complacent so I like ideas that challenge my thinking.