Ecological Integration

It occurred to me that perhaps I could frame the colonel's argument in a different manner: that of Lacanian psychoanalysis. The project is immense and I won't pretend that I can add anything of any importance, but the least I can do is put my two cents into the conversation.

What the colonel is trying to do is reconstruct the way we relate to the environment. It is an attempt to integrate the environment and ecology into our symbolic orders in a new way. The symbolic order refers to the network of symbols that allows us to make sense of the world around us. It is, in effect, language. That being said, with the rise of language there came a divide between "the real" and "reality." The real is formless, nameless. Reality, on the other hand, is seen through the symbolic order and so becomes . . . well, ordered. It is the symbolic order that allows us to interact with each other, to give meaning to otherwise coincidental events, and so on.

The colonel's aim, then, is to integrate the environment into the symbolic order in such a way that it takes on a totally different meaning - and more importantly, how our actions affect it (and, in turn, affect all of us) means something different too. We (as a country, as a planet, whatever) have made some strides in trying to do this already - but I question how serious it is. Buying a hybrid is not "doing your part." Buying green helps, but it can't be the end. Instead of simply "acting green," perhaps we should simply be green. I won't say that I know where the colonel's project will take him, but I will say this: once we realize that we are not separate from nature (as the colonel pointed out at the end of his last post), it becomes much easier to see why we shouldn't wreak havoc on the environment just because we can.

-the ambassador