1.1 Main points from The Three Ecologies by Félix Guattari

The hope for the future is that the development of the three types of ecological praxis outlined here will lead to a redefinition and refocusing of the goals of emancipatory struggles. And, in a context in which the relation between capital and human activity is repeatedly renegotiated, let us hope that ecological, feminist and anti-racist activity will focus more centrally on new modes of production of subjectivity: that is to say, on modes of knowledge, culture, sensibility, and sociability – the future foundations of new productive assemblages – whose source lies in incorporeal systems of value. (Guattari, 1989)

Guattari’s three ecologies is, in essence, a reorientation of how humans should view themselves, society, and the environment as one being. Specifically, Guattari argues that it is “…simply wrong to regard action on the psyche, the socius, and the environment as separate. Indeed, if we continue… to refuse squarely to confront the simultaneous degradation of these three areas, we will in effect be acquiescing in a general infantilization of opinion, a destruction and neutralization of democracy.”

Guattari’s main concern is with the domain he calls the “integrated world capitalism (IWC)” which he believes is core group of ideals focused on the “…production of signs, of syntax, and – by exercising control over the media, advertising, opinion polls, etc.” which provides a social repression and shifts the centres of power from the production of goods and services. Through this ideal, our minds are being manipulated for a need of subjectivity social structures created by, endorsed by, and maintained by the IWC. To remove ourselves from the elusive control of these groups, Guattari insists on the “need for aesthetic paradigms is based on an attempt to stress the importance of perpetual reinvention,” thus creating a dynamic fluidity that breaks the constraints of the oppressors.

Guattari further argues that if technology and science could be oriented “…toward more human goals, we clearly need collective management and control… in the hope that they will control developments and minimize risks in fields largely dominated by the pursuit of profit.”  Sadly, Guattari has also recognized that “not only has the growth of techno-scientific resources failed absolutely to produce social and cultural progress; it seems equally clear that we are seeing an irreversible degradation of the traditional forces of social regulation.”

Because this book was written over two-decades ago, what response would Guattari have to the rise of the Internet and Web 2.0?  Has the face of the ecosphere changed from being, as Guattari described it, an “integrated world capitalism?”

1.2 Defining the Three Ecologies

Mental ecology “is the principle that its approach to existential territories derives from a pre-objectal and pre-personal logic: a logic evocative of what Freud described as a ‘primary process’. This might be described as a logic of the ‘included middle’, in which black and white are indistinct, in which the beautiful coexists with the ugly, the inside with the outside, the ‘good’ object with the bad.  Mental ecology has the capacity to emerge at any given moment, beyond the boundaries of fully formed ensembles or within the bounds of individual or collective order.”

Social ecology “is that of affective and pragmatic cathexis of human groups of various sizes. The ‘group Eros’ presents itself, not as an abstract quantity, but as a qualitatively specific reorganization of primary subjectivity as constituted in the order of mental ecology. There are two forms of group organization of subjectivity: its personological triangulation in the I-YOU- ME Father-Mother-Child mode; or its constitution in the forms of subject-groups open to the broader spectrum of the socius and the cosmos. In the former case, the ego and other are constructed through a set of standard identifications and imitations; the father, the leader, the mass media star become the focus for the organization of primary groups – the malleable crowds of mass media psychology. In the second case, identificatory systems are replaced by features of diagrammatic efficiency. In part at least, these allow the subject to escape semiologies of iconic modelling, and to engage instead with processual semiologies”

Environmental ecology “states that everything is possible – the worst catastrophes or the smoothest developments.  Increasingly in future, the maintenance of natural equilibria will be dependent upon human intervention.”

Focus Question 1: As an educator, how can technology be used to develop mental or social ecology and encourage subjectivity?  Does technology assist in the development of these types of ecology?

Reference:

Guattari, F. (1989). The three ecologies. New Formations, 8,  131-148