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Civic diversity Environmental language fortresses not civic exchange Tidbits on the voelkisches Selbstverstaendnis in the mainstreamed Germany and DACH

From Ecofeminism to Religion with Austrian welfare starlets

The way some people argue, or rather ’not argue‘ yet only spread conservative cheap sexist prejudice

Austrian activist Martin Balluch, chair of the Verein gegen Tierfarbriken, criticizing ecofeminism:

„Argumentatively, however, the decisive difference for me is whether what I have called the metaphysics of the natural sciences is recognized or not. This includes the assumption of an objectively real world, which is completely independent of human beings, which can be developed with the methodology of natural science, and which is structured in a fundamental way logically-mathematically. In my books I have argued for an animal ethics on this assumption. But the moment I leave this assumption, I introduce subjective, arbitrary elements into the discussion. I can then no longer claim generality. And this is precisely what characterizes religious arguments for animal rights.

Socha considers herself an areligious atheist, but she espouses the theses of ecofeminism. For this, she writes in her book, she also rejects the assumption of an objectively real, human-independent external world and the validity of rational arguments. Natural science and rationality, she argues, are patriarchal instruments of domination. Instead, she assumes, for example, that there was a friendly matriarchy before the Neolithic Revolution, which was then overthrown by patriarchy, as well as other ecofeminist folklore. But doesn’t the metaphor of Procrustes fit here as well? Doesn’t ecofeminism also cut the legs off scientific facts to fit its own ideology? Isn’t that exactly where the fact-finding begins, where we reject natural science and rationality?“

https://martinballuch.com/kommentar-zu-kim-socha-animal-liberation-and-atheism/ , accessed 01.01.2023

He started off with explaining in 2014:

https://martinballuch.com/ein-kritischer-blick-auf-den-oekofeminismus/ , accessed 01.01.2023

„Many philosophical traditions and social movements have developed their own approach to animal welfare, animal rights, and animal liberation, and that is a good thing. If you had to belong to a certain tradition or movement before you could get involved with animals, that would be a completely unnecessary restriction. And so feminism has also developed its own version of animal ethics, ecofeminism, as propagated by Carol Adams, Josephine Donovan, and Barbara Noske, for example.“

[…]

Ecofeminism

„I think this [how he applies the Kantian idea of the ‚moral imperative‘] claim is very good. For ecofeminism, on the other hand, it is a red rag. Principles like justice and universality, but also rights are, as well as the claim to more objective, i.e. natural science, male-patriarchal concepts, which are to be replaced by a subjective „ethics of care“, i.e. an ethics of compassion. Women, she argues, have suffered much more repression than men through history, and therefore it is feminism that has made this ethical approach possible. To refer to abstract principles that are universally valid would be common to all repressive-dominant systems. To act morally well, on the other hand, would be the loving attention to specific individuals in a concrete context.“

[…]

„But the most essential argument against this conception of animal ethics seems to me to be that there is justified and unjustified compassion. For example, I can feel compassion when I see an old car I drove for years being crushed at the junkyard. And once I planted fennel in my own garden but then couldn’t harvest it out of compassion, whereas I had no problem buying fennel at the supermarket. Without empirical-rational verification of my compassion, there would be rows and rows of malfunctions.“

A screenshot of the page with the obligatory questionworthy and missing the crucial points discussion as a PDF > here

On what arguments does he base his presuppositions actually? (Mind, he holds a dictorate in some natural sciences field. This makes it seem even more weird, that he skips any references to explain how he comes to get the impressions he bases his simplistic views and critique on.)

It looks like this author seeks to delegitimize anyone he disagress with who happens to be „a woman“ as „ecofeminist“, as if that would carry a negative connotation potentially to his readers. He doesn’t put much effort into clarifying on what exactly > arguments by the authors he criticises > he bases his simplistic assumptions.

Are Kim Socha and Barbara Noske even Ecofeminists I wonder?

He says ecofeminism was a purely „subjektive“ standpoint. Where does he get this notion and hwo does he conceptualize subjectivity as lesser in logical legitimacy?

Does he even understand what makes up a Vernunftswesen/reason in beings I wonder. Reasons after all is an individual experience? Democracy functions with the appreciation of the single individual.

Ok I am honestly too lazy to write more. Mr. Balluchs language seems to indicate he likes to put a „religios ecomasculinist“ standard for his reader.

To me personally by the way, religion is a subjective enterprise too, or how many religions would he reckon and how does religious „introspection“ (exoteric/esoteric) work in an individual? I doubt he even read Sochas excellent work on Atheism and Animal Liberation, which is inspirational also for the „religious“ readership as it open up a contextualizing questioning view on the limits of dogmatism for instance.

A friend says this looks to them like „deliberate anti-feminist unsubstantiated rhetorical mental arson“ and I must add, that this occurs and is being tolerated in the German speaking progressive activist’s scenes and societies is quite problematic.

Addition: A holistic approach, as it is attributed to ecofeminism in the Encyclopaedia Britannica (rightly in my opinion), is also not to be confused with a subjectivist approach – which Balluch assumes, but for which he also does not explain, in terms of content, what he, according to his state of knowledge, understands by it at all. In addition, he would have had to talk about vegan ecofeminism in order to take into account the weight of the animal rights issue, which even among feminists is visible as a gap and a field of tension, or even as being partially ignored.

Zusatz: Ein holistischer Ansatz, wie er in der Encyclopaedia Britannica (siehe link weiter unten) dem Ökofeminimsus zugeschrieben wird (zurecht mMn), ist auch nicht mit einem subjektivistischen Ansatz zu verwechseln – den Balluch unterstellt, bei dem er aber auch nicht inhaltlich erläutert, was er, seinem Kenntnisstand nach, überhaupt darunter versteht. Zudem hätte er über veganen Ökofeminismus sprechen müssen, um dem Gewicht der Tierrechtsproblematik, die selbst unter Feministinnen als Kluft und Spannungsfeld austariert oder auch zum Teil ignoriert wird, Rechnung zu tragen. Dieser Beitrag zu Ökofeminismus auf der Seite der Encyclopaedia Britannica ist ganz interessant: https://www.britannica.com/topic/ecofeminism

 

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