ABSTRACT
This essay is an attempt to come to grips with ‘reciprocal allegations of ideology’. Inhabitants of ecologically oriented Intentional Communities – so-called Ecovillages – take themselves to be important actors in global politics. By sharing resources, by experimenting with new technologies and ways of living that are less destructive for others and for the environment, Ecovillagers want to contribute to a solution for the current global environmental crisis. Political scientists, however, usually ignore them and – if asked – deny their relevance for global politics by pointing to ideology as an explanation for the communards misperception of their own actions: While they may take themselves to be important actors in global politics, really they are merely engaged in private and social activities and hence do not need to be taken into account. The Ecovillagers, on the other hand, also point to ideology as an explanation for the scientists’ misrepresentation and ignorance of their actions. Since political scientists look at the world in a mechanistic way and pay attention only to interests and ‘big players’, they not only overlook the importance of Ecovillagers but also reproduce the current environmental crisis. This chapter is an attempt to come to grips with these reciprocal allegations of ideology. My main argument is that what at first sight looks like a disagreement about theories of the world is actually the expression of a crisis of Western modernity, which presents itself as a conflict over forms of life. I make this argument in four steps: First, I sketch out three possibilities of dealing with reciprocal allegations of ideology: One can take sides, treat both sides symmetrically or take the route of Critical Theory and make sense of the seemingly independent allegations as one conflict. To pursue this last option, in a second step, I lay out the worldview of a group of Ecovillagers and reconstruct why they believe political science is ideological. In a third step, I explain why Ecovillagers remain invisible for IR scholars and reconstruct, why – from the point of view of political scientists – Ecovillagers are hence ideologically misled. In a fourth step, I attempt to make sense of these two contradicting views by describing these reciprocal allegations of ideology as a conflict that points to contradictions in our modern Western form of life.
