Discussion

I am pleased to have this opportunity to think about Renee Lertzman’s rich and stimulating paper. She introduces us to many other interesting contributors too, and I shall single out two: I was particularly grateful to be introduced to the work of Harold Searles and also that of Simon Blackburn, both of whom she quotes. As early as 1972, Searles said,

The current state of ecological deterioration is such as to evoke in us largely unconscious anxieties of different varieties that are of a piece with those characteristic of various levels of an individual ego-development history. Thus the general apathy is based upon largely unconscious ego defenses against these anxieties.

Ethics is disturbing. We are often vaguely uncomfortable when we think of such things as exploitation of the world’s resources, or the way our comforts are provided by the most miserable labor conditions of the third world. Sometimes, defensively, we get angry when such things are brought up. But to be entrenched in a culture, rather than merely belonging to the occasional rogue, exploitative attitudes will themselves need a story.