ABSTRACT
Derationalization refers to a value rationality that is very different from Enlightenment rationality in its goals, priorities, and potential institutions. Derationalization is the only perspective that criticizes the Enlightenment focus on human reason, with ecofeminism promoting emotion, intuition, and the special connection between women and nature, and deep ecology advancing an anti-anthropocentric view arguing for the intrinsic value of nature as a whole. Rationalization under plasticity or under greenness, rerationalization, and derationalization are fundamental lines of cultural conflict concerning the natural environment in the contemporary world. The intensification of rationalization under greenness attempts to balance off ecological goals against the goal of a high material standard of living for humans. It pursues ecological rationality in terms of sustainable development through a reform of the bureaucratic, market, and legal structure of society. Deep ecology perceives environmental problems to be the result of industrialism's instrumental rationalization since the Enlightenment.
