Law and Governance

La Ruralité, le Local et le Global – Note 6

                                                                                                  Seminaire Triglav, Poussignol, 7-9 July 2017

Note 6: Summary of Integral Ecology, chapter 4 of Laudato Si’, on Care for our Common Home, Encyclical Letter of Pope Francis[i]

This chapter has five sections:

I Environmental, Economic and Social Ecology

II Cultural Ecology

III Ecology of Daily Life

IV The Principle of the Common Good

V Justice between the generations

Here are some quotes from each of these five chapters:

I Environmental, Economic and Social Ecology:

  • Ecology studies the relationships between living organisms and the environment in which they develop….A good part of our genetic code is shared by many living beings. It follows that the fragmentation of knowledge and the isolation of bits of information can actually become a form of ignorance, unless they are integrated into a broader vision of reality.
  • When we speak of the “environment,” what we really mean is a relationship between between nature and the society which lives in it. Nature cannot be regarded as something separate from ourselves or as a mere setting in which we live. We are part of nature, included in it and thus in constant interactions with it.
  • We are faced not with two separate crises, one environmental and the other social, but rather with one complex crisis   which is both social and environmental. Strategies for a solution demand an integrated approach to combating poverty, restoring dignity to the excluded, and at the same time protecting nature. 
  • We urgently need a humanism capable of bringing together the different fields of knowledge, including economics, in the service of a more integral and integrative vision.

II Cultural Ecology

  • …there is a need to incorporate the history, culture and architecture of each place, thus preserving its original identity. Ecology, then, also involves protecting the cultural treasures of humanity in the broadest sense…Culture is more than what we have inherited from the past; it is also, and above all, a living, dynamic and participatory present reality, which cannot be excluded as we rethink the relationships between human beings and the environment.
  • A consumerist vision of human beings, encouraged by the mechanisms of today’s globalized economy, has a levelling effect on cultures, diminishing the immense variety which is the heritage of all humanity.
  • The imposition of a dominant life style linked to a single form of production can be just as harmful as the altering of ecosystems.
  • For them (indigenous communities) land is not a commodity but rather a gift from God and from their ancestors who rest there, a sacred  space with which they need to interact if they are to maintain their identity and values.

III Ecology of Daily Life

  • Authentic development includes efforts to bring about an integral improvement in the quality of human life, and this entails considering the setting in which people live their lives….We make every effort  to adapt to our environment, but when it is disorderly, chaotic and saturated with noise and ugliness, such overstimulation makes it difficult to find ourselves integrated and happy.
  • The feeling of asphyxiation brought on by densely populated residential areas is countered if close and warm relationships  develop, if communities are created, if the limitations of the environment are compensated for in  the interior of each person who feels held witin a network of solidarity and belonging .
  • Interventions  which affect the urban or rural landscape should take into account how various elements combine to form a whole which  is perceived by its inhabitants as a coherent and meaningful framework for their lives. Others will then no longer be seen as strangers, but as part of the “we” which all of us are working to create.”
  • Respect for human dignity as human beings often jars with the chaotic realities that people that people have to endure in city life. Yet this should not make us overlook the abandonment and neglect also experienced by some rural populations which lack access to essential services and where some workers are reduced to conditions of servitude, without rights or even the hope of a more dignified life. 
  • Human ecology also implies  another profound reality: the relationship between human life and the moral law, which is inscribed in our nature and is necessary for the creation of a more dignified environment. Pope Benedict XVI spoke of an “ecology of man” based on the fact that “man too has a nature that he must respect and that he cannot manipulate at will”. It is enough to recognize that our body itself establishes us in a direct relationship with the environment and with other living beings.

IV The Principle of the Common Good

  • Human ecology is inseparable from the notion of the common good, a central and unifying principle of social ethics.
  • Underlying the principle of the common good is respect for the human person as such, endowed with basic and inalienable rights ordered to his or her integral development. It has also to do with the overall welfare of society…Finally the common good calls for social peace, the stability and security provided by a certain order which cannot be achieved without particular concern for distributive justice; whenever this is violated, violence always ensues. Society as a whole, and the state in particular, are obliged to defend and promote the common good.
  • In  the present condition of global society, where injustice abounds and growing number of people are deprived of basic human rights and considered expendable, the principle of the common good immediately becomes, logically and inevitably, a summons to solidarity and a preferential option for the poorest of our brothers and sisters.

V Justice between the Generations

  • The notion of the common good also extends to future generations…We can no longer speaks of sustainable development apart from intergenerational solidarity… The worldmis a gift which we have freely received and must share with others. Since the world has been given to us, we can no longer view reality in a purely utilitarian way, in which efficiency and productivity are entirely geared to our individual benefit.  
  • When we ask ourselves what kind of world we want to leave behind, we think in the first place of its general direction, its meaning and its values…We need to see that what is at stake is our own dignity. Leaving an inhabitable to future generations is, first and foremost, up to us. The issue is one which dramatically affects  us  for it as to do with the ultimate meaning of our earthly sojourn.
  • Doomsday prediction can no longer be met with irony or disdain. We may well be leaving to coming generations debris, desolation and  filth…Our contemporary lifestyle, unsustainable as it is, can only precipitates catastrophes, such as those which even now periodically occur in different areas of the world.
  • Our difficulty in taking up this challenge seriously has much to do with an ethical and cultural decline which has accompanied the deterioration of the environemt. Men and women of our postmodern world run the risk of rampant individualism, and many problems are connected with today’s self-centered culture of instant gratification…Our  inability to think seriously about future generations is linked to our inability to broaden the scope of our present interests and to give consideration to those who remain excluded from development.”

In Chapter III of Laudato Si’, The Human Roots of the Ecological Crisis, are two sections titled  The Need to Protect Employment and New Biological Technologies containing a number of points relevant to agriculture (from paragraph 124 to paragraph 136). These points will be mentioned in the course of the debate in Poussignol.

[i]Le texte de Laudato Si’ en  Français sera disponible durant ce séminaire, Le texte en anglais aussi.

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