The Educative Potential of Ecological Militancy in an Age of Big Oil: Towards a Marcusean Ecopedagogy

Abstract

This article begins by tracing the conjunction between the birth of radical ecological politics and the New Left, then moves to a reconsideration of whether a Marcusean politics and culture of intolerance and resistance are legitimate under contemporary circumstances. The article then outlines a call for the reconstruction of a Marcusean ‘pro-life’ politics, and then closes with a discussion of how Marcuse provides ecological educators with a theory of politics as education and a revolutionary conception of humanitas, through which Marcuse sought to work to overcome the historical struggle and dichotomy between culture and nature, as well as the human and non-human animal. The conclusion offered is that Marcuse is a founding figure of a revolutionary ecopedagogy that seeks an end to the violent destruction of the earth, as it works to manifest a critical, utopian post-humanism based upon new life sensibilities that attempts to displace domination and repression broadly conceived with ecological and just social alternatives.