An Exploration of the “Reflex” in Reflexive Modernity

Abstract

An increasingly larger portion of the environmental movement claims that environmental destruction can only be stopped when our concern about environmental destruction is coupled with an “ecological consciousness,” that is, a wholistic understanding of the relationship between self, society, and nature. The author offers three interconnected theses to explain the increasing affinity for ecological consciousness: (a) Ecological consciousness, as opposed to traditional environmental consciousness, has prerational social causes that challenge modern rationality and, as such, is less reliant on knowledge and experience of environmental degradation for its spread; (b) the prerational dimension of social order links our affective responses and our most basic ontological presuppositions into a cognitive framework in which material and ideal interests are perceived as such; and (c) the experience of powerlessness can, under the right conditions, lead to a change in selfunderstanding such that individuals are left with an affinity for ecological consciousness.