THEORY
3.7 Is non-violence a green principle?Green politics is informed by a concern not to
harm the natural environment, yet there is no
entirely satisfactory distinctivegreen
justification for non-violence.
Modern warfare is clearly bad for the
environment for it wreaks devastation upon it.
Yet war is an extreme case. Within civil society,
it is important to distinguish between violence
against people and violence against property.
Almost all greens reject the former, but many
would regard the latter as legitimate and there
are certainly numerous examples of
environmental activism directed against
property, whether it is spiking bulldozers,
pulling up GM crops or smashing up
McDonald’s outlets (see Chapter6). Thus it is
important to be clear about what is meant by
‘violence’.
The green commitment to non-violent protest
in civil society has a practical explanation
arising from the close links between the green
movement and the peace, anti-nuclear andwomen’s movements, which all rejected the use
of violence against people. The use of
well-rehearsed,anthropocentricarguments
against non-violence that originated in other
political struggles – anti-militarism, fear of
nuclear accidents, the links with male
violence – explains why non-violence has not
figured prominently in debates within green
political theory.
At the level of greenprinciple, where there is
a trade-off between non-violence and other
green ends, such as achieving a sustainable
society, greens need to show that non-violence
is a prerequisite for achieving that end.
Otherwise it will be trumped by the ecological
imperative. However, at the level ofstrategy,a
principle of non-violence places the onus on
opponents to show why coercive or violent
methods might be superior.
See Doherty ( 1996 ) for a wider discussion of
non-violence and green politics.climate change prevention requires tough restrictions in car use and high
petrol taxes. Yet governments are reluctant to implement such unpopular
policies because an angry electorate might vote them out of office. As Goodin
(1992)puts it: ‘To advocate democracy is to advocate procedures, to advocate
environmentalism is to advocate substantive outcomes: what guarantee can
we have that the former procedures will yield the latter sort of outcomes?’
(p. 168). He is not suggesting that democratic procedures are illegitimate or
undesirable; it is just that when it comes to choosing between procedures,
theecological imperative should always trump democracy.
However, Goodin simply asserts that the theory of value takes priority
without properly discussing how policies will be derived from it (Hayward
1995 ). One practical argument for democracy is that infallible green poli-
cies will not simply drop like apples from a theory of value, so the means
of reaching decisions do matter. Those arguments that defend the use of
non-democratic methods often contain an implicit technocratic assumption
that a governing elite of politicians, scientists and professionals knows best;
Ophuls ( 1977 )eventalks of a ‘priesthood of technologists’ (p. 159). The impli-
cation is that certain ecological decisions should be made by those peo-
ple possessing this ‘superior knowledge’ (Saward 1996 : 80) and not left to
the whims of democratic procedures. This argument effectively privileges