Do we need a new word, a neologism, to describe the cojoining of bioregionalism and anarchism into a single, integrated, coherent philosophy? A word that will enable activists to more easily communicate the important message of anti-statism, living in place and freedom?
If you combine the tenets of anarchism with the tenets of bioregionalism, what would you call such a philosophy? The goal is to develop a easily described philosophy that describes how we can establish sustainable, free communities in a post Peak Oil world. A philosophy that builds on the anarchism of Kropotkin, the Deep Ecology of Arne Naess, the early eco-anarchism of Élisée Reclus and later of Murray Bookchin and Edward Abbey. Also of interest is the anarchist-anthropology of David Graber.
Bookchin deserves tremendous credit for his work, accurately stating that it is impossible to achieve a harmonization of man and nature without creating a human community that lives in lasting balance with its natural environment. This is a concept Bookchin develops more fully in The Ecology of Freedom: The emergence and dissolution of hierarchy, is that man’s domination of the natural world stems directly from his domination of other men.
Naess’s term “ecosophy” has some appeal. Ecosophy is a neologism that describes a sort of wisdom or philosophy born of ecological understanding and insight. But we need to expand his original thought to include anthropology and anarchism and move from a philosophical/theoretical base to a biological base supported by analytical rigor. We need a new strategy that fully describes how we can live in harmony with all living things in our local environment.