Environmental Framework

This essay seeks to lay out the basic parameters of the chapter focused on environmentalism in my thesis. As such I do not seek to develop a psychoanalytically informed ecological theory, nor have I performed a full discourse analysis, although I imagine elements of both will be present in the complete thesis chapter. Rather, in this entry I seek to investigate how Laclau and Zizek’s conceptions of political change are played out in environmental discourse (particularly in New Zealand) and, further than this, debate the potential for radical anti-capitalist change stemming from environmentalist discourse.

The initial structure of this debate, examining the manner in which Green ideology has constituted itself, follows the work of Yannis Stavrakakis work (Stavrakakis, 1997, 2000). Stavrakakis works within the theoretical perspectives of both Laclau and Zizek and investigates three core elements in the rise of Green ideology;
- Dislocation of the hegemonic notions of the environment
- Dislocation of the political, particularly in regard to the environment
- Green thought as an ideology.

The first prominent dislocations in our notions of environment[i] began in the later 20th century when a concern with the environment began to develop into a discourse of its own in the 1960’s, along with a host of other changes in social politics at the time, including anti-racism and anti-sexism. Environmentalism, however, did not really become a strong force until the 1970’s, when a radical environmental movement developed, part of which was a damming critique of capitalism (Hansen, 1991:444). The rapid progression of environment discourse was a response to antagonisms in our conception of the environment. These antagonisms were unable to be pacified within the discursive/fantasmatic resources available and thus produced a dislocation.

All identities are dislocated to some degree, in that they require something outside of them to be constituted (Laclau, 1990:39-41), but dislocation is not always revealed; indeed it is only the negation of the dislocated element of the universal which maintains its universal status as an identity (Thomassen, 2005:16). When it is exposed, dislocation provokes antagonism, as revealed in the symptom. The presence of an antagonism, however, does not automatically mean an identity crisis;

‘ the direction of the response (to antagonism) depends on the course of action which seems to be more capable of neutralising the terrorising presence of the impossible real’ (Stavrakakis, 2000:109).


In order to maintain the purity of the identity, the effect of the antagonism is subverted onto a social antagonism, an ‘Other’ who has stolen ‘it’. In the case of environmental discourse, however, the antagonism was not able to be adequately displaced and a dislocation occurred.

The dislocation of the hegemonic discourses on the environment, caused by an antagonism in these notions, became an antagonism in itself in political terms. Neither the ‘Old Left’ nor the Right were able to include it as a particular within their chain of equivalences. Therefore a second dislocation occurred, this time within political discourse.

There are two possible explanations for this second dislocation. Stavrakakis hypothesises that for citizens to identify with the environmental movement, a second dislocation had to occur within political discourse. This dislocation occurred on several fronts, environmentalism perhaps the most prominent. Stavrakakis suggests that;

‘Increasing numbers of people look for a solution to problems such as unemployment and economic deterioration in Green ideology…If today people are increasing looking to Green ideology in order to solve these problems this means that previously hegemonic identifications have been dislocated’(Stavrakakis, 2000:111)

I agree that a dislocation did occur in political discourse that allowed a Green identification. I would like to suggest, however, that it was the advent of the dislocation of Green thought and the resulting antagonism that helped to produce the dislocation in political discourse, particularly of the Left. I do agree with Stavrakakis though that this discourse only became political through the dislocation of the Old Left.

Green ideology has itself developed into a universalism that competes with other, more traditional ideologies, such as liberalism and conservativism (Stavrakakis, 1997). To suggest, however, that the advent of a Green ideology has been the final victory for the environment cause would be a grave error. I state this for two main reasons. Although Green ideology, particularly at its most radical, is very essentialist. Green discourse seeks to find a fundamental and essential unity between its elements, particularly in the paradoxical ecocentric version. The paradox with ecocentricism is that it can only be expressed anthropocentrically, through language; no pure access to nature is possible. Thus, as with any universal, environmentalism produces its own symptoms.

As well as this, although Green ideology has become politically prominent, it has only been able to achieve change up to a certain threshold. It is this limit which is of vital importance in the debate between the relative merits of Laclau and Zizek’s work. Although Green ideology has been able to establish itself as an ideology and dislocate both the predominant conceptions of nature and the political treatment of these conceptions, it has not been able to fully deconstruct the unconscious supplement or fantasy that maintains the hegemonic capitalist ideology. It is this universalism that environment discourse has been unable to crack.

For a universalism of any kind to survive it has to subvert the various threats that come from being a fundamentally decentred entity. The regular process for dealing with such threats is to particularise them in a manner- present them as fixable- which maintains the unconscious supplement of the universal. This supplement is what binds together the universal. For example in New Zealand the environmental movement only captured the attention of the masses when it began to threaten the national identity, or ‘Thing’ in a Lacanian sense. The first risings in the 1970’s were based around protests against the Manapouri dam and then nuclear issues in the pacific. It was institutionalised by the state by the anti-nuclear ban of 1985 following various other moves in the 1970’s, particularly by Kirk’s 3rd Labour government. This follows Zizek’s concept of ‘theft of enjoyment’ in antagonisms involving fundamental fantasies (Osborne, 1996:38). New Zealanders gain a lot of jouissance from their national identity or Thing, that unknowable ‘X’ which can be compared to the objet a (Evans, 1996:205), the environmental movement gained a lot of traction from this nationalistic jouissance because people believed that it was being threatened, either by development, as in the Manapouri dam, or foreigners in the French nuclear tests. Environmentalism, whether accurate or not, has become a part of New Zealand identity.

In New Zealand this has helped maintain the position of Green ideology in politics, but it does not guarantee any practical effect. Rather, although all the political parties pay lip-service to environmentalism, competing to fill the empty signifier ‘Green’ and thus control the meaning of the term, this does not mean that all are seriously environmentally concerned. In particular, parties are attempting to bring the term away from the control of the Green Party and particularise it within their own ideology, thus subverting its effects.

For example, National has formed the ‘Blue Greens’ and United Future calls themselves the ‘common sense Greens’(UnitedFuture, 2005). ACT too is getting in on the ‘Green’ message. In a 2005 speech, Rodney Ride stated;

‘resources aren't defined physically but by science and technology combined with our ability to organise and to make use of them. That’s why the human race continues to flourish and prosper 30 years after the environmental doomsday books so terrifyingly predicted our imminent demise. We didn't run out of resources for a very simple reason: we can expand our knowledge and thereby expand our resource base. We now have more resources than ever before. We will have even more tomorrow

I did travel to countries that had run out of everything. These were the eastern bloc countries. Their problem wasn't the physical limits of their resource base but their failed economic system. That's the other problem with the doomsday books. They said a lot about ecology, systems and feedback loops, but ignored, first, the economic system within which natural resources are defined and used and, second, the feedback loop that prices provide. The failure was fatal to the models' predictive power. If something gets scarce, its price goes up, spurring conservation, the search for more supplies and discovery of alternatives’ (Hide, 2005).

Likewise, one of New Zealand First’s 15 fundamental principles is;

‘Wise Governments view the preservation and enhancement of the environment as sound economics. All environmental policies will be proactive with a view to creating employment and sustainable wealth whilst improving one of our few competitive advantages’ (NZFirst, 2005).

Once the ‘Green’ link has been established and the antagonism has been domesticated, it simply becomes a particular within the free-market universal and has very little influence. This is not to state, however, that right wing parties are the only political groups to concede to the power of the economy. It is just that groups like the ACT party are more honest about it. In contrast the Green Party, both of New Zealand and Britain, implicitly claim to have anti-capitalist principles, but both work well within the confines of the capitalist economy. One of the principles of the British Green party manifesto is;

‘A rejection of materialism and the destructive values of industrialism’ (Stavrakakis, 1997)

Likewise the Green Party of Aotearoa, in their Charter state;

‘Unlimited material growth is impossible. Therefore the key to social responsibility is the just distribution of social and natural resources, both locally and globally’ (GreenParty, 2005).

Although these principles do not overtly state an anti-capitalist position, the implicit message is certainly anti-capitalist. Green ideology, however, is not able to act on these sentiments. They are unable to take the final act because they know it is electoral suicide, as other parties do, accusing them of being ‘watermelons’; green on the outside, red in the middle (Baldock, 2005; Hide, 2005). It is as if capital provides a fundamental blockage in the discourse; as Zizek states, capital is the real, it has hegemonised hegemony (Zizek, 2000a:223; 2000b:319).

Now, however, although was are still antagonised by environmental threat, which as Zizek shows is one of the modalities in which we regularly meet the real (Zizek, 1999:4) this threat is increasingly particularised and dealt with within a plurality of other discourses around this fundamental blockage. One particularly common discourse is the scientific ideology that all environmental issues will eventually get solved with greater knowledge and better technology. Accompanying this ideology is the idea that the radical Green position is simply an ‘ideology’ in itself, unlike ‘objective’ science (Hide, 2005; UnitedFuture, 2005).

Particularism also occurs within the Green Party, abet in a more ecological universal manner. The Green Party (NZ) cannot make any fundamental changes in the economic structures, so works in a very particular manner promoting, practical, ‘Tool Kit’ solutions, such as better waste management. Such attempts stay with a win-win fantasy. It is appears to be politically unthinkable in western societies to such any kind of sacrifice has to be made.

Other interesting attempts to deal with the environmental antagonism fully enter into the consumerist fantasy. These include ‘Green’ shopping that plays at super-ego demand, such as re-usable shopping bags (Hickman, 2006). An interesting alternative to the super-ego approach is provided by the Conservation Fund and their Carbon Zero Calculator. Here the consumer is able to approximate their carbon footprint and then ‘Go Zero’ by making a donation towards the planting of native trees to balance out your production of carbon. I could remove my guilt, pollute all I want and ‘Go Zero’ for US$35.50! (TheConservationFund, 2006).

While these approaches do have a benefit, as has the entire environment movement, in getting Green ideology in the political sphere and having a material effect on the world, to its benefit, as pointed out by environmentalist such as Lomborg (Lomborg, 1998), and Suzuki and Dressel (Suzuki & Dressel, 2002) who suggest that by changing our ways humanity has largely turned around the environmental problem and will continue to do so into the future. What this kind of approach ignores, however, is that there is a limit to the benefit that this kind of approach can provide. Whilst the capitalist system still operates, corporations will still do whatever they can to make a profit, and as, Zizek states in regard to expansion of liberal-capitalism;

‘There is a limit to it, and where that limit is, is for me the only serious question’. (Osborne, 1996:37).

Environmentalism, I believe provides a good example of the strengths and limitations of both Laclau and Zizek’s approaches. Whilst the Laclauian method, both theoretical and political is productive for explaining the manner in which environmental discourse has been constituted as an ideology, it cannot adequately explain why it stalls at the fundamental blockage of capitalism. Given this theoretical failure, nor can we state that radical democracy is capable of overturning this deadlock. The fantasy and enjoyment inherent in global capital are simply too strong to be overturned through the flow of meanings; these are simply subverted, as I have described earlier with environmental antagonism.

What then is the Zizekian alternative? Any approach from this perspective must deal both with the real of capital and its associated deadlock, as well as the enjoyment that is gathered out of it. One strategy noted earlier was association with other strong fantasies, such as nationhood. The movement between capitalism an totalitarian nationalism is something that has often occurred, particularly in Eastern European states and is a false dichotomy that Zizek strongly opposes (Osborne, 1996:27-32; Zizek, 2001). Nationalism is a futile strategy in terms of anti-capitalism within the capitalist system because it is so heavily tied within the system. Therefore, just as the Laclauian ‘war of position’, this strategy is doomed to failure.

Instead, I believe that the answer lies within capitalism itself, through a concept that I have discussed previously and as such will not dwell on, identification with the symptom and concrete universality. It is only when we are able identifying with the environmental symptom, the representation of the antagonism of the real, that we are able to break with the fantasy and achieve true radical change. But what would this symptom look like in environmental terms and how would such identification occur? Symptoms of global climate change are felt everyday, the naming of such symptoms is not overly important; within a given level of material occurrence, the science of climate change is simply a distraction from the real issues. As I have shown, scientific ideology too easily pacifies environmental antagonism. Nor is it Green ideology, which is also easily taken up through similar ideologies. The main ‘advantage’ with the environmental realm, in terms of change, is that we constantly feel the effects of the real in the environment (Zizek, 1999:4) and thus antagonisms are ever present. Unfortunately I believe that it will only be a radical environmental explosion of some kind which will prompt radical anti-capitalist change to come out of this domain. It is for this reason that I do not believe that environmental discourse holds much political hope for the anti-capitalist. Instead I agree with Zizek in that all we can do is be prepared when this explosion does occur (Osborne, 1996:44).


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[i] My history of environmentalism is limited at this stage. For the fuller chapter I will have to expand on this in more detail