6. Green Ideology

The following two chapters seek to further develop the dialectical materialist methodological position created in Chapter 5 through its application to two areas of capitalist discourse. These discursive formations, Green ideology and global poverty, represent two of the most pressing issues facing humanity. By applying the methodology created in thesis, a method which acts as a political approach in itself, it is hoped that further insight can be gathered into the viability of this political method, in particular the attempt to practice concrete universality. The initial focus of the discursive analysis is an examination of the defence mechanisms used towards symptoms within the universal horizon. Secondly, the chapters examine the possibilities for dislocating these defence mechanisms and moving beyond the abstract universal imaginary and its unconscious supplement by exposing the exclusion upon which it is based; the concrete universal.

In this chapter we shall first set the theoretical context for this methodological application to Green ideology, both in terms of the development of Green ideology and the specific application of dialectical materialism to Green ideology, specifically the modalities of parallaxes and the Real that are in operation. Following this task, we will move onto the particular defence mechanisms orientated towards symptoms within discourses in Green ideology. Finally, the potential for disrupting capitalism via the symptom is considered. It is found that although the environment is an element that constantly threatens to dislocate capitalism, it is difficult to harness this power in a pro-active manner; that is, without waiting for an ecological collapse. In terms of the method created in the previous chapter and its political implications, Green Ideology exemplifies the efficiency of discursive defence mechanisms in domesticating the dislocating effect of the symptom. Conversely, the importance of the concrete universal - as the impossible element which always returns - is highlighted; hence the political potency of practicing the concrete universal.


6.1 Development of Green Ideology

Since the latter half of the 20th century, various terms have been used to refer to Green ideology. Environmentalism and ecologism are two terms that are often used interchangeably within Green discourse; however, for the purposes of this thesis, a subtle distinction lies between them. Environmentalism is thought to relate more to reformist, particular Green discourses, whereas ecologism takes a stronger, often ecocentric stand (Heywood, 1998,p.264; Smith, 1998,p.66). In this chapter when referring the total field of thought relating to the environment, the term ‘Green’ will be used, whereas ‘environmentalism’ and ‘ecologism’ will be reserved for their respective particular discourses.

A further differentiation, more specific to this thesis, is required between the terms ‘nature’ and ‘the natural’. This distinction owes a lot to the work of Yannis Stavrakakis, particularly his contrast between politics and the political (Stavrakakis, 1999,p.71). Nature is a construction of reality, through the symbolic and its fantasmatic support. Nature, however, cannot exhaust the natural. As such it resembles the relationship between reality and the Real. In terms of Green ideology, the basic parallax of ontological difference lies in the incommensurability between nature and the natural. In this definition, nature is the abstract universal. It refers to the hegemonic conception of the ‘natural’ within any given discourse. In contrast, the natural is the really existing hard material/biological core to nature. It is the trees, seas and genes; the total material entity outside of language. In terms of ontological difference, the natural is the concrete universal. The concrete universal of the natural exceeds that of the universal horizon of nature, yet encompasses its concrete singular exception in that it is only when the abstract universal fails, as revealed in the symptom, that the natural is revealed.

As in any parallax, there is an incommensurable split in operation. What is specific about this parallax for Green ideology is the relationship between the abstract and concrete universal. Rather than the concrete universal operating only as the disavowed foundation of the abstract universal, its minimal difference within itself, the concrete universal in this circumstance is what the abstract universal seeks to represent. The twist, however, is that in seeking to represent the concrete universal, the abstract represses the essential impossibility of this representation; that nature is not the natural - this repression is similar to the fundamental fantasy which represses the act of castration. Therefore, a minimal difference still operates between nature and the natural. This minimal difference is a modality of the Real because of the incommensurable gap introduced within the moment of universality. Further to this, not only does the Real operate as the parallax Real via the incommensurable gap between the abstract and concrete modalities of the universal, but also through the concrete universal as a force in itself; the natural.

As well as the parallax of ontological difference, a second parallax is in operation within Green ideology; the political parallax. Political parallaxes occur, similar to the parallax of ontological difference, when there is no common ground between two perspectives. However, rather than this incommensurability occurring as an internal difference, the parallax occurs between two competing positions. These positions are separated by a fundamental social antagonism, which introduces a parallax gap; the parallax Real. In Green ideology the parallax Real occurs because of the social antagonism caused by global capital. This social antagonism separates perspectives which are dominated by the hegemony of global capital and those which are structured only according to environmental concern. Once again, a symptom of the parallax occurs where the gap (social antagonism) reveals itself. In the case of the political parallax, symptoms can occur on both sides of the parallax.

This political parallax has occurred because capital is also the symbolic Real (Žižek, 2002, p.xii), it has hegemonised the ground upon which discourses of nature are constructed. This does not mean that capital is the Real in the sense that it is an impossiblity or absence, rather it is that which always returns to its place; it forms the background against which all other discourses relate back to; capital has hegemonised hegemony (Žižek, 2000a, p.223; 2000b ,p.319). The symbolic Real has much in common with Fink’s conception of R2, the Real after the letter (as I have developed in Chapter 2). Capital, as the symbolic Real produces a limit within the discursive realm. Any discourse that clashes with a discourse of capital creates a social antagonism, a split within the discourse. Social antagonisms reveal themselves through symptoms which reveal the incommensurability of discourses split by a social antagonism. As we shall latter develop, this occurs most prominently in discourses from the Green Party of New Zealand. This chapter reviews several different Green discourses which form part of the Green ideology, considering the operation of both the parallaxes of ontological difference and the political parallax, as well as the resulting modalities of the Real and their symptoms through the methodology described in Chapter Five and the unique application of these categories are depicted in the introduction to this chapter. Examples of these discourses are taken from New Zealand politics which, while not exhaustive of Green ideology, give an adequate guide.

It is theorised that each discourse is dealing with a primary dislocation, that of the Green critique of industrialism and also the universal hegemonic power of the capitalist economy. Capital provides a fundamental limit to each of the discourses, a Real limit that produces a deadlock around which a plurality of discourses rotates, as well as the displacement of the effect of the Real to various external antagonisms. There are possibilities of radical economic change through the constant dislocation of industrialism and capital through the natural. On the other hand, these dislocations and the symptoms they produce are well domesticated by discourses that cannot move beyond the limit imposed by capital. Therefore only a radical, natural dislocation provides a possibility of change. This work relies predominately on the theory of Laclau and Žižek, however, the analysis of Green discourses by Yannis Stavrakakis, John Dryzek and Toby Smith are also heavily drawn on.

The first prominent dislocations in our construction of the natural began in the later 20th century. 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, feminism and the peace movement. Indeed, Dryzek suggests that a concept of the ‘environment’ did not exist until the 1960’s (Dryzek, 2005, p.5). Environmentalism/ecologism did not, however, 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, p.444). Around this time Green political parties were also established, such as the Values Party in New Zealand, which first formed in 1972 (Dryzek, 2005, p.203).

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. The environmental movement was institutionalised by the state with the anti-nuclear ban of 1985 following various other moves in the 1970’s, particularly by Kirk’s 3rd Labour government. The environmental movement gained a lot of traction from a nationalistic jouissance because New Zealanders believed that their ‘Thing’ was being threatened, either by development, as in the Manapouri dam, or foreigners in the French nuclear tests. Environmentalism has become a part of the New Zealand identity and an increasingly central element in New Zealand politics. For example, National has formed a group within its party called the ‘Blue Greens’ and United Future call themselves the ‘common sense Greens’(United Future, 2005). The ACT party is also getting in on the ‘Green’ message. This spread of environmental politics is mirrored in western nations around the world, with the current notable exception of the United States.

The rapid progression of environment discourse has been a response to symptoms (of the ontological parallax between nature and the natural) emerging of the universal conception of the environment. These symptoms were unable to be pacified within the discursive/fantasmatic resources available and thus produced a plurality of discourses which sought to tame and understand them. The domestication of symptoms is not an arbitrary process, rather, as Stavrakakis states; “the direction of the response (to dislocation) depends on the course of action which seems to be more capable of neutralising the terrorising presence of the impossible Real” (Stavrakakis, 2000, p.109). There are numerous different discursive positions which have battled to provide a domesticating hegemony to Green Ideology by coming to grips with the Real which has provoked a partial dislocation in industrial discourse. This partial dislocation has meant that Green ideology has become more common place, attempting to deal with the threat to the capitalist imaginary produced by climate change. As such, Stavrakakis states;

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 (p.111).

6.2 The Symptom; Survivalism

Symptoms within Green ideology come in several different forms. They can be symptoms of the ontological parallax, such as climate change or in the instance of political parallax, the failure of carbon taxes. The initial dislocating symptom of Green ideology was the discourse of Survivalism (Dryzek, 2005). Survivalism was a discursive representation of the growing realisation that humanity’s conception of nature was radically out of balance with the natural. The discursive representation of this symptom did not fully domesticate its Real effect. Although the symptom is symbolised, it is not within the terms of the abstract universal, or in terms that could be reconstructed within the universal horizon. Therefore Survivalism still maintained its dislocatory threat.

Survivalism, first constituted through a report by the Club of Rome in 1972, is based on the belief that industrial production and economic growth is pushing the earth towards or, perhaps past, its carry capacity; the maximum supportable resource use in an ecosystem before its collapse (Dryzek, 2005, p.27). Survivalism is the discourse which first established Green ideology as a political force, although it never fully instituted itself as a positive movement, rather as a threat to the universal imaginary. This was a role that it played particularly successfully, based on a fundamental belief in the finite resource limits of the planet. As such Survivalism became the symptom of industrialism and looked likely to threaten the universal status of industrialism, in both its capitalist and communist forms.

Survivalism rejected the capacity of new technologies to expand resource limits, suggesting that technological advancement simply slowed resource depletion; inadequate when exponential system growth is occurring, such as in human population. The danger of exponential growth is signified by the ‘29th day’ metaphor, a common survivalist image. This metaphor makes a comparison between lilies in a pond and the carrying capacity of the Earth. It asks which day a pond would be half full if the number of Lilies doubles each day and the pond is full on the 30th. The answer is of course the 29th day, on which it would appear that there is plenty of room for expansion. This kind of imagery proved an enormous threat to the hegemonic system of production. However, the advent of Green ideology has not meant a full dislocation of capitalism or of the industrial ethos. Instead, a number of different discursive strategies have been used to domesticate this symptom. It is to these discursive strategies that we now turn.

6.3 Discursive strategies; Repression

The parallax between nature and the natural means that a degree of dislocation of any discourse of nature is inevitable. When that discourse is a capitalist conception of nature, the dislocation is likely to be even stronger because of the drive towards greater exploitation of natural resources. Because of this dislocation, the symptoms of nature are difficult to repress. The closest discourse of Green ideology to the discursive strategy of Repression is Promethean discourse (Dryzek, 2005). Promethean discourse was the initial response to Survivalism; it repressed the symptomatic discourse of Survivalism. The repression, a restoration of original identity provided a form of jouissance because it offered the prospect of quilting the void opened up by Survivalism. The basic premise of Promethean discourse is that humankind has ultimate control of the environment and it is thus able to push the limit of global carrying capacity indefinitely. This is based on free-market economic arguments that suggest that price is the ultimate measure of scarcity; as resources become scarcer, prices will increase producing conservation efforts and a search for substitutes. In order to develop and have access to this technology, societies need to be wealthy. Therefore the key to environmental health is economic wealth.

Promethean discourse is illustrated in the following excerpt from a speech by the leader of the New Zealand ACT Party, Rodney Hide;

(R)esources 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).
A fine line exists between Hide’s position and the acknowledgement of the symptom. As the discrepancy between nature and the natural starts to reveal itself, it gets more difficult to repress symptoms. Here lies the correlation between acknowledgement and repression. Promethean discourse remains within a repressive operation in that it refuses to acknowledge the symptom, but at the same time acknowledges the symptom sufficiently enough to state the technology will solve the problem; that it is just a temporary blip in the market - if it was really a issue, prices would go up to fix the problem. Indeed, as has been previously noted, these failures are necessary for the continued functioning of the abstract universal. Promethean discourse required the occurrence or even production of failure to be posited in fantasy as contingent or external failures. The minimal acknowledgement of the symptom, within the confines of fantasy, provides this failure.
Conversely, the threat of environment collapse has not simply dissipated with Promethean discourse. It constantly impacts on the social order, such is the impact of the symptom as an excess to the system. Now, although humanity is still threatened by environmental dislocation, which as Žižek shows is one of the modalities in which we regularly meet the Real (Žižek, 1999,p.4), this threat is increasingly particularised and dealt with within a plurality of other discourses around this fundamental blockage; the parallax relationship between economic growth and environmental limits. The symptom continues to impact and thus the Promethean discourse ultimately failed because although it fits in well with the ideological fantasy of economic growth, it failed to adequately domesticate its symptom, the continued failure of nature to represent the natural.
6.4 Acknowledgement of the symptom

The failure of Promethean discourse produced a range of new discursive perspectives that acknowledged the presence of the symptom - environmental limits/climate change- yet domesticated its effects. In terms of the political parallax of Green ideology, these hegemonic discourses operate firmly on the side of global capital. They function through the ideology/fantasy of science and the market, as well as super-ego demand through Green consumerism and ‘clean, green living’. As well as these mechanisms, there is a large degree of fetishism - environmental limits are disavowed at the expense of the consumption of commodities. Disavowal/fetishism is the most powerful force and currently the strongest defence mechanism against symptoms within Green ideology.
6.4.i Ideology
One of the strongest defence mechanisms used against the symptom in Green ideology are the discourses of ‘problem-solving’. These discourses represent the ultimate ideological position in claiming that they are outside of ideology and are taking a neutral perspective. Problem solving discourses, such as Democratic Pragmatism, Administrative and Economic Rationalism take the status quo as given and do not debate the issue of environmental limits which was at the centre of the Survivalist/Promethean division. Instead, problem-solving discourses reject any call to ‘ideology’ and rather focus on pure ‘scientific’ evidence. New Zealand environmental politics rotate between these three types of problem-solving discourses. The Green Party does enter further into the more radical sustainability discourses, but increasingly is looking to democratic participation and economic instruments. By taking the capitalist status quo as a given, problem solving discourses are able to supplement the universal appeal of capital whilst somewhat dealing with the symptom of environmental change, either through domestication through particularism e.g. no real change or sacrifice is required, just good management, or through the positing of an external antagonism (often Green Radicalism); “we are not captured by the extremist fringe of the environmental movement or it’s ideology” (NZ First, 2005a).
Some parties, such as New Zealand First, take a purely economic line; 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” (NZ First, 2005b). Likewise, David Benson-Pope, the former Government Minister for the Environment states; “While there are challenges ahead to maintain economic growth without damaging the environment or quality of life, I’m determined to face up to these challenges - there is no alternative” (Benson-Pope, 2006).
6.4.ii Fetishism and Disavowal

Perhaps the most powerful discourse in terms of protecting a universal horizon against the symptom is disavowal, often combined with fetishism. The Economic Rationalist discourse is a powerful one because it is able to particularise the environmental threat by maintaining the stance that a radical change is not required. Although this discourse does not deny the existence of the symptom, it offers an easy solution, obtainable without sacrifice; indeed through the jouissance of consumption. Within Green ideology, Economic Rationalist discourse takes this position. Economic Rationalism is very similar to the Promethean discourse; it includes much the same actors and assumptions, but makes more of an effort to account for environmental threat. Economic Rationalism is almost a sequel to Promethean discourse. Instead of simply letting the market take care of the environment, Economic Rationalist discourse seeks to establish markets where they did not exist previously, such as for water or pollution. Carbon trading and the Kyoto agreement are examples of the new establishment of markets. At its most radical Economic Rationalism enters into a certain restructuring of the capitalist economy, similar to the discourse of Ecological Modernism. The former discourse is most readily associated with the political and economic Right, but increasingly even social democratic political parties and discourses are seeking to ‘harness the power of the market’. The Green party utilises these kind of movements, seeking to ‘Naturalise’ capitalism (GreenParty, 2005a, 2005d, 2005e), such is the impotence of the ecological side of the political parallax.

Economic Rationalism operates as a disavowal in that it acknowledges the presence of climate change and environmental limits as symptoms, yet continues to operate as if they did not exist by progressing on with, indeed strengthening, the very measures that created these conditions. Like most disavowals, the mechanism that allows this paradoxical operation is a fetish. In this case the fetish comes from consumption, as we shall also later develop in relation to the super-ego. In the case of fetishism and disavowals, the subject acknowledges, often only unconsciously, that consumption and the free-market are destroying the environment, yet refuses to give up the jouissance they obtain through consumption. This jouissance makes this fetish very difficult to break down. Indeed it is the jouissance received from consumption and ‘our (western) way of life’ that creates the social antagonism between global capital and environmental limits seen in the political parallax.



6.4.iii Super-ego demand, ideological fantasy and the Empty Signifier

Green discourses which have operated through ideological fantasy, such as the problem-solving discourses, or through fetishism, however, have not been able to fully integrate the symptom within their universal horizon. Instead, as is the inherent condition of the nature/natural ontological parallax, the symptom continues to operate as an excessive element within the discourse. Therefore, a new breed of discourse has been generated. These discourses take on a super-ego demand, in that the discourse suggests that the subject ‘ought’ to conserve the environment. ‘Sustainability’, predominately the discourses of Ecological Modernism and Sustainable Development, as well as Green consumerism, are the stable discourses of this method. As well as this, empty signifiers are frequently used to give name to the subversion of the staging of absence via the Kantian transcendental illusion (Žižek, 2006a, p.18). This naming allows the illusion that there is something which exists in the gap between the two elements of the political parallax.

Sustainability discourses do not seek to bring down capitalism, but rather to strengthen its hegemony; they attempt to suture the political parallax by privileging capital over the environment. They implicitly and explicitly accept that capitalism is the ‘only game in town’ and therefore ecological movements have no option but to seek to make it profitable for capital to be ‘Green’. To do so would be to dissolve the social antagonism that constructs the parallax; there is no antagonism because ecologicalism fully accepts the legitimate hegemony of capital. This involves some restructuring of capital, but mostly in the name of capital, not the environment. However, although these discourses seek to 'Green' capitalism, all they end up achieving is a pacification of the ecological symptom and a market advantage, playing to the super-ego demand of the consumer, which is what we see in the Green consumerist movement. 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! (The Conservation Fund, 2006).
Green consumerism is one of the strongest Green discourses because its erases our doubts about the feasibility of consumption (over-consumption being suggested as a symptom of capital), suggesting that we can continue consuming at the same rate, as long as we do it in a more efficient and ecologically sensitive manner (Smith, 1998, p.88). Green consumerism also hooks into the very seductive ideological jouissance of the act of consumption itself. However, the duel operation of super-ego and consumption can produce a paradox of increased consumption. With Green consumption, the more one conforms, the guiltier one feels. Added to Green consumption as a modality of the super-ego, we have the paradoxical situation that Green consumption can lead to more consumption; that Green consumption could mean limiting consumption does not fit the co-ordinates of the capitalist matrix, nor the demands of the super-ego. Therefore, although Green consumerism cannot be dismissed outright - undoubtedly it is better for the environment to buy recycled toilet paper than regular - the obscene underside of this action is that it domesticates the environmental symptom. It reduces the environmental problem to an individual one, rather than a constitutive structural fault and suggests that through small actions the problem can be solved. Ultimately then, Green Consumerism cannot be viewed in a positive manner.

6.4.iv The Political Parallax; Empty signifiers

In taking on all these demands, the term ‘Sustainable Development’ becomes an empty signifier in the Laclauian sense; it is filled with meaning by discourses that achieve hegemony. More than this, it allows for the temporary production of a transcendental illusion. The transcendental illusion suggests that something exists in the place of nothing; in the gap between the two mutually exclusive perspectives of the political parallax. The empty signifier, by giving a name to this parallax gap, suggests the possibility its filling. The possibility of such a suture produces jouissance. The use of the empty signifier ‘Sustainable Development’ is vital to the smooth operation of any political formation functioning within Green ideology. Sustainable development seeks to avoid the pitfalls of the political parallax between development and environmental degradation. However, the use of Sustainable Development as a suturing tool does not in any way suggest that it is a middle or neutral point between the discourses. Rather, empty signifiers are hegemonised by the dominant side of the parallax - in this case, capital. Thus, while Green parties and movements may insist on the value of being ‘Sustainable’, the term is being appropriated by capital to mean sustainable growth, which may or may nor have an environmental edge. Thus its very emptiness gives ‘Sustainable Development’ it’s value; it can be taken on by many discourses without compromise, most notably capital.

Capital, however, provides the limit for sustainable development discourses; this limit is the parallax gap. The parallax gap is revealed in the symptoms of sustainability, such as the rejection of Green taxes in New Zealand, such as the now infamous ‘Fart Tax’, as well as the ‘Carbon Tax’. The symptoms of the parallax reveal themselves where the subordinate discourse attempts to push beyond the limits set for it by the hegemonic horizon. This has been the case in Green ideology when moves by ecological discourses begin to threaten capital. These moves are rejected through the threat of ‘disinvestment’ from capital. The disinvestment threat is not direct, but it is real. Governments in liberal-capitalist democracies stand or fall on their abilities to increase and maintain economic growth. Any discursive move and policy that may directly threaten the interests of capital is immediately written off as a threat to economic growth and rejected. Efforts to move environmental protection along market lines have been rejected because of their costs to capital; in stark contrast to the ease at which market measures had been taken on in Health and Education.

Although the Green Party Charter states what appears to be an anti-capitalist manifesto; “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, 2005c)The Green Party are forced to re-interpret ‘Sustainable’ in a capitalistic manner, in the naïve hope that they can manipulate its meaning beyond the currently hegemony of the business world. For example, in the initial issue of the Green’s business publication ‘The Real Bottom Line’, co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons suggests that sustainable business is about “Future-proofing the New Zealand Economy”(Fitzsimons, 2006c). Similarly, in an article entitled ‘More Power to Consumers’ Fitzsimons advocates for more information for consumers to make better choices about their choice of energy supplier (Fitzsimons, 2006b). The Green Party are thus politically limited because they know it is electoral suicide to take on a position that may evoke ‘disinvestment’ threats. Other political parties in New Zealand are also aware of the power of this threat, accusing the Green Party of being ‘Watermelons’; green on the outside, red in the middle (Baldock, 2005; Hide, 2005).

6.5 External discourses- The flip-side of the political parallax

On the other side of the political parallax that operates within Green ideology lay those discourses which are excluded from the dominant terms of the debate; those that do not fit with the limits set by global capital. Green radicalism is by far the most common of these possibilities. Of all the Green discourses that have been analysed in this chapter, it is only Green Radicalism that is not totally anthropocentric. There are anthropocentric elements in Green Radicalism, but a large element of this discourse focuses on the principally excluded ecocentric component of Green ideology. The predominance of ecocentricism within Green radicalism reveals the incommensurability between it and capital; there simply is no common ground.

Discourses such as Green radicalism appear to be a threat to capital because they operate outside its hegemonic domain, however, it is precisely this latter fact that prevents Green Radicalism from becoming a threat. In the parallax of ontological difference the concrete universal is strictly internal to the abstract. In contrast, in the political parallax the excluded Other appears more like Laclau’s constitutive outside; it has no common link with the dominant paradigm, the only link is through exclusion via a core social antagonism. While this exclusion does give stability to the dominant position by allowing the establishment of limits, at the same time it does not act as a threat in the same manner as the concrete universal. The only threat comes in the possibility of revealing the limits of the hegemonic discourse and thus the contingency of its construction.

Green Radicalism is also a fatally flawed discourse in itself, although in a different manner from other Green discourses. Green Radicalism is very essentialist and totalitarian; it is just another, more radical attempt to deal with the symptoms of the parallax between nature and the natural. Radical Green discourse seeks to find a fundamental and essential unity between its elements, based on a ‘natural’ bio-centric harmony between man and nature. Paradoxically, ecocentricism can only be expressed anthropocentrically through language. Like any essentialist discourse, when the inherent impossibility of its construction is exposed, this dislocation is dangerously displaced onto an external antagonism; in the case of radical Green thought, capitalism is one of those antagonisms posited as responsible for the failure of the natural. While the positioning of capital as an antagonism may at first glance appear subversive, in the case of Green Radicalism, it is another example of a fantasmatic operation. As such, radical Green thought is unlikely to present a major threat to capital; its more likely role is to set the very boundaries of capitalism.

It is possible, as Smith (1998, p.163) suggests, that Green Radicalism could make more of an impact if it focused more on the role of culture, fighting for the meanings of terms and the hegemonic re-occupation of terms that originated from the Green movement, such as sustainability, rather than leaving it to capital and those who are prepared to compromise with capital. This is a Laclauian approach. Laclau argues that the role of the excluded terms of the parallax (although Laclau himself does not use the notion of a parallax), such as Green Radicalism, is to form a unity of sorts and attempt to fill the empty signifier which covers the parallax gap with meaning. What this approach ignores, however, is the limits set by capital; capital as the Real in the symbolic sense and in terms of a social antagonism, but also capital as the jouissance that maintains the fantasy which supports capital.

Therefore, the battle over an empty signifier, even from the position of excluded terms, can only operate up to a certain limit. That limit is set by the Real. The alternative strategy is to reveal the social antagonism upon which it is excluded and play on the parallax Real between nature and the natural. In this sense, Green radicalism would move to be a discourse of the symptom, rather than the impotent element of a political parallax. To do so, Green Radicalism would have to lose its essentialist edge and instead take a position that attempts to stage the concrete universal. We shall now consider the possibilities of such a position.
6.6 Discourses of the symptom

Concrete universality does operate within a political parallax. This operation differs from the form of concrete universality present within an ontological parallax, but still contains vital similarities. The key link is that in both cases the concrete universal takes in the singular exception, yet exceeds the universal as a whole, bypassing the particular. In a political parallax, concrete universality occurs where the symptom is not constructed via ideological fantasy, but rather as a sign of the incommensurability between two positions in the parallax. For example, rather than constructing the Green party’s inability to establish an economic position congruent with their ecological stance as a failure inherent to party policy, the symptom is instead seen as staging the parallax gap between these positions. Thus the concrete universal acknowledges the position of failure, the parallax gap as the singular exception and passes directly to the level of the universal; there is no common ground between capitalist economics and Green Party ecologism.

As has been previously noted, it is the concrete universal which holds the most hope for generating social change. The issue, however, is accessing the power of the concrete universal through the parallax gap. In the terms of the abstract universal, the concrete universal appears only as an effect through the Real. The basic thesis of the parallax view is that both positions can only be seen if viewed awry; outside of the hegemonic terms of the universal horizon. By identifying the concrete universal - the constitutively excluded element - the unbearable example, the analyst is able to practice concrete universality. What such a performance achieves is a viewpoint which allows for a reinterpretation of the symptom. In doing so, a strategic political position is able to place pressure on the abstract universal, by deconstructing the unconscious supplement which supports the abstract universal. This deconstruction occurs via the Real through the gap opened up by the symptom as a representative of the concrete universal. Such a strategy does not require a positive imaginary, rather only a negative positioning of the symptom is necessary.

Environmental/ecological movements are particularly strong at playing on symptoms of the abstract universal. However, the affect of capital appears to be too strong. As symptoms are developed and strengthened by this discursive method, they are pulled back in by a variety of defence mechanisms developed by capitalism; those methods have been detailed in this chapter. It seems the more that symptoms dislocate the universal horizon of capital, nature, the stronger the reaction. Although these reactions may on the surface appear beneficial, such as recycling, greater energy efficiency etc, they mask a fundamental limit; capital as the Real, both as a social antagonism and the symbolic Real. It is here that we return to the parallax between nature and the natural. Although symptoms are constantly being pulled back into the unconscious supplement which supports the dominant discourse, there is a limit to that process. That limit is the concrete universal, which comes in its Real effect in the form of the natural. It is to the concrete universal that we shall finally turn.
6.7 The Concrete Universal

The Real, through the concrete universal (the natural) is constantly impacting on the discursive construction of nature. Here, however, the concrete universal is not a discourse. The natural can be abstracted and measured, as through ‘natural science’ but this process, as the naming of the natural, simply adds to the discursive construction of nature. Conversely there is a dislocatory effect when knowledge is generated through the natural sciences that cannot be easily integrated into our conception of nature. Alternatively, the act of producing such knowledge is domesticating in itself. It is a discursive production in the realm of science and as such enters into the fantasy of the scientific paradigm; that man has control of the natural. Therefore, when evidence of the failure of nature is produced through the natural sciences e.g. Arctic sea ice has declined 14% over the past year (Fitzsimons, 2006a), a fetishistic disavowal operates, this time with science as the fetishised object. Yes, we know that the environment is failing, yet we act as if it is not because we have faith in science to provide an alternative solution.

Because of this operation, it is proposed that only when humanity is truly forced to experience environmental degradation, not through science, but rather without any symbolic resources available to pacify the event, that true change is possible. Žižek contends that liberal-capitalism cannot go on forever; ecological collapse is one of the possible explosions that can destroy it; all we can do is be prepared when this explosion does occur (Osborne, 1996,p.44). A less dramatic possibility also lies with the prospect of Peak Oil; the idea that global oil production has peaked and is now beginning to decline. Peak Oil is an interesting natural example of concrete universality. Capitalism is dependent on oil for its efficient operation; no other source has been found with anything like its efficiency. The abundance of natural resources for exploitation, Oil foremost amongst them, is a predominant element of the capitalist conception of nature. Whilst Peak Oil is not a concrete universal in itself, Peak Oil does reveal the concrete universal (and thus the parallax Real) within an ontological parallax by invoking the gap between nature and the natural. However, for radical change to occur, global capital would have to go beyond the prospect of Peak Oil (which we are facing now) and Survivalist discourse and into the event of Peak Oil; that is the process of the end of cheap oil. This event would radically destabilise global capital, forcing its limits into reality.

Conversely, relying on the occurrence of such an event is a politically passive strategy, although not to the same degree as complete ecological collapse. However, it appears that the alternative is equally passive; to resist the terms of the debate, to resist the need to act, because such an action will be within the co-ordinates of global capital; it is better to question the very ideological background against which all action can occur; capitalism (Žižek, 2006b,p.238). The alternative would be not to enter into Green ideology, knowing that it is inevitably played out against the background of capital, but rather to question the very lack of alternative, why, in Žižek words; “ Today we can easily imagine the extinction of the human race, but it is impossible to imagine a radical change of the social system - even if life on earth disappears, capitalism will somehow remain intact”(Žižek, 2006b,p.149).