To be fair, if there’s a coherent definition of ecofascism, I’m not sure what it is, and I think I have seen ecofascism be over-applied, and I didn’t read the entire article nor look deeply into Rees’ body of work. But eugenics, ecofascism, and capitalism are closely linked.
Your book presents a belief in eugenics as one of the most important intellectual threads that runs through Palo Alto’s history. Is eugenics still a force in the region today?
We’ve seen a huge swing back towards eugenic philosophy in Palo Alto. There are a lot of startups invested in eugenic technology. If you ask people, “Is that eugenics?” they’ll say “No!” But if you ask, “Are you trying to improve the quality of the baby stock?” “Well, yes, obviously.” These people are constantly forgetting the names for what they’re doing, intentionally, or as a useful adaptation, because then they can sell old-school eugenics as some new app.
To be fair the ecofascists and the palo alto eugenics crowd are different crowds so shouldn’t conflate them as being the same.
Also there is nothing inherently immoral about eugenics unless its coerced. If you read the history of eugenics you will see many leftists and anarchists had nuanced pro-eugenics arguments that were life-affirming and non coercive .
Also i kind of think ecofascists are almost a myth. I spent the majority of my life purposely seeking out and interacting with everyone from the most extremist libertarians to anarchists to all the flavors of leftists to weird neoreactionary occultists . In my entire life ive only interacted with one person that had ecofascism as part of their identity and they are primarily an internet blogger edgelord.
the fascists fucking hate nature and see it as an abomination to be dominated and converted to money for the most part, they see ecology as the domain of homos and liberals. This is why the venn diagram of eco and fascii doesnt have much overlap
To be fair, if there’s a coherent definition of ecofascism, I’m not sure what it is, and I think I have seen ecofascism be over-applied, and I didn’t read the entire article nor look deeply into Rees’ body of work. But eugenics, ecofascism, and capitalism are closely linked.
From the above-linked Harris interview:
Big Oil Helped Shape Stanford’s Latest Climate-Research Focus
To be fair the ecofascists and the palo alto eugenics crowd are different crowds so shouldn’t conflate them as being the same.
Also there is nothing inherently immoral about eugenics unless its coerced. If you read the history of eugenics you will see many leftists and anarchists had nuanced pro-eugenics arguments that were life-affirming and non coercive .
Also i kind of think ecofascists are almost a myth. I spent the majority of my life purposely seeking out and interacting with everyone from the most extremist libertarians to anarchists to all the flavors of leftists to weird neoreactionary occultists . In my entire life ive only interacted with one person that had ecofascism as part of their identity and they are primarily an internet blogger edgelord.
the fascists fucking hate nature and see it as an abomination to be dominated and converted to money for the most part, they see ecology as the domain of homos and liberals. This is why the venn diagram of eco and fascii doesnt have much overlap