In the face of an unprecedented era of climate catastrophe, the rise of extremism and widespread political polarization, growing inequality in access to basic resources, the increase in armed conflict, and the exponential growth of climate refugees, it is crucial to rethink what a good life might be from a more complex and inclusive perspective, as Jaron Rowan argues.
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The question of what constitutes a good life has been considered and approached from different perspectives throughout history, without arriving at a definitive answer. Recently in Latin America, particularly in Bolivia and Ecuador, with the revival of the indigenous concept of ‘sumak kawsay,’ the concept of ‘el buen vivir’ or ‘a good life’ has gained political significance. This concept, which can be understood as the communion between nature and human beings, and their way of conceiving and building life based on complementarity, relationality, and solidarity as an ethic of coexistence and living together, has gained political traction and become a central to certain political debates. Currently, despite certain criticisms, ‘a good life’ is a principle recognized by Ecuador’s constitution, and although it has been so central to certain progressive political debates and agendas, this concern did not reach political debates in Europe. In this sense I consider this issue deserves to be reconsidered, especially in context of the looming climate disaster, which demands the incorporation of new perspectives and stances. How can we define a good life? A life worth living? A life that is good for human and more than human beings?
The spread of neoliberalism has significantly influenced how we deal with the notion of the good life, which seems to be answered only from an individualistic standpoint. This vision becomes prevalent in demands for individual freedom, the right to express what one thinks or feels, and the right to genuinely be who we are. From this perspective, ensuring a good life means securing the material conditions that allow the individual to thrive, linking the good life with individual and market freedom. This approach dissociates the individual from the social and natural world in which they live, upheld by the idea that to thrive, a person depends solely on themselves, on their ability to succeed and secure a good future. In this view, obstacles are seen as personal challenges, leading to a loss of structural perspective and the awareness that individual life is deeply interconnected with the lives of other beings, human and more-than-human. Discomfort is always interpreted as something personal and therefore addressed individually. Thus, the neoliberalized ‘self’ denies any connection to people, social dynamics, or material elements that may condition and transform our lives.
In the face of an unprecedented era of climate catastrophe, the rise of extremism and widespread political polarization, growing inequality in access to basic resources, the proliferation of punitive attitudes, identity politics and heightened moralism, the increase in armed conflict, and the exponential growth of climate refugees, it is crucial to rethink what a good life might be from a more complex and inclusive perspective. It is necessary to rethink our institutions, cities, and ways of ensuring subsistence, integrating collective well-being, and addressing forms of inequality. A good life can never be an individual life, as life is inherently entangled with other forms of life. For this reason I propose reconsidering the notion of a good life from an ecological perspective, taking into account the massive interconnection between human lives and more-than-human lives, highlighting the interdependencies between individual life and forms of collective life, and between energy resources and the beliefs that give meaning to our lives.
Unlearn what it means to be human
This analysis will be framed within the scheme of the three ecologies proposed by ecologists such as Gregory Bateson and Félix Guattari. In the mid-1990s, the latter proposed an ecological model of reality analysis that invites us to consider three different but interconnected ecologies: the ecology of the self, which encompasses the metabolic and psychological systems that allow the reproduction of personal life; the ecology of the collective, which includes institutions, productive models, norms, and economic systems that facilitate social reproduction; and the world ecology, which encompasses energy, water, and environmental systems that allow life on the planet. Although Guattari’s ecosophical model is abstract and was more of an intellectual provocation than an operational model, it remains relevant in contemporary ecological thought.
Writers such as Val Plumwood, Timothy Morton, Arne Naess, and other deep ecologists argue that much of the current problem is epistemic: we have lost the ability to understand that we are part of a continuum with nature. The Enlightenment, rationalism, and Cartesian dualism have been identified as causes of this split, which has led us to conceive of nature as an external resource, meant to be governed, subdued, or exploited. By losing awareness that human beings are also nature, we have begun to destroy an essential part of who we are. According to these authors, we need to reconnect with nature, become sensitized to it, tune in or reconcile with it, and integrate human life into the environment to which it belongs.
From this perspective, it is essential to unlearn what it means to be human. If we succeed in creating new subjectivities that connect us with the environment, we can design more harmonious and sustainable ways of life. It is not surprising that this type of approach abounds in rituals and ceremonies of reconnection with nature, such as meditations, chants, and neopagan or indigenous practices, which seek to end an extractivist subjectivity that conceives of the environment as a mere resource at the service of human well-being. In short, this perspective considers that the human problem will be resolved by transforming our behaviors and expectations at the individual level, which will trigger processes that affect more-than-human ecologies. Generally, these types of positions occur in contexts of economic and material privilege and are more linked to the academic or intellectual realm than to political organization environments.
Unlearn production and ownership
A second set of approaches, markedly materialist, start from the premise that the problem does not lie in subjectivity or in a humanity poorly positioned concerning the environment, but in the productive model. As Jason W. Moore and Andreas Malm indicate, the problem is not the Anthropocene but the Capitalocene. If we do not change the forms of production and accumulation of wealth that dominate our lives, we are destined for greater polarization in access to basic resources and an extremely unequal distribution of wealth. According to authors like Rubén Martínez, the problem is not humanity as a whole, but a specific segment that controls the means of production and ownership.
From this approach, which requires a strong state capable of regulating and imposing limits on production and consumption, numerous action plans and possible solutions arise: nationalizing energy infrastructure, limiting oil extraction, regulating rental prices, reorganizing tourism, cooperative industrial production, regulating financial speculation, among other measures. These actions are designed to mitigate the most perverse effects of capitalism and pave the way for new forms of social organization. Thus, we face a problem produced by a specific mode of production and particular maker dynamics, that will only be resolved by changing the modes of production and accumulation of wealth that dominate our lives.
Expanding agency and politics
Finally, there are approaches that see the problem in nature itself. By giving agency to the environment, it is argued that nature is taking revenge, that the earth is sending us a message, or that Gaia is sick and needs to be healed. In this category, technosolutionists, scientists, and climate activists compete in imposing their perspective. The former, as Marta Peirano points out, believe that the solution to the problem will come from technical or technological innovations. Silicon Valley and the techno-industrial complex offer solutions combining liberal measures with technological inventions.
At the same time activists and climate scientists are pointing out that we are heading towards total earth collapse. Views, such as those proposed by James Lovelock, David Wallace-Wells, or Jared Diamond, consider the world irreparably sick and that we only have a few decades to heal it. Proposals such as stopping the use of pesticides, decarbonizing production, reversing the dependence on fossil resources, returning to atomic energy, or reducing meat consumption stand out in this approach. From this perspective, if we do not heal the world, our societies will be doomed to unprecedented inequality or a civil war between those who have access to resources and those who do not.
A fourth ecology
Each of these perspectives offers different answers because they do not share a common diagnosis of the problem we face. A fourth ecology, which Guattari did not consider at the time, could arise from the articulation of these three ecologies. Like any emergent system, the combination of other systems gives rise to new dynamics and logics. The articulation of the personal, the social, and the environmental is undoubtedly complex, but these systems, while having different logics, are deeply interdependent. Profound changes in any of these spheres will inevitably affect the adjacent systems. Identifying the structural elements that cut across the different spheres and working from there is a first step in moving beyond individualizing, moralistic, or idealistic responses. That is, it is a way of challenging the neoliberal framework at its core. Accepting non-linear causalities, complex approaches, and more-than-rational epistemic frameworks is a good way to escape reductionisms and overly simplistic responses to increasingly entangled problems.
Of course, addressing this fourth ecology means accepting that there are many priorities and that reaching a broad consensus has never been easy. It is easier to point out the problem than to come up with a good solution. In this sense, it is important to defend the partiality of the answer. To move away from solutionist thinking. To accept tentative and experimental ideas and actions. Learn to rehearse and play with possibilities. To tinker with the possible worlds and lives we can collectively imagine are valid ways to address the problems we face. In this sense, we need to accept tentative and very situated responses, knowing that representatives of the different perspectives identified here will claim their political agendas as the most urgent and relevant. To act in the knowledge that certain ideological or economic sectors still do not believe that we have a climate problem to confront. Not knowing enough must be a strength, not a deterrent to action.
Authors like Bruno Latour and Isabelle Stengers have advocated for new deliberative and organizational spaces that allow for the articulation of different ecologies and their representatives. These new decision-making contexts should amplify the voices of those who have been previously overlooked. The massive interconnection of these realities and dynamics, which at first glance seem disconnected, invites us to learn how to stitch together, repair, and interlink the spheres of life that have traditionally been treated as separate. This requires us to sustain problems over time, allowing their various dimensions – symbolic, material, political, ethical, erotic, economic, etc. – to fully emerge. Paradoxically, it demands an extended timeline that the ticking clock of current crises does not seem to permit. Urgent political and economic measures are needed, which no party or political entity has yet undertaken with the necessary determination, often waiting for others to take the risk of making unpopular decisions that, while potentially limiting individual well-being, could ensure collective survival. But we know that without regulatory change, there will be no environmental change, and without urgent climate action, markets will collapse. Without changing our desires and expectations, productive change is impossible, and without transforming property relations and resource management models, we cannot create the economic changes needed to ensure greater equity and collective well-being.
Creation of new collective narratives
An ecological perspective compels us to work with and learn to listen to a diversity of countries, communities and contexts with very different material conditions, ecosystems, and highly unequal economic and social conditions. Many of these contexts are the result and legacy of a set of colonial, predatory, and extractivist projects that are still negotiating their reparation. And more importantly, these different contexts and social arrangements are linked by economic, weather or cultural systems. The disparity among these contexts and the inequality that stems from these systems and how they structure people’s lives, guide us towards systematic forms of action.
In this sense, we should recognize the agency of those degraded ecosystems that sustain the wealth of only a few nations, as human and non-human ecosystems are intimately intertwined. Articulating approaches and strategies that can deal with the structurality of inequality becomes indispensable at this juncture. Working with consideration for the working classes and the most vulnerable beings will require us to move beyond complacent imaginaries and the planning of green cities that hide their energy and food dependencies.
Escape from individual complaints to embrace collective forms of imagination. In this sense, we must weave, plot, stitch, mend, bind, convene, and federate, always keeping in mind the necessity of enforcing social justice. Thus, this fourth ecology should allow us to reconsider what constitutes a good life, taking into account social inequalities, the need to guarantee collective access to basic resources, the well-being of both humans and more-than-humans, and the creation of new collective narratives and imaginaries of desire that go way beyond middle class fears and moral stances.