After reading the “Self-realization” essay by Arne Naess, we had the opportunity to learn and reflect on who are we, where are we heading and what kind of reality are we part of. The answers that Naess comes with are certainly innovative and interesting.
He starts off the essay with six points, that should give us better idea and understanding of his thought process. Firstly, he urges us to not under-estimate ourselves. Then he stresses the importance of not avoiding identifying ourselves. He continues with introducing the new concept of ecological self. He believes that who we are has a lot to do with the environment we are living in.Furthermore, he points out the importance of joy of life and our knowledge of meaning of life that both increase our self-realization.
Essentially, we can take out two central ideas. First, it is his belief that the western notion of the self is incomplete and that there needs to be a new concept of self. Secondly, it is the idea that en environmental ethic should not require self-sacrifice and duty alone. With Western notion, there comes two questions that preoccupied minds of philosophers for thousands of years. “Who or what is the self? Who or what am I? Moreover, Naess believes that the Western notion of self is very narrow minded. He believes that the self is only concerned with individual ego, bound by self, and over or against other. Naess ultimately says that this is wrong. He believes is ecological self and poses a question what it means to identify. In addition, he figures that selfishness and self love go together because success only comes of stuff that I care for and what other care for will work out well. Therefore, self interest and interest of others equals ecological self. One’s purpose in life is to realize one’s inherit potentialities.
He then goes on and talks about self-realization, self-love and selfishness. He points out the importance of understanding each and every one of the terms, while offering different perspectives from different scholars. He then focuses a lot on the importance of the social setting, where one lives. Not only that he believes that it partially makes us who we are, but he also stresses the fact that many people feel so attached to the environment that when they leave it, they feel like they left a part of themselves behind. The same goes for if the environment is destroyed. People then tend to feel as if part of themselves is destroyed. I believe that the reason why Naess finds it important to give us these examples is because it describes two completely separate entities – the self and the place. He argues that there may not be any reciprocity and that if it was the other way around it wouldn’t make much sense. Meaning if one changes, the place does not need to change.
In his final part of the essay he focuses on the three key terms; pleasure, happiness, self-realization. He urges us to be open to any living beings. However, he uses an example of a living voracious insects when the male is eaten after mating. He then poses a question whether the male is happy? No. Therefore, he concludes that happiness is a feeling that is helpful in realizing ourselves, yet not always applicable.
Personally, I enjoyed the essay and definitely learned something new. The part that stood out to me the most was the part when Naess talks about the importance of the environment. It was something I could easily relate to as I moved away from home early and experienced a different environment. Later, I even left the country and truly felt like I left a piece of me behind. However, even though I moved from an environment where I had a direct contact with nature on daily basis, I have never lost the love for nature and refocused my interest in getting to know the nature around me. Therefore, I feel like my experience sort of problematizes Naess’ argument as I truly felt empty in a sense. However, it did not affect me in any negative way. Yes, I felt sad for leaving something that was part of me for a long time behind, but it opened up new opportunities. I believe that this process was part of my self-realization and definitely helped me establish better relationship with nature. In fact, getting to know the nature around me that was different from what I had chance to experience back at home helped me explore and learn more about nature in general.
Question: How can moving from an environment that one is used to affect his/her relationship with nature?
Word count: 800
Environmental Ethics 