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Naes Arne 1912 - 2009 (97)

The remedy (or psychotherapy) against sadness caused by the world's misery is to do something about it.


QUOTES

Deep Ecology

“As I see it we need the immense variety of the sources of joy opened through increased sensitivity toward the richness and diversity of life, through the profound cherishing of free natural landscapes…Part of the joy stems from the consciousness of our intimate relation to something bigger than our own ego, something which has endured for millions of years and is worth continued life for millions of years. The requisite care flows naturally if the self is widened and deepened so that protection of free nature is felt and conceived of as protection of our very selves.”

Arne Næss (Arne Dekke Eide Næss, 1912 – 2009) was a Norwegian philosopher and writer, the founder of deep ecology, Born in Oslo on January 27, 1912, he earned his doctorate at the city's university and, at the age of 27 in 1939, became its youngest professor. He continued to teach until 1970. Over the years he published more than 30 books as well as numerous essays and articles, influenced by Buddhism and Gandhi's ideology of non-violence.

Ecology, according to Ness, must deal with all beings of nature on an equal basis and not with man's place in nature, as the natural world has intrinsic value that transcends human values. We must not protect the planet for the sake of people, but for the sake of the planet itself, for all animals and plants and every region of the world. Deep ecology has come under attack from many sides, most notably the social ecology movement of Vermont, USA. Ness was even accused of misanthropy. His answer was: "We are not saying that every living thing has the same value as a human being, but that it has its own intrinsic value that cannot be quantified. It is not equal or unequal. It has a right to live and flourish. It can to kill a mosquito if it is on my baby's face, but I will never say that I have more right to life than the mosquito".

He believed that awareness of deep ecology was present in all of us, in infancy, when a butterfly could be considered a brother or sister. This awareness is weakened and destroyed in later life through the loss of contact with animals and plants.

A keen mountaineer, Ness participated in many expeditions to the highest mountains in the world, in 1950 he was the leader of a mountaineering expedition in the first ascent of Tirich Mir in Pakistan (Tirich Mir, 7,708 m). For close to a quarter of his life he lived in an isolated hut high in the Hallingskarvet mountains in southern Norway.

In 1958 he published an interdisciplinary philosophical journal, Research. A pioneer of environmental activism in his country, in 1970 he chained himself to rocks in front of Mardalsfossen, a waterfall in a Norwegian fjord, along with a large number of protesters, and refused to come down until plans to build a dam were stopped. Although the protesters were chased away by the police and the dam was eventually built, the demonstration started a more active phase of the Norwegian environmental movement in which Ness played a major role.

In 1996 he won the Swedish Academy's Nordic Prize, known as the "little Nobel". In 2005 he was awarded the star of the Royal Norwegian Order of St Olav for his social work. In the same year he was a candidate with the Norwegian Green Party. Ness was married twice and had two children with his first wife. He died on January 12, 2009