Mixing modernism and ecology results in an environmental movement that does not wish to sacrifice its “progress” and modern comforts. Adding mass media to this combination produces a superficial ecology that has no intent of questioning our world-view as deep-ecology does, but instead entertains us within our consumerist mental frames exploiting a purely emotional approach. .
An example of this is celebrities getting naked for animals. “I’d rather go naked than wear fur”, they say, appearing to deliberately lessen their social status through humility, but ironically only to increase it. These stars and their endorsers seek only fame and naive consumers, selling a product that appears to be critical of modern society, but that only produces televised gossip. And on the other side of the screen, there exists a distracted and sentimentalist audience that cannot see the bigger picture of the ecological problem.
Vanity and mawkishness in a mass media product. What results can we expect after the trend is gone?
“Fur has never been more popular,” says a spokesman for Origin Assured, an initiative developed by the International Fur Trade Federation that states that it sources “ethical” fur. “From 1998 to 2008 there has been year-on-year growth in global sales for fur. People now are more comfortable showing their love of fur.”
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We must question ourselves in order to face the truth. We must also have the sense of responsibility to take the necessary actions to correct this wrongdoing. We must be smarter and less sly, more compassionate and less naively sentimental. A deep understanding of spirituality can provoke these changes.
To be in contact with holy grace turns us into compassionate, satisfied beings, willing to choose long term well being in lieu of instantaneous comfort and entertainment. This radiance of grace goes deep into our sensitivity, turning compassion in all living beings into an absolutely honest sentiment, making us eager to do what is necessary to preserve biological diversity. A fundamental revaluation of our role on this planet and a critical vision of our empowering as a species demands a heroic amount of love that can’t be found in pop culture, but only in the higher forms of Culture. Once this higher love is settled in ourselves, we are ready to act and aware enough to do it sensibly; only then are we ready to embrace ecology as a science and to face the real problems: overpopulation and culture-less consumerism.
As we can see, pop ecology is a misdirection of real compassion, which manifests itself in a fashion of love that bypasses judgment, handicapping itself so that it cannot grow up to become a strong piety. Pop ecology has no roots in order to become permanent and no conviction to be effective and transcendental. There’s an intrinsic fascination with vanity in these “naking” campaigns that in no way is able to raise our noblest and heroic thinking in order to protect biodiversity.
Organizations like PETA have now abandoned the bandwagon of fur to ride on the bandwagon of climatic change. We are now seeing another fashion of pop ecology, and we can foretell another failure as well.
