Tummelplatz post-ökologisch orientierter Jugendlicher?

von

Helmuth Sagawe

Abstracts:

In 1993 a "Voluntary Ecological Year" was introduced for young people in Germany. This was not only a symbolic act signalling socio-political and ecological awareness, it was also designed to provide ecologically oriented youngsters with the concrete possibility of combining the ideal of environmental protection whith actual ecological activity. This Voluntary Year gave participants the opportunity for self-realisation and self-development as well as the occasion to define a personal identity of their own in an age which they regarded as fraught with problems.

These young people are however influenced by new social movements such as bioregionalism (a flourishing blend of alternative and "green" movements, spiritually, ecology and regionalism) and eco-cynicism with this roots in racialism. Thus changing personal value systems with regard to ecology an introverted form of environmental awareness have ushered in an "ecological turn". The former ecological activism of the 70s has turned into its opposite. Not only are the limits of what is ecologically feasible now felt to be a great deal narrower, there are also fundamentalist efforts afoot to impose restrictions on society that are geographical, ethnic/racialist, cultural and intellectual. To designate these tendencies I suggest coinig the new term "post-ecology".