The basic tenets of Biocitizenship are derived from Aldo Leopold's "Sand County Almanac";
and in particular from this statement:
"In all of [the A-B] cleavages, we see repeated the same basic paradoxes: man the conqueror versus man the biotic citizen; science the sharpener of his sword versus science the searchlight on his universe; land the slave and the servant versus land the collective organism" (260-1).
Within the next year I will institute Biocitizen, a non-profit research foundation dedicated to investigating and representing the self that Leopold called "the biotic citizen."
Biocitizen will draft a statement of ethics and policies that derive from Leopold's scientific finding that "The land is one organism," which led him to this political realization:
"A land ethic changes the role of Homo Sapiens from conqueror of the land community to plain member and citizen of it" (190, 240).
To revitalize it, Biocitizen will ground American democratic philosophy in ecology. |
