TheDaak review

Bad Environmentalism: Irony and Irreverence in the Ecological Age by Nicole Seymour, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2018, 320 Pages, 13.97×1.78×21.59cm, ISBN 9781517903893, ₹2,573 (Paperback)

By Sushant Kumar Chakaria

Ever since their existence on this planet, humans have been negotiating relationships with almost every facet of the natural world. These relationships vacillate between the noble pursuit of mutual coexistence and the discordant projects of outright pillage. Environmental advocates, scholars, and concerned thinkers have been cautioning humanity about the ferocity of penalties for breaching their pact of mutual sustenance with nature, be it water contamination, air pollution, ‘once-natural’ disasters, shifting climate patterns, or the behemoth of all, the looming dread of an apocalypse. The efforts to reinvigorate ecological commitment facilitate the formation of certain conventions that stipulate how we should look at the environment and living creatures and what emotions should guide our relations with them. However, what constitutes these ‘proper emotions’ and what if we don’t experience them? Can we cultivate ecological reflexivity without complying with the standards of environmentalism as it is commonly understood?

By raising these perplexing questions, Nicole Seymour, an American writer, endeavours to make us comfortable with those forms of ecological zeal that make us uncomfortable, if not furious. Seems oxymoronic, but the author has spared no effort in this attempt. Her book Bad Environmentalism: Irony and Irreverence in the Ecological Age (2018) marks a critical intervention in mainstream environmentalism. It unravels how exclusive the church of environmentalism can be. The author exposes how it privileges the white, middle-class, heterosexual, cisgender, and able-bodied subject, along with the sensibilities associated with them. Proclivities for sentimental and apocalyptic tones tend to have a hegemonic influence in environmentalist texts, art and activism, and “guilt, shame, didacticism, prescriptiveness, sentimentality, reverence, seriousness, sincerity, earnestness, sanctimony, self-righteousness, and wonder” (p.4-5) are treated as the indices of ecological consciousness. In the dominion of these ‘proper’ environmental emotions, any dissident form is treated as nothing short of sedition. Seymour offers a critique of the tendency of ecocritics and the scholarship of environmental humanities to evaluate all other literary and artistic creations through these mainstream sensibilities, thereby endorsing and reproducing the biases undergirding them.

Drawing upon the insights from both queer theory and affect theory, she forges her concept of ‘Bad Environmentalism’ defining it as an “environmental thought that employs dissident, often-denigrated affects and sensibilities to reflect critically on both our current moment and mainstream environmental art, activism, and discourse” (p.6). There are, of course, compelling arguments for the utility of fear, the need for seriousness, as well as the value of reverence in cultivating environmental engagement. However, complex, ambivalent and even ‘bad’ feelings may also emanate in response— perhaps all the way more if one is part of a marginalised population (read chapter 4, for instance). Seymour tests the effectiveness of such ‘improper’ feelings and responses for creating  “new modes of resistance, new forms of community, and new opportunities for inquiry into the environmental crisis” (p.24).

Seymour’s ingenuity lies in her approach of neither seeking to establish bad environmentalism as a contender to the hegemonic strand of environmentalism nor concurring with the idea of yielding to its dominance. Her endeavour is not to explain the goodness of the ‘bad’ ecological affects, but she challenges the hostility between the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’. 

The book canvasses a range of under-examined ‘bad environmentalist’ works and performs an intriguing engagement with them. Her archive spans animation, documentary, fiction film, performance art, poetry, prose fiction, social media, and stand-up comedy. The span of her collection may seem arbitrary, but she skillfully spreads the web far and wide to speak to a wide range of scholars and disciplines. Even though her archive primarily engages with the Western environmentalist tradition, Seymour acknowledges that a critique of Western environmentalism comes from the non-Western world as well. Nevertheless, her volume does provide room for the under-represented viewpoints within the Western world, including those of LGBTQIA+ individuals, people of colour or those belonging to the working class.

The book is divided into five chapters, each of which sets up a case for illuminating some ‘bad’ affects. The first chapter explores the celluloid landscape and analyses some environmentally-themed films which deviate from the popular expectations for ecocinema. The author suggests that climate change scepticism and denialism arise from prevalent tendencies within ecocinema, such as a lack of humour, its demanding nature, and an excessive emphasis on expert knowledge. Films such as Hannes Lang’s documentary Peak (2011) and Mike Judge’s dystopian comedy Idiocracy (2006) deride the sanctimony of the ‘experts’ of environmental knowledge. Although Seymour underscores the public animosity directed at the didactic nature of this expertise, she falls short of elaborating upon the politics of knowledge. Why are people not able to associate with that ‘expert knowledge’ about the environment? Is it because such expertise feels alien to them? What constitutes ‘expert knowledge’? Is this nobility premised upon the subversion of alternative knowledge systems, especially those originating from marginalised communities or regions? The author fails to theoretically honour these complexities and the power dynamics behind knowledge.

The second chapter explicates recent perversions made by the dissident sensibilities in the domain of wildlife programming. The mainstream environmentalists expound that “love and reverence are key to investment in the nonhuman world and that the aesthetically pleasing, sociable, and heteronormative aspects of nonhuman animals are the strongest basis for arguments on their behalf” (p.35). If one were to ask how often we see a poster on ‘Save Lions’ that portrays homosexual lions, we would likely be utterly surprised, or in some cases, even disgusted. Most of us, if not all, hadn’t even thought about the homosexuality of lions until an image from a Kenyan forest went viral. Televised series like Wildboyz (2003-6) and Green Porno (2008-9) circumvent this traditional and biased approach by portraying the queerest behaviours of nonhuman animals. Seymour extends her colloquy on sexuality and environmentalism in the third chapter, building upon the arguments from her previous book Strange Natures: Futurity, Empathy, and the Queer Ecological Imagination (2013). She unravels how queer ‘bad environmentalists’ challenge the heteronormative depiction of the natural world through their sardonic performances.

The last two chapters of the book deal with the intersection of environmentalism with race and class, respectively.  In the fourth Chapter, the author repudiates the stereotypical tropes of the ‘ecological Indian’ and ‘urban Afro-American’. The portrayal of the Natives as sentimental, tolerant and always connected to nature puts a double load of the expectations for environmental conservation and the perils of environmental degradation on their shoulders. These images restrict Native individuals to socio-political acceptance only when they conform to this historical archetype. Furthermore, as nature is often seen as conquerable, this classification can inadvertently place Native people within that category as well. Humour is hereby made incompatible with deep thought about Indigenous people and even suggested to be racist in and of itself—or, at least, the exclusive province of whites (p.158). On the contrary, the immigrant Afro-Americans have to grapple with the guilt of alleged ecological negligence. Seymour shows through her archive how the Native Americans and the Afro-Americans wield ‘bad’ affective modes as a critique to the Western stereotypes about their identities, which she calls “racialised environmental affect” (p.36). 

The last chapter elucidates how environmentalism can be ‘classed’ in the sociological sense of the term. The act of demonstrating one’s environmental dedication through the purchase of expensive eco-friendly products is perceived as a means to fulfil middle-class aspirations. Eco-friendly perfectionism is considered a desired goal, and failing to achieve this goal leads to the fear of being labelled as ‘trashy’ or ‘low-cultured’. In discussing various shows that ridicule this eco-friendly perfectionism and depict ‘trashy’ or low-class environmentalism, Seymour advocates for “gleeful hypocrisy as an antidote to anxious perfectionism” (p.37). While the author fleshes out the relationship between consumerism and environmentalism, her discussion does not adequately address the broader class dynamics underpinning these relationships. Are these consumption trends solely driven by ecological awareness, or do specific groups like corporate firms have vested interests in forging connections between ecological perfectionism and class status to expand their profits? Furthermore, consumers are expected to demonstrate their eco-friendly commitment, but are these firms themselves truly committed to their ecological claims? This chapter falls short of encompassing the issue of greenwashing, which is a significant concern in this context.

Seymour has performed extensive theoretical labour, but her way of diving deep into the critical theories unfamiliar to mainstream environmentalists doesn’t overwhelm the reader; instead, it is funny and enjoyable. She makes frequent strides between the seriousness of academic texts, which she herself derides, and a preoccupation with the bad modes, including sardonic wit, frivolity and humour. However, there are some instances where her arguments appear to be contradictory or self-defeating. Seymour claims to represent an environmentalist tradition which is “non-normative, self-reflexive, and non-instrumentalist” (p.7). Nonetheless, she ends up explaining bad environmentalism in terms where the non-instrumentalist imperative feels neglected. Moreover, although she admits the limitations of her archival plain, she occasionally overlooks the caveats and tries to make broader generalisations relying on her limited theoretical foundations. 

Notwithstanding these shortcomings, the author has advanced a compelling proposal to make the environmentalist canon more inclusive and self-reflexive. It gives accreditation to the diverse, imaginative modes of responding to the unprecedented scale of ecological depredations. Moreover, it serves as a reminder to avoid being entranced by the seemingly homogenous lump of ‘Anthropocene’ or ‘Anthropocentrism’. There is a need to inquire whether this uniform mass shrouds the marginalisation of the heterogeneous ‘others’. Here, it is imperative to realise that recognising ‘others’ does not necessitate ‘othering’. Instead,  it should catalyse a transformation in our stereotypical perceptions of ‘others’.  Environmentalism is not a monolithic praxis; instead, it consistently finds itself at the juncture of complexities, differences and boundaries. Bad Environmentalism aims to refocus attention on and embrace this intersection.