Arcadianism

If we are to narrow down dualistic tensions in the West to the minimum, there is no question that the progress of technically and economically assisted improvements in standards of living in contrast to a simpler, more spiritual and naturally-orientated life will reach the shortlist. Within western diversity there are too many strands to be able to make a coherent movement antagonistic to our preoccupation with conspicuous consumption. There is, however, sufficient commonality in their themes to group them under the rubric of ‘Arcadianism’.

Arcadianism is the ideal of a simple rural life in close harmony with nature. The word derives from a mountainous region in ancient Greece called Arcady, whose inhabitants supposedly dwelt in an Eden-like state of innocence, at peace with the earth and its creatures. It was an ideal middle landscape between town and wilderness which held none of the fears or disadvantages of either. As an environmental vision in modem times, Arcadianism has often been naïve surrender to nostalgia, but it has nonetheless contributed to the growth of an ecological ethic of coexistence rather than domination; humility rather than self-assertion; and man as a part of, rather than superior to, nature. But in its reaction to Christian anthropocentrism, Arcadianism has moved to a misanthropic perspective requiring mitigation of mankind’s perceived sins.

Abrahamic religions incorporate in their concept of ‘heaven’ an Arcadian vision, a return to the Garden of Eden (at base a childish wish for a life without difficulty or mistakes) through spiritual effort in avoiding temptation and the path to hell. With the decline of the spirituality of religion in the west, concomitant with rising standards of living and increased leisure time, heaven becomes somewhat nebulous and remote.

There has been a disillusionment with science foreseen by Oswald Spengler, the German schoolteacher who became the first great prophet of the end of science. In his massive tome, The Decline of the West, published in 1918, Spengler argued that as scientists become more arrogant and less tolerant of other belief systems, society will rebel against science and embrace religious fundamentalism and other irrational systems of belief. He predicted that the decline of science and the resurgence of irrationality would begin at the end of the millennium.

Predictions made by micro-biologist Gunther Stent in his 1969 book The Coming of the Golden Age: A View of the End of Progress have been oddly prescient. Stent, following on from Adams’ Law of Acceleration stating that increasing rates of social change lead to increased chaos, contended that science, technology, the arts, and all progressive, cumulative enterprises were coming to an end. He says that with increasing affluence fewer young people may choose science, many preferring more hedonistic pursuits of drugs or electronic devices feeding directly into the brain. Progress would be stopped leaving the world in a largely static condition that he called 'the new Polynesia' signalled by the advent of beatniks and hippies. With the sense of increasing chaos, individuals left with nostalgia, a yearning for the world of their childhood that probably never matched reality.

This, then, is what leads to Arcadianism. It nestles well with the Gaia hypothesis, providing a god which needs propitiating. It has the obtainable heaven of ‘lifestyle blocks’, with national parks, cycle lanes and gymnasiums offering a resource of moral and spiritual regeneration. It is compatible with the modern fears of ionising and non-ionising radiation, chemical hazards, resource depletion, global warming and genetic modification. There are temptations to resist, such as SUVs, furniture made from unsustainable timber, food that may be genetically modified, or factory-farmed but cheap or preserved by irradiation, and abundant power embodied in nuclear generation. It has its enemies in global corporate entities, especially petrochemical and pharmaceutical, and anything associated with its fears. There are those to convert, such as smokers, the fat and the unfit. There is the promise of eternal life through self-abnegation, and the aesthetes who are determined to achieve it by self-control. It is the Arcadian vision that drives ‘nimbyism’, vegetarianism, natural remedies, and the conservation and ecological movements.