The Modern Crisis Av Murray Bookchin

The six essays that comprise it share the view that, as he puts it, ''our ideas and our practice must be imbued with a deep sense of ethical commitment.'' Whether he is critiquing the market economy, the state, or the idea - common to both capitalists and certain left materialists - that human beings are motivated solely by greed and self-interest, Bookchin ever reminds us of the ineffable values of freedom, self-consciousness, and social harmony. Though first published in 1986, Bookchin''s framework still applies. The moral relativism of the 1980s - the politics of lesser-evils and risk vs benefit calculations - has morphed into what we now refer to as ''both-sidesism'' and the risk vs benefit calculations of yesterday are the 100,000 acre burn scars seen throughout the American west today. Beyond moral relativism or moral absolutism is an ecologically based ethics - one that sees our selfhood, reason, and freedom as stemming from nature''s variety and resilience. Bookchin''s social ecology