“Of This Planet! For This Planet!”

On Monday, October 7th, Extinction Rebellion took over the intersection outside Chicago City Hall. A blockade turned into a celebratory march that wandered the Chicago streets for two hours, forcing back cars and making a mess of downtown Chicago traffic by occupying and then abandoning busy intersections. Decisions emerged organically, and the march moved with its own life. Over their scanner, police described the march as moving like a chicken with its head cut off. The marchers thwarted police blockades twice.

In one intersection, a chant I’d not heard before broke out — “of this planet! for this planet!” The chant stuck in my head. We are of this planet, acting for this planet. It reminded me of an idea from Rousseau, that if we could communicate with the animals and the plants we would be obligated to invite them to the assembly. This planet speaks louder every day. Every scientific finding, every new disaster, tells us something about the state of our social relationship with the ecosystem in which we live. As Rousseau observed some 300 years ago, and as that chant reminds us now, democracy demands that we listen.

Extinction Rebellion has set itself strong democratic commitments. The third demand reads, in part, “we demand a Citizens’ Assembly to oversee the changes, as we rise from the wreckage, creating a democracy fit for purpose.” The UK, where the demand originated, has previously created such assemblies. In the United States, where there exists neither a tradition of such practices nor a mechanism for their creation, what this demand could mean in practice has been very much up in the air. In Chicago, the demand has been modified. “People’s Assemblies” has replaced “Citizen’s Assembly”, and one version reads, “that the government must create and be led by the decisions of a people’s assembly on climate and ecological justice.”

This kind of democratic commitment must be accompanied by a commitment to express the general will. This is not a matter of any particular procedure. The general will consists in the identification of the social self and that self’s expression. In the case of our social relationship with other species and ecosystems, this means identifying the part of our self that is of this planet and expressing that self together with others. This practice has been honed by black and indigenous communities.

Ecological struggle on the frontlines starts at the intersection between peoples’ social lives and the ecosystems in which they live. Learning from this approach is central to being of this planet and for this planet. Extinction Rebellion has instead fetishized “hard truth” and sacrifice, presuming that a focus on social justice shows a refusal to deal with the scientific reality of climate change. This preserves a colonial outlook toward vulnerable communities and puts any expression of the general will out of reach. The specter of eco-fascism lurks in the failure of our democratic commitments.

What I saw on October 7th was a genuinely democratic practice, and I believe many in Extinction Rebellion, myself included, are committed to radically expanding that practice. But I also see in Extinction Rebellion the dangerous side of the Western environmental movement. I see members hold tight to climate science without understanding the climate emergency’s social dimension. This limits rather than expands our democratic practice. If we fail to understand how the climate crisis is a social crisis, eco-fascism will grow in our midst and choke our movement.