GLOBAL ECOLOGY IN THE NATIONAL WORLD

Abstract

This article examines the multi-level interconnection between global environmental threats and national ecological problems. Starting from the destruction of the natural environment caused by Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, the author traces the relationship between the global and the local as the “logos and oikos,” a disposition originally embedded in the concept of ecology proposed by Haeckel. Using examples such as the Paris Climate Agreement under the UN and international civil movements striving for its effective implementation at the national level, the article notes that the local dimension remains overshadowed by global ecology. This contradiction draws the author’s attention, first, to ongoing debates covering various dimensions of ecology—from its etymological roots to its interdisciplinary nature amid international and national environmental policies—highlighting the need for a holistic understanding that integrates global and local perspectives. Second, it creates a premise to focus on existing trends in ecological literature that emphasize the local—cultural and national—level of ecological issues, a return to the “earthly,” the local. The author explores these trends by referring to prominent figures in ecological thought and environmental protection (Latour, Klein, Haraway, among others). Accordingly, the article attempts to clarify the internal logic behind the ecological turn toward natural environment issues at the local level, related to threats to the life of national communities. This leads to an analysis of the significance of the natural environment for nation making and national identity within the framework of biopolitics (Agamben, Esposito), particularly the understanding of life’s agency (bios), in view of strategic dependence of humans and society on the state of the environment. The article also points to the boundary that both separates and connects the scientific-strategic human relationship to the natural environment and philosophical inquiries into human life “in” this environment. Methodologically, this results in considering the “logos and oikos” disposition in terms of “deep ecology” (Taylor) and through the metaphor of “returning home” (Sloterdijk). The author develops the philosophy of this thinking in emage based on the concept of tenderness, found in the artistic-political work of Vynnychenko, characterizing the mass motivation of the Ukrainian community’s turn toward national independence. The article attempts to clarify the existential meaning of tenderness as the experience of unity between the national community and its closest natural surroundings in Heidegger’s works devoted to the hermeneutics of images of returning to the land, to home, as expressed by the German poet Hölderlin. The notion of tenderness is also critically examined in the context of Kantian ethics concerning the relation to living beings. Finally, Sloterdijk's proposal to update Kant's categorical imperative in the context of solving environmental problems by adding the requirement to "act immediately" is considered. The author suggests adding to this ecological reformulation of the imperative a requirement that human action be compatible with the continued existence of national communities on earth.