Michael writes: "I'm not sure I get the point of your rejection of levels of ecological awareness? Isn't there more and less inclusive understandings of ecology and complex thinking. More being 'more developed/informed' and less being 'less developed or nuanced'?"
Michael is indeed missing the point. I accept levels to the extent that some people have better awareness than others.
But I claim that Zimmerman's levels are totally upside down.
If you want a comparison with Dubya, whom Michael mentions in his comment, look no further than the ecosage! I can just hear him or her intoning, "I guess you could call me a good steward o' the land," as Dubya did in his 2000 campaign.
In general though, Michael is right. I believe that constructing totalizing league tables of eco-awareness is fruitless and divisive. (With consummate bad faith, Zimmerman points this out frequently, while doing it. Viz. the final sentence of chapter 9.)
And if the "nuance" and "information" Michael requires as a mark of superior awareness are bought at the cost of the radical contingency of unconditional love, then I want nothing to do with them. "I just love this whale."
Resigned cynicism is the default awareness of our time. It's shocking to see it taken by Zimmerman as the attitude of peerless eco-sagacity.
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