Bernard Charbonneau’s Ecological Reflection on Violence and War in Society, the State and Revolution

Abstract

A pioneer of political ecology, Bernard Charbonneau (1910-1996) viewed freedom and nature as jointly threatened by the “second nature” of technological society (whose critique by his friend Jacques Ellul owed much to him), defined by total mobilization as revealed in world wars as in industrial development. Its roots intertwine with those of the modern State made possible by the Christian distinction of the spiritual from the sacred violence inherent in religion and politics, returning unchecked in both guises. Charbonneau’s thought thus provides an ecological counterpoint to René Girard’s mimetic theory.