No abstract

The effective solution of environmental problems calls for changes in levels of consumption. Sociologists have described moderation in households of high socio-economic status in affluent countries, and also a type of modesty which cannot be a response to the experience of abundance. However, its essence is not the way of life of a traditional community. Sustainable living based on self-restraint could be considered to be a symptom of the summit of cultural evolution to date. Nevertheless, historical experience warns us against making too much of contemporary cases of moderation.

Simplicity is generally considered an important characteristic of the environmentally friendly lifestyle. This article questions this tenet. Nine dimensions of simplicity are proposed: non-ownership, lack of power, aesthetics, behaviour, naturalness, freedom of movement, the sedentary life/faithfulness to a place, education, and living lightly. Using these categories, the question is asked whether the cultural stereotype of simplicity corresponds to reality. The images of the environmentally friendly lifestyles are analysed from an everyday perspective, including radical forms of self-suffi ciency. The result is a conclusion contrary to the common belief: while the life of the typical consumerist is simple, the life of environmental virtue is complex. This fi nding directs attention to one part of N. Elias' sociological theory, which understands the civilisation process as the replacement of simple behaviour with complex rituals.

This study takes up the phenomenon of disappointment in today’s environmental movements. It analyses two distinct streams of environmental movements – neo-environmentalism and the Dark Mountain Project. On the basis of their published written statements, it describes these movements, analyses the opinions of their members regarding possible future developments and examines their ethical motivations. It examines the members’ motivations in terms of three categories – teleological, deontological and virtue ethics – and asserts that each of these contains various expectations, implying varying potential for disappointment. The text’s conclusion compares and assesses the attitudes of the members of neo-environmentalism and the Dark Mountain Project, their optimism and pessimism, from the perspective of the philosophers Hans Jonas, Roger Scruton and Romano Guardini.

This article is a case study of the most significant Czech environmental direct-action over the past few years -the blockade that was to stop the logging taking place in a wilderness zone of the Šumava National Park in the summer 2011. The empirical findings draw on two surveys that were carried out among the blockade participants more than a year apart. The article focuses on the participants' motivation. The types of motivation are analyzed by the three types of motivation categories as they are formulated in normative ethics: teleological, deontological, and virtue ethics. Results are interpreted within the context of normative ethics and of theories dealing with the dynamics of contention. The theoretical premise is that different types of motivation for environmentally-oriented behaviour contain different levels of expectations, and through these expectations they carry different levels of the potential for disappointment and resignation. Despite the fact that the blockade did not stop the logging-and so in fact could be seen as a failure-the respondents did not express disappointment. On the contrary, their attitudes showed a strikingly unified resistance and determination to participate in the blockade again. The analysis of the responses reveals why this could be so: the participants' motivation is not directly linked to protecting the Šumava landscape, it is not of the teleological type that contains specific expectations. It is largely inspired by virtue ethics, by a civic mind-set that strives for personal integrity, does not contain high expectations in terms of external changes, and is resistant to fatigue.