For an Aesthetic Ecology. the Need of a New Framework to Cope with Environmental Risks.

The recurrent appearance of the term “ecology” in widespread discourses marks the advent of a form of understanding different from the one Modernity got us used to. Ecology stresses the importance of the dimensions of interdependence and connectedness among spheres of existence, thus diverging from the competitive attitude of economism. The idea of ecosystem highlights the multiple links that bond the different species together and to the environment that constitutes their primordial prerequisite and mitigates Modern demands for a systematic order. It also hints at a shift towards Oriental holistic Weltanschauungen where the whole planet is thought of as a living organism. This image, often mistaken for a naive organicism, aims instead at underlining the actual impossibility of interpreting environmental balance according to the mechanical rules of the paradigm of simplification (Morin).

The increasing success of ecological viewpoints can be read as the beginning of the emancipation from Modern cognitive frames. Getting rid of such a cumbersome ideological apparatus is not an easy task and should be undertaken with courage and energy. As a first step, this paper aims at sketching a complex, ecological vision of Man. This can be achieved by integrating into Simmel’s Wechselwirkung the emotional, symbolic and aesthetic dimensions that constitute a crucial part of humanity, but have been – and still largely are – rendered invisible by Western rationalism and utilitarianism. They play a fundamental role in recovering the qualitative side of interaction, the feeling of being-together that makes it possible to care for others and for the world in which one lives and whose disappearance is at the root of contemporary Angst and uncertainty.