There’s a debate going on right now over the value of green consumerism. Is it just a way of feeling better about buying shit, or can our way of life really be sustainable? I don’t disagree with the debate itself, but the term “eco-narcissism” has been used to criticize green consumerism.

Most notably “eco-narcissism” is used in this NYTimes article, which makes a distinction between “the old-school environmentalism of self-abnegation versus this camp of buying your way into heaven”. (Emphasis mine: think about it for a sec.)

Another reference is an editorial in a magazine published by an environmentalism NGO. Although concerned about the movement selling out, the editor admits that “much of the imagined [environmentalist] counterculture was messy, incoherent, and egregiously self-indulgent.” (Again, emphasis mine.)

These articles assume that being an environmentalist is not narcissistic. I believe this makes the Commission-Omission Fallacy: omitted actions are just as significant as committed actions. If consumption forms your identity, then abstention does too. Identity formation is, by definition, a preoccupation with self.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say that stereotypical environmentalism meets the criteria for medical narcissism, but it certainly hits a few of them:

• “Grandiose sense of self-importance” or effectiveness of personal sacrifice?
• “Preoccupied with fantasies of…success” like eco-anarchism
• “Believes that he or she is ‘special’ and…can only be understood by…other special people”, not green consumer sheep
• “Shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes”

It turns out there’s an ancient (2004) article by a British philosopher that seeks to defend ethical consumerism (since eclipsed by greenness) from “woolly-minded, anti-scientific, eco-narcissists”, so the sword cuts both ways.