Paradox as bedrock: Social systems theory and the ungrounding of literary environmentalism in Edward Abbey's Desert Solitaire

Environmentalism is caught up in a paradox: it wishes to speak on behalf of the whole constituted by society and its biophysical environment, but it can only do so in the terms provided by society itself; it argues that humans need to recognize themselves as a part of nature, but the very possibility of this argument is predicated on society standing apart from nature. This chapter argues that Niklas Luhmann's theory of social systems provides a theoretical angle from which the paradox of holism can be understood not as a defect of environmentalist discourse, but rather as its necessary and enabling condition. The development of ecocriticism as a discipline is described in terms of successive attempts to elaborate on, but also to evade and obscure this paradox; Edward Abbey's Desert Solitaire is presented as a literary text which has posed difficulties to ecocritical readings precisely because it seeks to confront it directly.