167,123 people die every day on planet earth. There were 61 million people who died in 2023. It is a common understanding that after two to three generations after our death, the majority of people are unlikely to remember that we ever existed.
The sad reality is that most people are completely forgotten within about 100 years of their death. This is because it’s likely that all of a person’s great-grandchildren will be dead by that time, and people usually have no knowledge or memory of any ancestor older than their great-grandparents.
Even prominent people widely known during their lifetimes often are nearly completely forgotten within 150–200 years of their death. Of course, there are exceptions. Hammurabi, Buddha, Jesus, Alexander the Great, and Plato are a few that come to mind.
I don’t mean to sound morbid. But these facts about death entered my mind when I considered the philosopher for today’s installment of my series, “Philosophers You Have Never Heard Of”.
On a warm 2006 July afternoon in Burlington, Vermont, Murray Bookchin became one of those 167,123 who died on planet earth. He drew his last breath in the bed of his apartment in downtown Burlington with his partner of 19 years, by his side. He had a reputation for being grumpy, sectarian, and divisive. By the time of his death, he had few friends. After his death, his ideas seemed to wane steadily into obscurity.
Uncle Murray
You’ve probably never heard of Murray Bookchin. You likely wouldn’t have had a reason to. I discovered his work many years ago, and I’ll share why shortly. Murray Bookchin was born in 1921 in New York City to Russian Jewish immigrants, and grew up in the Bronx. He would unlikely be on any list of notable philosophers. It’s true that perhaps his philosophical interests were more niche-oriented and on the margins of mainstream philosophy. But recently, there has been renewed interest in his ideas. His name popped up for me this week, and I felt a pang of sadness that so few people ever knew he existed or appreciate the contribution he made.
Pictured above, Murray Bookchin seems like that gruff and eccentric uncle that you do your best to avoid at family gatherings. Is it me, or does it look like he just rolled out of bed and threw a hat on? And how many pens and pencils does one need in their shirt pocket? Don’t forget your handy red notepad!
Let me show you another picture.
So apparently Murray Bookchin owned only one hat and shirt, and likes pens and pencils in his shirt pocket, but this picture reveals something significant about his legacy. So many of the photographs I found of philosophers from the previous articles in this series were more formal, distinguished, and scholarly looking. Not Murray - he’s the one-shirt, ragged-hat scruffy guy with pencils and protractor shoved in his pockets.
But it makes complete sense that Murray would be photographed on a bridge crossing a rushing river. Murray Bookchin was one of the most significant and influential environmental philosophers of the twentieth century, and pioneer of the environmental movement. He formulated and developed the theory of social ecology. Not only was he the founder of the social ecology movement, his pioneering work to raise environmental awareness started in the 1950s, and already in the 1960s he warned against the prospects of global warming, and he was an early advocate of organic farming, decentralization, and renewable energy sources.
At his deathbed, Murray’s partner, Janet Biehl, promised Murray she would write his biography, which she did: Ecology or Catastrophe: The Life of Murray Bookchin. Janet Biehl, a figure of social ecology herself, worked as his collaborator and copyeditor for 19 years, editing his every word. Thanks to her extensive personal history with Bookchin as well as her access to his papers and archival research, Ecology or Catastrophe is a great read for learning more about Bookchin and the social ecology movement. Biehl also published Murray Bookchin Reader, a collection of Bookchin’s most noteworthy essays.
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