Democratic Forest Trusts (PDF)in Watson, Alan; Dean, Liese; Sproull, Janet, comps. 2006. Science and stewardship to protect and sustain wilderness values: Eighth World Wilderness Congress Symposium; 2005 September 30-October 6; Anchorage, AK.Democratic trusts with leadership elected by citizen-members promise to solve many of the problems afflicting both traditional government and corporate ownership of forestlands. This article explores these issues in some depth.Complexity and the Dream of Human Control of Eco-Systems (PDF)in Watson, Alan; Dean, Liese; Sproull, Janet, comps. 2006. Science and stewardship to protect and sustain wilderness values: Eighth World Wilderness Congress Symposium; 2005 September 30-October 6; Anchorage, AK.The title captures it. I then explore the kinds of institutions compatible with both nature and the modern world that are implied from this analysis.Rethinking the Obvious: Modernity and Living Respectfully With Nature (PDF)The Trumpeter: Journal of Ecosophy, Winter, 1997.Modernity is usually considered a wrong turn in terms of respect for and sustaining the environment. I argue the reality is more complex, for modernity has freed us from personal dependence on agriculture, ended the economic value of children, radically reduced the likelihood of large scale wat, and shifted much production to intellectual rather than material capital. This partially decouples society from nature, which gives us important opportunities as well as problems.Towards an Ecocentric Political Economy (PDF)The Trumpeter, Fall, 1996.This paper begins my effort at showing how liberal modernity can be harmonized with an ecocentric perspective on our relationship with the natural world. It is a corrective to much “free market environmental” literature that sacrifices Nature to money as well as to anti-liberal attacks by well-meaning but economically naïve environmentalists.Unexpected Harmonies: Self-Organization in Liberal Modernity and Ecology (PDF)The Trumpeter, Journal of Ecosophy, 10:1, Winter 1993This is my initial paper exploring how what I term ‘evolutionary liberal’ thought can be an important means by which society and nature can be brought into greater harmony. The other Trumpeter papers build on it.Deep Ecology and Liberalism: The Greener Implications of Evolutionary Liberalism (PDF)Review of Politics, Fall, 1996.Liberal thought and deep ecology are usually regarded as mutually exclusive. But the “evolutionary” tradition offers a way to integrate the two through commonalties in the work of David Hume, Michael Polanyi, Arne Naess, and Aldo Leopold, providing a stronger foundation for liberalism while strengthening the case for an ecocentric ethic.(Related subjects: Ecology)Saving Western Towns: A Jeffersonian Green Proposal (PDF)in Writers on the Range, Karl Hess and John Baden, eds., University Press of Colorado, 1998.Developmental pressures in the rural and small town West involve three groups: long term residents, new arrivals, and environmentalists. Today their interests often conflict. This conflict is in part the outcome of institutions which prevent harmonizing competing interests. The concept of developmental trusts, both for rural regions and for small communities offers a means whereby these interests can be harmonized for the benefit of all concerned.(Related subjects: Politics)Social Ecology, Deep Ecology, and Liberalism (PDF)Critical Review, 6: 2-3, 1992.Murray Bookchin is considered a leading radical environmental theorist. However, his analysis is incapable of leading humankind towards a more respectful and sustainable relationship with the natural world. Criticisms of Bookchin from both the deep ecology and evolutionary liberal perspective complement one another, pointing the way towards a better understanding of how modernity relates to the environment.The paper as a whole offers an early discussion of issues that are more clearly addressed in later papers, particularly Deep Ecology and Liberalism (1996) and the three Trumpeter articles in 1997, 1996, and 1993. However, there are other ideas in the article which have not been developed more thoroughly elsewhere.
Courtesy the Huffington Post, this piece by Frank Schaeffer is worth the read.
posted March 10, 2009 at 2:52 am
Wow! I guess when you’ve been a member of the Right, it’s easier to really take the whip to them. I don’t know many people who would feel comfortable giving them such a hiding, deserved or not. I can only hope, as a Canadian, that the wisdom dawning on your country, spreads it’s light a little further north. We have Bush’s little finger puppet running things up here, and most Canadians don’t like it that way. 60% of us voted against him in the last election. I think 80% of us would have voted for Mr. Obama. What an inspirational leader he is. If only we had one who conducted himself with such integrity and grace, or even thought before he spoke.
posted March 10, 2009 at 3:16 am
Yikes. Other than the relief I feel in knowing there’s one less voice screaming for the religious right, I feel uneasy. In fact, I feel almost as uneasy knowing this guy is now screaming *at* the religious right as I did when he was screaming *for* it. If this were not politics but an email list, and I were the moderator, I’d ban him as a flamer.
What good can come of this?
posted March 10, 2009 at 3:50 pm
Frank’s comments are dead on target. I am SO annoyed with the Republicans going on and on against President Obama, criticizing almost everything he’s done as though any of THEM had the answers and weren’t responsible for a large part of the problems in the first place. If they can’t pitch in to help, they should just sit down, shut up and let him try to right the ship.
I think their worst fear is that his changes will be a resounding success. In their view it is better to have our country continue its downward spiral then to have our President credited with fixing our problems.
As for “what good can come of this”, PLENTY, if they’re not too closed-minded to hear it. Sometimes the best thing that can happen to you is not someone sympathetically patting your hand. In this situation a firm, well-placed kick in the butt is just what the doctor ordered.
posted March 10, 2009 at 8:07 pm
I truly liked Mr. Frank Schaeffer’s article. I have felt the same thing as we enter the Obama Administration attempt to change things, put things to right, and un-do the damage done in the last eight years under the Bush Administration.
With Bush and the Republican Party wooing the RR for their votes and power, nothing was sacred and everything was up for sale.
While not always agreeing with the Republican Party, I could still find a little common ground but that is no more. I will never believe them or support them again. As far as the RR is concerned, I have never trusted them or liked them. Their agenda was solely for themselves and no one else.
While still recognizing that President is still a human being and a politician and that both can make big mistakes, I still have hope in what he wants to create for our Nation and where he wants us to be, as a Nation. Understandably, after the last eight years, his every move will be watched but I’m sure that this comes with no surprise.
May he undo the movement towards a theocracy and restore us to the Republic/Democracy we all hold dear.