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.
Spending Thanksgiving in Lawrence,
Kansas, was not a good way to get much writing done for this blog. Between seeing my family, from brothers
and sisters-in-law to their kids and their kids’ kids, plus other wives,
cousins and their succeeding generations was delightful and exhausting at the
same time. Add to that finding the
time to see old friends from my undergraduate days in the 60s and an unexpected
opportunity to run in Lawrence’s 5K race, and writing on this computer seemed
somewhere off in another galaxy.
Finding the time to write was a goal still more distant.
But I did notice that here, surrounded by a state suffering to a more than everage degree with the affliction of the ‘Christian’ Taliban, a few brave entrepreneurial souls were making themselves public.
I had noticed a sign for The
Village Witch as I came into town, and today I took the time to visit
them. The Village Witch is a small
Pagan store with a wonderful public altar that included space for our citizens
serving their country in the military, be they Pagan or otherwise. A special place had been set aside for
the men and women at Fort Hood. I
felt a surge of pride in my community for its inclusive care for other
citizens, something increasingly challenged in America today.
Most Pagans I know, maybe all of
them, are quite critical of America’s military imperialism. But most of us also make a huge
distinction before the brave men and women who devote all or a part of their
lives in military service to their country, and the scoundrels and fanatics,
Republican and Democratic alike, who somehow think they are acting bravely by
sending other men to kill and die in needless slaughter/
That altar for our soldiers at Fort
Hood made me feel closer to my fellow Pagans as well as to our men and women
under arms.
posted December 2, 2009 at 6:36 pm
They are set up to accept PayPal now, so I just placed an order with them. There aren’t many items available on-line yet, but I purchased some bath salts and crystals. Hopefully they’ll get more items on their website available for purchase soon. I support Pagan businesses whenever I can.