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.
UPDATE
The recent water boarding of a
four year old by her father because she was not cooperative in reciting her ABCs. He is a soldier who had served in
Iraq. This event is sad commentary
on a creeping American moral nihilism.
Nihilism is a failure to truly believe in basic precepts such as
kindness, compassion, and love.
Sociopaths are nihilists, but so are increasing numbers of Americans who
are not. Some “believe” in these
values, but will not go to bat for them.
Others don’t even go that far.
Power and wealth are oh so much more real. They can hold Wealth in their
hands and Power – just watch people cringe and bow when you have it. Of course, then Power and Wealth own
you far more securely than you own them.
When President Bill Clinton was
criticized for setting a bad moral example because he fooled around with Monica
Lewinsky, I thought it would be a poor parent who looked to the President for
moral guidance in raising their child.
There were plenty of hypocrites,
Democratic and Republican alike.
John Edwards, he of the secret child and sex tape, said “I think
this president has shown a remarkable disrespect for his office, for the moral
dimensions of leadership, for his friends, for his wife, for his precious
daughter. It is breathtaking to me the level to which that disrespect has
risen.” I thought these arguments were stupid, and as it turns out in many cases hypocritical. Applied to adults these arguments are stupid, but I now
think they had a point despite themselves.
The
President does contribute to the moral sense of his times. A goodly number of Americans apparently
think in hierarchical formats.
Good and bad or, more complexly, a pecking order where they are happy so
long as others are below them. If Alpha Dog or Alpha Baboon doesn’t
object, it must be OK. These are
the people who call the President our “Commander in Chief,” which he is not.
Bush
showed that immorality, like fish rot, can spread rapidly when it starts at the
top and people have this attitude.
Some parents apparently really do need a President to give them a good
example in living, an example they are incapable of accomplishing by
themselves. Not all
parents, of course. I know many
who are genuine adults, with a strong enough character not to need such
instruction. But I may have been
wrong for those who think and live in terms of their position in hierarchies.
Among his many unexpected failures
of leadership, Barack Obama has failed to take a strong moral stand against
tortures such as waterboarding when done by people hired by the
government. He and his government have
done what they could, which is quite a bit, to protect the criminals who
tortured and murdered in our name.
Let us move on, he says, and put that stuff behind us. I wonder how effective that argument
would have been at Nuremburg? “The war is over. Let’s let bygones be bygones.”
“OK, you can go home now.”
But for citizens of weak
character, if it is not illegal, it must be OK. Along the way our entire culture is degraded. If water boarding is not torture, then perhaps it is an
acceptable means for disciplining children.
Some people who once said “unlike
Russian communists, Americans do not torture” have shifted to saying torture is
necessary, or that what is torture when done by others is not torture when done
by Americans. Or perhaps it’s no
worse than a fraternity prank. I
guess that’s true in a way. Sometimes
people die in fraternity pranks.
Then we wonder when weak minded or mentally injured people take this
reasoning seriously, and bring it home to their child rearing.
UPDATE: Evidence of the utter failure of Obama’s “moral leadership” can be found here in figures of rising support among Americans for torture. A pathetic group of bedwetting citizens who have abandoned the principles this country was founded on. I am ashamed to be part of such a society.
posted February 9, 2010 at 8:03 pm
Thanks Gus, that is pretty much what I assumed you would say in response to this. It is especially upsetting to me because I truly believe that it is through parenting with respect and compassion that we have the greatest chance of making the world a better place. And here we have another war creating another generation of traumatised men who will traumatise their children who will grow up believing that this kind of behaviour is okay. How can we possibly change, if we don’t heal and share the peace of the healed with our children? How can there be much hope for any of us if we are teaching that this kind of behaviour is okay? I know how very hard it is to live non-violently, but it is the only hope! Violence only begets MORE violence, or as Frank Herbert said, anyone who commits an atrocity is responsible for not just that one act, but all the further retaliatory atrocities that follow. The only way to peace is to LIVE peacefully and NEVER tolerate this kind of behaviour. The act of this soldier was not the act of an individual, but an atrocity born of earlier atrocities.
posted February 10, 2010 at 2:34 am
This may seem a bit off the wall, but I trace a direct line from this right back to James Dobson. Some of your readers may be too young to remember, but Dobson initially came to prominence (and made his fortune) in the late 1970’s with the publication of his book, Dare to Discipline. This was the first of a series of books that he wrote to promote the premise that it is not only permissible, but laudable, for parents to discipline their children by beating the tar out of them. His big bugaboo was, and is, what he calls “defiance.” He uses the term over and over again. A child who fails to obey even the most trifling parental command, and to obey it instantly and cheerfully, is to be subjected to swift and brutal retaliation. I am not going to supply quotations, because it makes me sick even to read them. If you’re interested, Google the terms “James Dobson,” “Children,” and “Torture,” and click on the relevant links. See if your hair doesn’t stand on end. You might want to start off with this posting at Talk to Action:
http://www.talk2action.org/story/2006/9/15/224228/895
Lest you think that I’m overstating the influence that Dobson had in this area, I’d remind you that, during the 1980’s and ‘90’s, the religious right placed the untrammeled right of parents to beat their children at the top of their social agenda, right up there with opposition to women’s reproductive choice and to any rights for GLBT people. You don’t hear so much about it now, but let any level of government consider anti-spanking legislation and watch who comes crawling out of the woodwork.
As for the little girl in the news story—I don’t know if Dobson would approve of the waterboarding; but, if he considered her failure to learn her ABC’s to be “defiance,” he would have no problem with beating her with a wooden spoon or administering a nerve pinch to the back of her neck. And, if she continued to cry for more than two minutes after her punishment, this would constitute a further act of defiance which would call for further brutalization. Nithing.
Two generations of religious and political conservatives in the U.S. have been raised with this philosophy. Is it any wonder that large segments of the population see no problem with torturing prisoners of war, or with police officers using Tasers on citizens who are “non-compliant?” In another generation, waterboarding a child will probably be considered as nothing worse than a mild reprimand.
posted February 11, 2010 at 5:23 pm
Got to disagree w/you here Gus.
There (sadly, horrifically) always been parents who’ve abused their children. Some of what we now think abusive, was considered “good parenting” at the time.
And some has always been abuse.
I don’t really think it’s connected w/ what the President says or does…..either about torture or raising his own kids.
I DO want Obama to lead us is saying NO! to torture as well as also lead us in returning to a time when “being an American” meant values of truth and justice (all hail Superman…..sorry) not imperialism and torture.
I just don’t link this to this poor child’s abuse. And thank the Gods that this was discovered so she will no longer have to experience this from one who’s job is to protect her and love her.
posted February 12, 2010 at 5:51 pm
Chillingly perceptive Makarios!
thank you for sharing this. i think you’ve got SUCH a good point. I’m going to go ponder that now, cuz it’s SCARY.
posted February 16, 2010 at 11:33 am
Gus, in regards to our President being Commander in Chief, yes he is. Says so in the Constitution, Article II, Section 2: “The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States”.
posted February 17, 2010 at 12:41 pm
Eran-
He is commander in chief of the armed forces, he is not commander in chief of the country, he is not MY commander in chief, and if you are a civilian he is not yours. He is under the law, and the law is the creation of the people through their representatives (ideally and constitutionally). He is our employee. We hire and we fire.
The idea that the president is America’s commander in chief, or OUR commander in chief, is an idea that is intrinsically subversive to the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
It is good for people who desire to be serfs, slaves, and certain kinds of ‘conservatives’, however.