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.
Jon Stewart, as usual, talks more sense with more humor than almost anyone in the country.
posted August 21, 2010 at 8:52 am
*applauds*
BTW, I heard that Murdoch bought out Beliefnet–I’m surprised he let you post this.
posted August 21, 2010 at 12:13 pm
My understanding is that Murdoch sold Beliefnet. Whatever.
If I ever get bounced I’ll go back to my original blog. Till then and after, I call it as I see it.
Just to make it clear: In my opinion Rupert Murdoch is a curse in whatever country he decides to call home. I believe he has done this country more damage than all the Russian spies after World War Two.
posted August 22, 2010 at 10:33 am
It is generally easy to assume, applying the axiomatic Occam’s Razor, that the “owner” of a company does not exercise minute-to-minute control over it. Extend that assumption to a company the size of News Corp., and an objective perspective would start with “ridiculous” that a blog would go bye-bye because its author and/or commentators are critical of said “owner”.
We, Pagans in particular, have plenty of rational reasons for sane-side paranoia. Murdoch’s list of owned companies is not going to be one of them by any stretch of the imagination.
posted August 22, 2010 at 11:05 am
Agreed, Franklin. If he still owned it, it would be a zealous underling seeking to look good who would be a problem – if they cared at all. This blog hardly makes a blip on their screen, I suspect. But in reality, as Jason over at Wild Hunt says, he sold it after not doing it much good – since Murdoch (this is me now, not Jason) never has done anything amounting to much good. http://wildhunt.org/blog/2010/07/rupert-beliefnet-and-me.html
I think Beliefnet is now owned by a Christian organization – which may or may not be OK for a Pagan blog. Time will tell. As I’ve arguned here many times, there are all sorts of Christians.
I can say that all along, the people I’ve worked with personally at Beliefnet have proven friendly, competent, and conscientious. Some have made the transition to the new guys.
posted August 22, 2010 at 11:42 am
Gus, you may have seen me comment on my public involvement with Beliefnet. I can add to that — keeping it general to maintain confidentiality — my personal observation of the inclusivity that Steve Waldman established at this website. It was as strong as any reasonable person could ask for, remains so as best as I can tell, and while no website with as much overall volume as this one gets can avoid valid complaints about it, overall it is the best such site of its kind that I’ve seen or heard of.
I remain, overmuch or not remains to be seen, willing to give nearly any change here the immediate benefit of the doubt. Nothing stays the same forever, of course. I am glad that you are here, no doubt about that.
posted August 23, 2010 at 8:42 am
Sigh . . . would it be okay with everybody if we just went ahead and made Stewart an avatarisic demi-godling?
Playing Six Degrees to establish “facts” is what really dismays me. You’d think that so much spin would eventually make them all fall down.