environmentalism is a political ideology
iceberg left a comment on my post, I'm with the priest, where I quote Father Jim Tucker distinguishing lamentation for Lincoln's crimes from love for slavery. (I can hate Lincoln and slavery both. There are more than two options here.)iceberg compares Father Jim's point with something he read on slashdot, by a slashdotter named Brandybuck. I think Brandybuck's point is so good and so important that I wanted to post it here:
There is no "anti-environmental" lobby, but there certainly is an "anti-environmentalist" lobby. Like it or not, environmentalism is a specific political ideology. Not everyone who wants to protect the environment is an environmentalist. Not everyone who wants to eliminate pollution is an environmentalist. Pretending that wanting to clean up the Earth is environmentalism is as silly as pretending that wanting to eliminate poverty is socialism.
2 Comments:
I am not sure I agree that environmentalism is a "specific political ideology". What one might call environmentalism has a pretty wide range from fairly conservative hunting constituencies which promote conservation of hunting grounds to rather radical advocates of zero development. Environmentalism encompasses everything from anti-litter efforts to tree spiking.
I concede that one can hate environmentalists(however defined) while loving the environment, but one runs the danger of self-hatred.
I think the larger point is that setting up false dichotomies gets in the way of meaningful discourse. Hating Lincoln does not make one pro-slavery, and hating environmentalists does not make one anti-earth. Lately, I find that it is difficult to express any reservations about war without being accused of hating America.
The claim that environmentalism is a "specific political ideology" is unusual, but I think it does have merit. It seems as if most environmentalists are pretty lock step in their approval of certain means to achieve the end goal of environmental protection. For example, you'll be hard pressed to find an environmentalist who doesn't support the Kyoto treaty. BK makes a great point in that you don't have to go along with the environmentalist agenda to care about the environment, especially if you believe that using different means will bring better results without trampling on peoples' liberty.
False dichotomies involving slavery, the environment, or whatever, are most definitely troublesome and annoying. It's too bad that there's no way to prevent such dichotomies from popping up, you just have to dispel them whenever they're hurled at you.
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