American Studies. Dave Foreman is not your stereotypical treehugger. Wikipedia introduces him as follows:The son of a US Air Force career officer, as a young man Foreman supported the Vietnam War. He received the highest honor of the Boy Scouts of America, the rank of Eagle Scout. Foreman first became involved in political activism as a college student, supporting Republican Senator Barry Goldwater’s unsuccessful presidential campaign in 1964 and founding the New Mexico branch of the conservative youth organization Young Americans for Freedom. After graduating from college in 1968, and attending the Officers Candidate School of the US Marine Corps, Foreman’s radicalism began to take shape.
Nowadays environmentalism is so completely associated with the left that it surprises us to learn of Foreman’s conservative roots. But are environmentalism and conservatism really at odds? Which political philosophy — liberalism, conservatism, socialism, libertarianism, anarchism — seems most congenial to environmentalism? While we’re at it, which religion seems most congenial to environmentalism?
Tuesday, April 21
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4 comments:
Egalitarianism seems like the most congenial to me. With all things being equal, the rights of the environment and environmentalist being are just important as any other view. Ecotopia is the first thing that comes to mind and though they have a "Democratic" ruling class, it seems that egalitarianism domitates the society and make it easeir for the environmental movement to flourish. The most accommidating religion would have to be a wicken, or native American religion. Both place heavy importance on nature and natural things.
No, I don't think they necessarily are. The key to swaying the conservative mindset over to the pro-environmentalist school is really just a matter of making it a lucrative prospect. Grassroots touchy-feely groups that are primarily emotionally charged and bent on destruction of property are never going to make any large-scale progress; real change takes political clout, which takes money and advertising to make it a popular prospect.
I was perusing the EarthFirst website and have to admit that some of what they had to say was presented in a very forward-thinking, articulate format, and some of it was even pretty funny (ie.the posting about the "Extremely Phallic, Clean Technology Skyscraper") and really put a positive spin on their agenda. Of course I was a little turned off by their whining about KFC, and what does their opposition of concealed carry in national parks have to do with the environment, but whatever.
Also, I did find it interesting that most of the groundbreaking advancements in "Clean Technology" building are occurring in the middle east, in areas of enormous wealth directly resulting from the sale of oil and petroleum... So there's a compromise
Conservatism, at its true meaning, would seem to be the most congenial to environmentalism. The values of true conservatives would hold to the ideas of not pushing anything to far in policy and production. The can and has hurt the conservative movement with regards to the environment because too little action is sometimes not the right answer. Perhaps this need for dramatic movement in the case of the environment is the reasoning for liberalism being considered environmental. The religion that is most congenial could possibility be, at least in America, the Amish or similar practices as they only use the land for basic needs.
I agree conservatism is the most congenial to environmentalism. I believe that Christianity teaches to love, care and respect the earth.
D---
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