{"id":339692,"date":"2024-08-15T17:39:44","date_gmt":"2024-08-15T15:39:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=339692"},"modified":"2024-08-15T17:39:46","modified_gmt":"2024-08-15T15:39:46","slug":"environmentalism-or-individualism-part-4-philosophic-conflict","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=339692","title":{"rendered":"Environmentalism or Individualism? (Part 4: Philosophic Conflict)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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From Master Resource<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Robert Bidinotto<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ed. Note<\/strong>: This is Part 4 of a six-part series on the ideology of environmentalism and its incompatibility with the foundational individualist philosophy of the United States. Parts 1 is here<\/a>. Part 2 is here<\/a>. Part 3 is here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cThe fundamental concern of environmentalists is about the logical incompatibility of the values underlying a modern, technological, capitalist society, and the values embodied in the environmentalists\u2019 image of Eden.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Why, despite such transparent manipulations of fact and science, and their overt indifference to economics, have environmentalists been winning the battle for the hearts and minds of ordinary people?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because they\u2019ve never based their appeals primarily on facts, statistics, science, or economics. They rest their case ultimately on ethical and philosophical<\/em> grounds. Both their appeal and their shamelessness arise from the widespread belief that they are idealists<\/em>: that they are champions of the Good against the forces of Evil that are sullying and raping a once-virginal planet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reading environmentalist literature or listening to the movement\u2019s founders and leaders, one is always struck by the style of the language: a hybrid of the spiritual, the self-righteous, the aesthetic, and the apocalyptic. This religiosity is not surprising, given the movement\u2019s historic roots in Greek and Judeo-Christian mythology, and in the pantheism and transcendentalism of the movement\u2019s nineteenth-century intellectual forerunners. Nor does their basic premise\u2014the allegedly \u201cintrinsic value\u201d of untouched nature\u2014allow much wiggle room for compromise. After all, if a virginal planet is to be our moral and aesthetic ideal, just how much planet-raping by Man are we going to allow?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Critics of environmentalists have seldom understood this, or known how to respond. The best among them have tried to confront environmentalist claims and activities with expos\u00e9s of their \u201cjunk science.\u201d Some try to employ economic arguments, showing the enormous costs that environmentalists are imposing on people and businesses. Other less sophisticated critics try to appeal to the public\u2019s common sense, denouncing environmentalist \u201cextremism.\u201d Sadly, the most futile response in the face of environmental activism\u2014piecemeal appeasement\u2014too often comes from the beleaguered business community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

None of these responses is working, of course, because they are all beside the point. They don\u2019t address the fundamental concern of environmentalists. That concern is about values<\/em>. It\u2019s about the logical incompatibility of the values underlying a modern, technological, capitalist society, and the values embodied in the environmentalists\u2019 image of Eden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Appeals to science, economics, common sense, or compromise will work only if both sides accept their legitimacy as methods to resolve conflicts. But how can that happen when one side dismisses science as Frankensteinian, economics as selfishness, reason as Man\u2019s curse, and compromise as moral weakness?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, consider the response to the movement by some who call themselves \u201cfree market environmentalists.\u201d They attempt to co-opt the label, popularity, and values of environmentalism while relying on the principles of market economics to solve environmental problems. Their approach is to argue that most problems of pollution and overuse of resources can be resolved by properly recognizing property rights and applying marketplace incentives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, that argument, though valid, is not nearly adequate. For one thing, it assumes that problem-solving lies at the heart of the environmentalist agenda: that the conflict is over pollution and dirt, rather than values. Even worse, it concedes the anti-human values that inspire environmentalists, treating these as off-limits to criticism and analysis. It thus attempts to bypass and ignore the very premises that motivate environmental activism, and that are responsible for environmentalism\u2019s public appeal and success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An article in Spring 1998 Dissent<\/em> magazine illustrates the point. In it, law professor and environmentalist Eric Freyfogle attacks and dismisses \u201cfree market environmentalism\u201d\u2014not on economic or scientific grounds, but on moral<\/em> grounds. He writes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Efficiency, the market\u2019s most exalted promise, is a desirable quality of the means we use to achieve an end. But efficiency, standing alone or embedded in a market, cannot tell us whether species are worth saving. That decision requires a moral judgment\u2026 A related market message, equally troubling, is the legitimacy that it grants to self-centered behavior. However effective economic incentives might be, they do not push people to look beyond their own self-interest, and land health will never come about so long as we each look out only for ourselves.1<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

After calling for more collectivist political control over the marketplace, Freyfogle concludes: \u201cProgress on environmental issues, then, will depend on our continued use of moral language.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To environmentalists like Freyfogle, the free market ignores allegedly \u201chigher\u201d moral values while it encourages selfishness\u2014and therefore, capitalism is, at root, a morally flawed system, and the cause of many environmental crises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To such mentalities, it\u2019s therefore useless to argue that the free-market approach improves human well-being, or even that it solves environmental problems more efficiently than government regulation. Economic arguments and considerations are beside the point. In the great scheme of things, the environmentalists argue, morality trumps economics<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Economists reply that theirs is a science of means, not ends\u2014that economics makes no value-judgments. But in fact, the entire field of economics rests upon implied value judgments. Economics not only assumes that people wish to improve their material situations by seeking greater abundance; it also assumes that to fulfill their desires for well-being and happiness, their rational use of natural resources is good. After all, why should<\/em> people act economically? The tacit answer must be that doing so is a good thing<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By contrast, environmentalism declares that it\u2019s wrong<\/em> to pursue one\u2019s personal fulfillment by altering natural resources. It declares\u2014on moral and philosophical grounds\u2014that humans should limit their personal desires, and instead embrace scarcity. In other words, environmentalism declares that the entire economic way of looking at things is immoral.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Capitalism and science are values only to people who want to achieve material progress; they rest implicitly on the idea that self-interest is good. Yet this clashes with age-old moral teachings, which hold that goodness consists of \u201cservice to others\u201d\u2014and that self-interest is evil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This explains why economic and scientific arguments have failed to inoculate the public against environmentalism. By and large, people want to do the right thing. But if they\u2019ve been taught to equate \u201cthe right thing\u201d with self-sacrifice, and evil with selfishness\u2014if they\u2019ve been taught \u201cParadise\u201d is Eden, that perfect Garden in which Man is a humble steward of the \u201cnatural balance\u201d\u2014then how can they possibly remain sympathetic to the enterprises of science and free market economics?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In logic, they can\u2019t. In fact, they haven\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, economic and scientific arguments are very<\/em> important\u2014but they are simply not enough. They don\u2019t address the philosophic and moral criticisms of individualism and capitalism. How can economics answer the philosophic criticism that so-called \u201cold growth forests,\u201d untouched by humans, are spiritually superior to those planted by greedy lumber and paper companies for human use? How can science address the ethical criticism that every isolated subspecies of bird, animal, or even plant, has a moral right to an undisturbed existence and habitat\u2014a right that requires the cessation of all logging, mining, and land development?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For many centuries, intellectuals have rejected as selfish the right of individuals to live for themselves. They have rejected as ethically bankrupt the pursuit of happiness. They have rejected as demeaning and unseemly the seeking of worldly profit, wealth, and material comfort. The result, as philosopher and novelist Ayn Rand points out, is that capitalism still remains an \u201cunknown ideal.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is time to make that ideal known. Until we do\u2014until we offer a compelling moral and philosophical case for human life and liberty as an alternative to the environmentalist philosophy of human abasement and self-abnegation\u2014the movement will continue to win in the court of public opinion, and on the battlefields of public policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a first step, we must challenge two false philosophic ideas at the root of environmentalism. The two fallacies are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n