“Quality is a direct experience independent of and prior to intellectual abstractions.”
Robert M. Pirsig, author of “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”
“An intellectual is a man who doesn’t know how to park a bike.”
Spiro T. Agnew, 39th Vice President of the United States
A fine film concerning the environment of Planet Earth, “COWSPIRACY: The Sustainability Secret” is recommended to anyone who cares about……well, anything. One gentleman interviewed in the film, Howard F. Lyman, a lifetime Montana cattle rancher and author of “The Mad Cowboy” commented that “75% of Americans consider themselves environmentalists,” a surprising assertion. It seems to me that if that statement were true the air, water, soil, flora and fauna, of America would certainly be healthier than they in fact are, but some research reveals that Lyman is correct. Most Americans consider themselves environmentalists, though a Gallop Poll puts the percentage at 61%.
Whether Lyman or Gallup are closer to the truth, most people reading this consider themselves environmentalists and will be interested in one of the best environmental activist organizations in America—The Foundation For Deep Ecology, based in San Francisco and found on line at www.deepecology.org. It also suggests a disconnect between those environmentalists and their direct experience of the environment. That is, the perceptions of intellect and the consequential realities of action are not in accord. The Foundation For Deep Ecology addresses this disconnect in several ways, including its efforts “…to helping build the intellectual infrastructure of the conservation movement… Since its inception the foundation has invested in a wide variety of such efforts, supporting numerous journals (Wild Earth, Resurgence, Plain, and AdBusters to name a few), books (The Case Against the Global Economy, Deep Ecology for the 21st Century, Turning Away from Technology), conferences and symposia, and advertising campaigns. FDE-sponsored gatherings of leading thinkers led to the formation of several independent organizations including the International Forum on Globalization, the Jacque Ellul Society, and the Wildlands Project. The foundation has also operated an innovative book publishing program that has produced numerous award-winning titles on conservation issues.”
Deep Ecology is a term coined in 1973 by Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess whose environmental thinking had been greatly influenced by Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring.” He viewed much of the environmental thinking of the time as ‘shallow’ because it did not address the deeper root causes of environmental problems. Thus, Deep Ecology, which has an eight point platform. The first is “The well-being and flourishing of human and nonhuman life on Earth have value in themselves (synonyms: inherent worth, intrinsic value, inherent value). These values are independent of the usefulness of the nonhuman world for human purposes.” The eighth is “Those who subscribe to the foregoing points have an obligation directly or indirectly to participate in the attempt to implement the necessary changes.”
That is, between 61% and 75% of Americans have an obligation to participate in the attempt to implement the necessary changes, and the necessary intellectual infrastructure to do so is already in place. Check it out.