Silent Spring – Ecological racism, hubris, bigotry
Silent Spring was a book written by a lady named Rachel Carson. This book, published two years before breast cancer took her life in 1964, enshrined her as a martyr in the cause of ecologism. Ecologism teaches that mankind is intrinsically insignificant. It teaches that humanity as an organism having evolved alongside the rest of planetary creatures is just another creature.
When a creature develops technology that rapes its environment it does wrong. So the morality for ecologism is to diminish dominance over the world, that is to limit economic, technologic growth.
To frame this a little consider the perspectives of Thoreau and Emerson. You may not recall the philosophies of these men, but probably you recall the word transcendentalism. That grew forth from the works written by these men who felt that by opening one’s eyes, exposing oneself to the natural world all around us it is clear that humanity is unique. Thus, humanity, they teach, is above it transcends nature.
That humanity might transcend other organisms is a third rail. It is ecological hubris, ecological racism, bigotry.
Uniqueness as license?
Thoreau and Emerson taught uniqueness of humanity, but they did not construe this as a license to dominate or destroy. Domination of the world started further back. Rupert Darwall, in his book The Age of Global Warming: a History raised the impact of Francis Bacon upon Western Civilization. Darwall outlines Bacon’s teaching that humanity was to learn how nature works and by those lessons better themselves. “Don’t hide out in a monastery racking one’s soul with introspective,” he would have said, “but get out there, figure out how the world works and make something!”
That philosophy had some resonance that Rachel Carson did not ascribe too. “Look,” she and others would say, “at what the Industrial Revolution has done to our world.” We must not destroy it, but must see our own role in the cosmos. We must not consider only our own interests in the planet, but the elephants, the whales, the wolves, the sockeye salmon, the buffalo as well. It is not hard to see how humanity has depleted the vast troves of these populations.
Ashley Cozart says
I have taken care of and subdued my small portion of earth! And…I do not litter! ?
lulrich says
Awesome! I don’t either (on purpose, that is…a pickup truck will sometimes have a mind of its own). I used to pick up a lot of litter till I developed a repetitive motion thing in my right shoulder.