The idols of environmentalism
March 12th, 2007 by Jim JustThe problem for even the best-intentioned environmental activism is that it imagines that it can confront a problem external to itself. Confront the bulldozers. Confront the chainsaws. Confront Monsanto. Fight the power. What the environmental movement is not very good at is acknowledging that something in the very fabric of our daily life is deeply anti-nature as well as anti-human. It inhabits not just bad-guy CEOs at Monsanto and Weyerhaeuser but nearly every working American, environmentalists included. Even when we are trying to aid the environment, we are not willing as individuals to challenge the system that we know in our heart of hearts is the cause of our problems. And we’re neglecting the most powerful arguments, which are spiritual. We can do better than “make a case” for our environment using only the tools of reason. Our world was founded in mystery, and what’s missing from environmentalists’ language is a sense of awe, of reverence for what simply is. If environmentalism truly wishes to “save” something—the planet, a species, itself—it needs to rediscover a common language of Care.