Canyon Country Zephyr page 12

<<Prev                                                   Home                        PDF                              Next>>

Remembering a time when the truth mattered...

Edward Abbey & Wendell Berry

INTRODUCTION by DOUG MEYER

What does this quarter-century old debate from US environmental history tell us? Very simply, honest environ-
mentalism would have played only one role: that of counter-cultural force to the USA.

Edward Abbey reminds us that we abandoned the idea of true wilderness. Certainly no highly-regarded environ
mentalist today would dare express a philosophy founded on the rights of the non-human world leading to a misan
thropic view of a civilization which by defnition is unable to value those rights. So is it any wonder that wilderness
as biodiversity reserves hasn’t become the operative principle? And though never admitted by environmentalists,
wilderness was seen broadly as in fact a human-centered recreational cause. This led to the attack on the language
of the 1964 Wilderness Act, exposing it as a naïve white-man’s view of a “pristine” continent.

Wendell Berry reminds us of our inability to express radical thoughts. In “Preserving Wildness,” he wrote that
while supporting maximum wilderness designation, he was also pointing out, “as the Reagan administration has
done, that the wildernesses we are trying to preserve are standing squarely in the way of our present economy, and
that the wildernesses cannot survive if our economy does not change.” (Hint: he wasn’t talking about wind farms
and solar panels.) Most failed at deducing the obvious. If enviros had properly understood their highest goals as
being antithetical to the USA, they would have plotted for its downfall. Instead, the professionals made themselves

a tool of the oligarchy.

It’s very late in the game now; society is circling the wagons and can’t handle this kind of brutal criticism anymore. Though I think Abbey and Berry were somewhat unfair to each other’s positions here, neither was unfair to the bigger truth. I guess all we can do now is smirk at the Good News of the USA’s long predicted demise. Sincere thanks to Earth First! for permission to republish. –Doug Meyer

My Answer to Edward Abbey By Wendell Berry

Stewardship Versus Wilderness By Edward Abbey

I don’t recognize my essay, “Preserving Wildness,” in Edward Abbey’s description of it. Certainly, I have never written a word to suggest “that all of nature be subordinated to our desires.” Nor have I ever recommended that we should “hog the whole nation, the entire planet, and then … the moon and the other planets.” Indeed I have spent the greater part of my life in opposing such subordination and hoggishness.

About half of Mr. Abbey’s quarrel with me has to do with his misunderstanding of the word ‘stewardship,’ which, he says, means that “the earth and everything on it is to be managed for maximum human beneft, whatever the cost to other forms of life.” He associates it with “the antique Hebraic superstition that God – or whatever – created the

HOME ECONOMICS; Wendell Berry; North Point Press, San Francisco; 1987; 192pp.; $20 hardcover.

Most of this book is so good that one hesitates to criticize any of it. In this collection of essays on such topics as farming, marriage, home defense and national defense, nature and human nature, Wendell Berry as always “stands for what he stands on” – the earth. He is in my opinion the best serious essayist at work in the United States; and his poetry and fction are equally deserving of respect, admiration, and most of all more readers.

Much as I like this book, however, it contains one essay which troubles me. In “Preserving Wildness,” Berry attempts to defend the prevailing notion, characteristic of our homocentric culture, that “stewardship” (or “wise management”) is an adequate solution to our social ills; furthermore, he argues, the tragedy of human population should be seen as a problem not of numbers but of the proper distribution of human settlement over the planet.

Mr. Berry’s essay begins with an attack on the notion that the biosphere is an egalitarian system, wherein each species has as much right to continue to exist as any other. In its place he offers the old formula of “stewardship,” by which the earth and everything on it is to be managed for maximum human beneft, whatever the cost to other forms of life.

This anthropocentric or homocentric view is of course the prevailing one in our society and in all human societies of the last 5000 years. In placing himself “in the middle” on this point of controversy Berry gains plenty of company – the overwhelming majority of the earth’s fve billion inhabitants. But he also risks getting lost in the crowd.

About half of Mr. Abbey’s quarrel with me

has to do with his misunderstanding

of the word ‘stewardship,’

which, he says, means that

“the earth and everything on it

is to be managed for maximum human beneft,

whatever the cost to other forms of life.”

The trouble with the concept of “stewardship”

is that the stewards tend to think they have

the God-given right

to exercise domination over the entire planet.

If confned to a restricted portion

of the earth’s land surface, say about 50%,

it might be acceptable,

but human vanity is never content with limits.

world solely for the pleasures and appetites of the human animal.” And he claims that it is practiced by the US Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. There are several things wrong with this.

A steward is someone who takes care of property belonging to someone else. A steward, therefore, cannot manage property for his or her own beneft, maximum or otherwise. According to “the antique Hebraic superstition” to which Mr. Abbey refers, the someone else whose earthly property human stewards are to take care of is God, who made the world for His pleasure (see, for instance, Genesis 1 and Revelation 4:11), and who has retained title to the whole of it; nowhere in the Bible are humans given any part of the earth to do with as they please. Moreover, God is not represented as an absentee landlord, but as an active participant in the lives of His creatures – or, more accurately, their lives are understood as participating in His life: “The young lions roar after their prey, and seek their meat from God.” (Psalm 104:21) To be sure, Adam is given “dominion” over “every living thing” in Genesis 1:28; but this gift is strictly (and dangerously) conditional. There is nothing in the Bible to suggest that “dominion” means the right to use to excess or to misuse anything whatsoever.

I see no inconsistency between this idea of stewardship and the idea of wilderness preservation. Indeed this idea of stewardship seems to me to require wilderness preservation of the same sort advocated by Mr. Abbey. To look to government bureaus to for an understanding of stewardship is to look in the wrong place.

I do not believe, of course, that the biblical idea of stewardship is the only ideal applicable to conservation issues. But it is applicable, and (if taken seriously) it is adequate. It has, moreover, the value of belonging intimately to our language and cultural tradition. I would be happy to see it acknowledged by the religious organizations, which mainly ignore it.

Mr. Abbey’s review would lead readers to believe that my essay opposes wilderness preservation. In fact, I have always been a friend to that cause. The essay to which Mr. Abbey objects contains a lengthy passage on the need to preserve wilderness, in support of which I quoted Mr. Abbey himself. How much of the remaining wilderness should be preserved? All of it, I would wish. I would not willingly part with any of it. On this issue I have always agreed with Mr. Abbey.

Mr. Abbey ignored what I wrote about preserving wilderness, I suppose, because I also argued in my essay that wilderness preservation is not adequate to the preservation either

The trouble with the concept of “stewardship” is that the stewards tend to think they have the God-given right to exercise domination over the entire planet. If confned to a restricted portion of the earth’s land surface, say about 50%, it might be acceptable, but human vanity is never content with limits. That is why we need extensive regions of true wilderness, free of permanent human habitation and human development. Otherwise our national parks are soon reduced to the status of playgrounds and zoos and our national forests to tree farms, strip mines, and beef-industry pasturage.

Stewardship is not good enough. The US Forest Service practices stewardship. So does the Bureau of Land Management. So does most of our agricultural industry. The results are plain to see: the destruction of wildlife, pollution of land and air and water, encouragement of population increase and industrial expansion, and the gradual degradation of life, including human life, to the role of raw material for the technological culture.

Berry maintains that we have no choice but to use nature. A half truth: we are compelled, as creatures of evolution, to make use of enough of the natural world to sustain our own existence. We too have a right to be here. But only human greed and humanistic arrogance require that all of nature be subordinated to our desires. We retain the option of allowing at least a part of the world to go on in its own fashion without human meddling, whether called “stewardship” or “multiple use” or “scientifc management.” The fact that humans – or more exactly, human cultural institutions – now possess the power to control, manage, exploit or colonize every nook and cranny of the natural world does not give us the moral right, even less the obligation, to do so. On the contrary, our immense powers, combined with our belief in rationality and justice, oblige us to tolerate the pre-human and the non-human, to refrain from interfering, to keep our hands off. This is

CONTINUES NEXT PAGE, COLUMN 1

CONTINUES NEXT PAGE, COLUMN 2..

<<Prev                                                   Home                        PDF                              Next>>


	<<Prev Home PDF Next>>

	Remembering a time when the truth mattered... Edward Abbey & Wendell Berry INTRODUCTION by DOUG MEYER What does this quarter-century old debate from US environmental history tell us? Very simply, honest environ- mentalism would have played only one role: that of counter-cultural force to the USA. Edward Abbey reminds us that we abandoned the idea of true wilderness. Certainly no highly-regarded environ mentalist today would dare express a philosophy founded on the rights of the non-human world leading to a misan thropic view of a civilization which by defnition is unable to value those rights. So is it any wonder that wilderness as biodiversity reserves hasn’t become the operative principle? And though never admitted by environmentalists, wilderness was seen broadly as in fact a human-centered recreational cause. This led to the attack on the language of the 1964 Wilderness Act, exposing it as a naïve white-man’s view of a “pristine” continent. Wendell Berry reminds us of our inability to express radical thoughts. In “Preserving Wildness,” he wrote that while supporting maximum wilderness designation, he was also pointing out, “as the Reagan administration has done, that the wildernesses we are trying to preserve are standing squarely in the way of our present economy, and that the wildernesses cannot survive if our economy does not change.” (Hint: he wasn’t talking about wind farms and solar panels.) Most failed at deducing the obvious. If enviros had properly understood their highest goals as being antithetical to the USA, they would have plotted for its downfall. Instead, the professionals made themselves a tool of the oligarchy. It’s very late in the game now; society is circling the wagons and can’t handle this kind of brutal criticism anymore. Though I think Abbey and Berry were somewhat unfair to each other’s positions here, neither was unfair to the bigger truth. I guess all we can do now is smirk at the Good News of the USA’s long predicted demise. Sincere thanks to Earth First! for permission to republish. –Doug Meyer My Answer to Edward Abbey By Wendell Berry Stewardship Versus Wilderness By Edward Abbey I don’t recognize my essay, “Preserving Wildness,” in Edward Abbey’s description of it. Certainly, I have never written a word to suggest “that all of nature be subordinated to our desires.” Nor have I ever recommended that we should “hog the whole nation, the entire planet, and then … the moon and the other planets.” Indeed I have spent the greater part of my life in opposing such subordination and hoggishness. About half of Mr. Abbey’s quarrel with me has to do with his misunderstanding of the word ‘stewardship,’ which, he says, means that “the earth and everything on it is to be managed for maximum human beneft, whatever the cost to other forms of life.” He associates it with “the antique Hebraic superstition that God – or whatever – created the HOME ECONOMICS; Wendell Berry; North Point Press, San Francisco; 1987; 192pp.; $20 hardcover. Most of this book is so good that one hesitates to criticize any of it. In this collection of essays on such topics as farming, marriage, home defense and national defense, nature and human nature, Wendell Berry as always “stands for what he stands on” – the earth. He is in my opinion the best serious essayist at work in the United States; and his poetry and fction are equally deserving of respect, admiration, and most of all more readers. Much as I like this book, however, it contains one essay which troubles me. In “Preserving Wildness,” Berry attempts to defend the prevailing notion, characteristic of our homocentric culture, that “stewardship” (or “wise management”) is an adequate solution to our social ills; furthermore, he argues, the tragedy of human population should be seen as a problem not of numbers but of the proper distribution of human settlement over the planet. Mr. Berry’s essay begins with an attack on the notion that the biosphere is an egalitarian system, wherein each species has as much right to continue to exist as any other. In its place he offers the old formula of “stewardship,” by which the earth and everything on it is to be managed for maximum human beneft, whatever the cost to other forms of life. This anthropocentric or homocentric view is of course the prevailing one in our society and in all human societies of the last 5000 years. In placing himself “in the middle” on this point of controversy Berry gains plenty of company – the overwhelming majority of the earth’s fve billion inhabitants. But he also risks getting lost in the crowd. About half of Mr. Abbey’s quarrel with me has to do with his misunderstanding of the word ‘stewardship,’ which, he says, means that “the earth and everything on it is to be managed for maximum human beneft, whatever the cost to other forms of life.” The trouble with the concept of “stewardship” is that the stewards tend to think they have the God-given right to exercise domination over the entire planet. If confned to a restricted portion of the earth’s land surface, say about 50%, it might be acceptable, but human vanity is never content with limits. world solely for the pleasures and appetites of the human animal.” And he claims that it is practiced by the US Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. There are several things wrong with this. A steward is someone who takes care of property belonging to someone else. A steward, therefore, cannot manage property for his or her own beneft, maximum or otherwise. According to “the antique Hebraic superstition” to which Mr. Abbey refers, the someone else whose earthly property human stewards are to take care of is God, who made the world for His pleasure (see, for instance, Genesis 1 and Revelation 4:11), and who has retained title to the whole of it; nowhere in the Bible are humans given any part of the earth to do with as they please. Moreover, God is not represented as an absentee landlord, but as an active participant in the lives of His creatures – or, more accurately, their lives are understood as participating in His life: “The young lions roar after their prey, and seek their meat from God.” (Psalm 104:21) To be sure, Adam is given “dominion” over “every living thing” in Genesis 1:28; but this gift is strictly (and dangerously) conditional. There is nothing in the Bible to suggest that “dominion” means the right to use to excess or to misuse anything whatsoever. I see no inconsistency between this idea of stewardship and the idea of wilderness preservation. Indeed this idea of stewardship seems to me to require wilderness preservation of the same sort advocated by Mr. Abbey. To look to government bureaus to for an understanding of stewardship is to look in the wrong place. I do not believe, of course, that the biblical idea of stewardship is the only ideal applicable to conservation issues. But it is applicable, and (if taken seriously) it is adequate. It has, moreover, the value of belonging intimately to our language and cultural tradition. I would be happy to see it acknowledged by the religious organizations, which mainly ignore it. Mr. Abbey’s review would lead readers to believe that my essay opposes wilderness preservation. In fact, I have always been a friend to that cause. The essay to which Mr. Abbey objects contains a lengthy passage on the need to preserve wilderness, in support of which I quoted Mr. Abbey himself. How much of the remaining wilderness should be preserved? All of it, I would wish. I would not willingly part with any of it. On this issue I have always agreed with Mr. Abbey. Mr. Abbey ignored what I wrote about preserving wilderness, I suppose, because I also argued in my essay that wilderness preservation is not adequate to the preservation either The trouble with the concept of “stewardship” is that the stewards tend to think they have the God-given right to exercise domination over the entire planet. If confned to a restricted portion of the earth’s land surface, say about 50%, it might be acceptable, but human vanity is never content with limits. That is why we need extensive regions of true wilderness, free of permanent human habitation and human development. Otherwise our national parks are soon reduced to the status of playgrounds and zoos and our national forests to tree farms, strip mines, and beef-industry pasturage. Stewardship is not good enough. The US Forest Service practices stewardship. So does the Bureau of Land Management. So does most of our agricultural industry. The results are plain to see: the destruction of wildlife, pollution of land and air and water, encouragement of population increase and industrial expansion, and the gradual degradation of life, including human life, to the role of raw material for the technological culture. Berry maintains that we have no choice but to use nature. A half truth: we are compelled, as creatures of evolution, to make use of enough of the natural world to sustain our own existence. We too have a right to be here. But only human greed and humanistic arrogance require that all of nature be subordinated to our desires. We retain the option of allowing at least a part of the world to go on in its own fashion without human meddling, whether called “stewardship” or “multiple use” or “scientifc management.” The fact that humans – or more exactly, human cultural institutions – now possess the power to control, manage, exploit or colonize every nook and cranny of the natural world does not give us the moral right, even less the obligation, to do so. On the contrary, our immense powers, combined with our belief in rationality and justice, oblige us to tolerate the pre-human and the non-human, to refrain from interfering, to keep our hands off. This is CONTINUES NEXT PAGE, COLUMN 1 CONTINUES NEXT PAGE, COLUMN 2..

	<<Prev Home PDF Next>>