Dr. David Deming has an interesting essay on the logical flaws in modern environmentalism that are rooted in a meme known as “The Noble Savage”.
Excerpt (with my bolded quote) below:
All of this would be of academic interest only, were it not the case that the modern environmental movement and many of our public policies are based implicitly on the myth of the Noble Savage. The fountainhead of modern environmentalism is Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. The first sentence in Silent Spring invoked the Noble Savage by claiming
“there was once a town in the heart of America where all life seemed to live in harmony with its surroundings.”
But the town Carson described did not exist, and her polemic, Silent Spring, introduced us to environmental alarmism based on junk science. As the years passed, Rachel Carson was elevated to sainthood and the template laid for endless spasms of hysterical fear-mongering, from the population bomb, to nuclear winter, the Alar scare, and global warming.
Human beings have not, can not, and never will live in harmony with nature. Our prosperity and health depend on technology driven by energy. We exercise our intelligence to command nature, and were admonished by Francis Bacon to exercise our dominion with “sound reason and true religion.” When we are told that our primary energy source, oil, is “making us sick,” or that we are “addicted” to oil, these are only the latest examples of otherwise rational persons descending into gibberish after swooning to the lure of the Noble Savage. This ignorant exultation of the primitive can only lead us back to the Stone Age.
Read the entire essay here
The Noble Savage and Noble Cause Corruption seem to be familiar bedfellows.
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Noble Savage you say? Origin: Rousseau, Second Discourse… The noble savage is never in harmony with nature. He is just not at fault for his evils, he does not harbor ill will. Can’t anyone get their political theory right these days?! 😉
With that line of reasoning we can do no harm to “nature”. If we use carbon fuel and cause global warming, the most adaptable species will survive. That is natures way. So, I vote we drill baby, drill.
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Ifnthe lion eats too many gazelles, then both are in jeapardy. You can choose to commit suicide, and all will happen in accordance to the laws of nature.
Ed Caryl says:
February 14, 2012 at 9:15 am
R. Gates,
I agree with every word you wrote, but I suspect that my definition of “wise” and “wisely” differs from yours.
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Why would you suspect that? Wisdom is simply applying the laws of nature for a desired outcome. What we may differ on is the kind of world we want to create, but in this regard, our common humanity should prevail. Don’t we want a world our grandchildren and great grandchildren can live healthy and abundant lives in which they are free to achieve their maximum potentials?
Nice essay but somewhat of a strawman argument. Deming bundles a set of philosophies (which he incorrectly attributes to Rousseau and/or Carson) and then paints them on another hodgepodge, so-called environmentalists. The result is compounded over-simplification.
It might have been better if Deming had chosen Luddites as his strawman. Or Puritans. Or patho-animist-pagans. Even then the mark would have been missed. Modern so-called environmentalism is not a simple nut to crack.
There is something fundamentally anti-human about many modern philosophies. Humanity is commonly painted as toxic to nature (and indeed to ourselves). That sort of thinking (and action) is not the sole possession of so-called environmentalists, however. The urge to rob, enslave, punish, murder, and commit genocide has not abated despite our recent experience with mass slaughter. Wiping humanity off the face of the earth runs deep in our collective unconscious.
R. Gates says:
February 14, 2012 at 8:44 am
Yes all very well, but who is going to decide what is healthy, & prosperous, & how we act & live wisely? You seem to have left that bit out of your reasoning, for, it is that very small but jolly important little point, that all this CAGW nonsenese is all about,” who” gets the power (& the money) & chooses to play God! (If he & or she does actually exist – I’ll let the creationists & evolutionists fight that little gem out 🙂 )! As for living in harmony with nature if that is what some people want to do, then that’s fine by me, but don’t expect me to join in, other than the occasional weekend when I fancy playing cowboys & indians! I’ll stick to my technological world thanks – it’s easier. Now what was that line in that marvelous film, “Two Road Together”, James Stewart & Richard Widmark, (they don’t make movies like that anymore) when Stewart’s character is talking to the capured Spanish girl, something about being dead before she was 30 years old because of the tough lives of the Indians! Sometimes the obvious is staring you right in the face!
John says:
February 14, 2012 at 9:04 am
Sorry John, “Silent Spring” was very much based on junk science. While Rachel Carlson was mourning the loss of songbirds, the Audibon Society was recording record numbers of the very birds she was mourning. The discussion of the food chain – fish to raptors came later, and since you haven’t posted the references, I’m guessing that just like it was when I tried to find the research on the soft eggshells, there are still no replicable research projects demonstrating the soft eggshell hypothesis is correct. Not shooting Bald Eagles had vastly more to do with their comeback than did the DDT ban. On that note, what birds are we willing to sacrifice in Africa to protect the people from malaria? I’m in favor of spraying, just asking.
The ‘Noble Savage’ living in harmony wth the nature around him is truly a myth of epic proportions. What really occurred with Hunter-Gatherer societies was that they occupied a certain location for a period of 3 months or so. In that 3 months they exhausted the game available, polluted the streams and ponds, and cut down much of the vegetation. When they reached the point that they could no longer sustain themselves, they packed up and moved to a new area to repeat the cycle.
John W. Garrett says:
February 14, 2012 at 9:02 am
This is an excellent piece. From the very day that we are conceived, “Nature” works very hard to kill each of us— and will eventually succeed.
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Nature doesn’t “work hard” to kill us. Stop anthropomorphizing this. The laws of entropy are not “working hard”. Like water flowing down a hillside, the ultimate cold heat death of this particular universe is an easy watercouse way that requires no effort to follow times arrow. The trick is, to know that we can decide what kind of ride we take and then to enjoy the ride down.
Having lived among “noble savages” in the jungles of Colombia back in the 1970s, witnessing the infanticide they practiced if the previous baby was healthy and still nursing when the next one was born (1 in 5 chance of any baby surviving), the unbelievable cruelty that was casually inflicted on animals and on each other, and of course the tons of CO2 they dumped into the atmosphere with their slash-and-burn economies, I’ve always wanted to take Gore & co.’s die-hard supporters on a “real” eco-tourism trip.
The Noble Savage has a long history, from the brave native royalty brought back to Europe during the great explorations, to modern nitwittery about Australian or American Aboriginals having powers verging on the psychic. But the romantic view of unadorned Man is matched by a perverse romanticism of Nature as a whole.
I think one of the keys of modern environmentalism is a desire to ‘even the odds’ between victors and vanquished, whereby the environmentalists believe that Nature has been subjugated by Man. Therefore, to support the underdog, they must favour Nature over Man. This means Man must be made to feel the guilt of his cruel victory. Their guilt must be shared by all. Humans must see Nature as “where every prospect pleases, and only man is vile”.
In a few cases they have a point, but in the vast majority they greatly multiply Man’s powers and falsely enfeeble those of Nature. This leads to the idea that when anything bad happens it must be Man’s ‘fault’, be it any change in the climate, the ozone layer, acid rain, the disappearance of some species or the emergence of others.
In almost all cases Man has nothing to do with it, and a volcano, earthquake, tsunami, hurricane, cold snap, heatwave, flood, drought, new disease or infestation will quickly show that Nature still has the whip hand.
Unless, of course, environmentalists can persuade people that volcanos, earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, cold snaps, heatwaves, floods, droughts, new diseases or infestations are all the result of the rapaciousness of our victory over Nature. They’re about halfway there with this nonsense in the rich world, and need to be stopped.
The nobility of Man is represented by a painting by Leonardo, a concert by Mozart, a paper by Einstein, a tower to the sky, and a photo of a man standing on the Moon. It is no longer shown by a half-starved ignoramus in a loincloth trying to spear a gazelle.
R. Gates, “First of all, we are not separate from nature, so to suggest the humans can’t live in harmony with nature creates a false dichotomy. ”
For once, I find myself in total agreement. Clearly you are stating an absolute truth that since humans are natural then whatever Humans do it is part of nature or completely natural.
This is a FACT.
Therefore, we don’t need the environmental police or state thought police enforcing rules over what is “natural” and permissible and what is NOT. This line of reasoning, so often used by governments and environmentalists, is completely groundless.
All we can say is that all human activities must be weighed by society according to the overall benefits they bring versus the detriments they bring. It is high time we dispense with the absolutes that are espoused by extreme environmentalists and their fraudulent gravy train pseudo-scientific and political support networks.
R. Gates says:
February 14, 2012 at 9:32 am
My point is this – If we are part of nature, then everything that we do is “natural” by definition. Pollution? No problem, its a natural waste product. However, if we are something more, something above the animals, something above nature, then we would have a responsibility to conserve and to protect “nature”. I don’t see how it can be both ways. Nature doesn’t care about conservation. Nature only cares about success. And only on the short term. Nature couldn’t care less about 100 years from now. If we have a responsibility to conserve and protect, it is a very unnatural value. Who would have assigned us that responsibility?
If man is but a part of nature, there cannot be any AGW.
~More Soylent Green!
One of the earliest examples of romanticizing the life of savages from a safe distance has got to be the work “Germania” by the Roman writer Tacitus, from the first century A.D. His tack was a bit different from most other authors, as he did not assume his idealized Germans to be unfamiliar with violence; rather to the opposite, he rather exaggerated their bravery and strength. However, the other elements – simplicity, nobleness, veracity, harmony with nature and native country – are all there. Ironic, though, that as soon as they gathered the required strength, these Germans had no more urgent desire than to leave the dark and cold of their homeland, invade the pleasant warm countries of the South and avail themselves of the wine and other perks of Roman civilization.
John says:
February 14, 2012 at 9:04 am
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It’s amazing the tenacity with which bad science continues to pollute the minds of the innocent, even decades later.
Observational evidence is as close to useless as you can get when trying to prove something.
The only studies that were done with DDT and birds were deliberately contaminated so that they would show the results the authors wanted. They fed the birds calcium poor diets and kept them in high stress environments. Of course the resulting thin shelled eggs were blamed on the DDT alone.
As for Bald Eagles and Peregrine falcons, their recovery started more than a decade before DDT was banned. Surprisingly enough, the recovery for both coincided with the enacting of the Endangered Species act which banned the hunting of both.
I once debated a young idealist who assured me that before the coming of the white man to America, the natives always lived to at least 100, because their was no pollution to make them sick. Not only that, but the tomahawk was actually an agricultural implement, until the white man showed the natives how it could be used to kill as well. And of course, the natives never, ever, fought with each other. The whole idea of violence was completely foreign to them, until the white man introduced it.
Everything R. Gates writes has the intended outcome of preventing the ruination of his grandchildren’s atmosphere by polluting it with deadly CO2. From that, all else follows. Just stop CO2-ing and everything will be fine!
That doing so will devastate the world’s economy, and achieve none of its claimed outcomes, is apparently not something he is willing to take on board, or even discuss.
The “Noble Savage” will eventually be seen as the worst and most destructive idea in history – if we survive it.
John says:
February 14, 2012 at 9:04 am
What about this, then: “The Lies of Rachel Carson”, by Dr. J. Gordon Edwards
http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/articles/summ02/Carson.html
R. Gates,
I’ve been in the mountains in Alaska in the winter (-45 F, actual temp on a warm day), the Middle East and Southwestern American deserts in the summer (100+F, actual), several different jungles during the hot season (steaming aptly describes it) and in all those environments, Mother Nature was doing her absolute best to either kill me or make me as miserable as possible. Even here in the relatively temperate Mid-Atlantic region, we require gasoline, diesel fuel, electricity and fuel oil to live relatively comfortably. You can’t “live” with nature – you adapt your environment to fit your needs. The “noble savage” did. That is how you survive.
John says:
February 14, 2012 at 9:04 am
“DDT can be useful even today, for instance in Africa by applying it in moderation indoors in thatch huts in the outback.”
A contrast to the “moderation” notion that the above comment suggest can be found if one searches the web for “blind tag” and/or “DDT fogging” :
Photo first:
http://www.ohio.edu/people/cookt/images/history/fogging.jpg
Search this one with the word “blind”:
http://www.nukeworker.com/forum/index.php?topic=23274.msg143765
R. Gates says:
February 14, 2012 at 8:44 am
Of course nature lives in harmony with itself! When the lion eats the gazelle, that is harmony! It guarantees the continuation of both! Death and decay are part of the cycle of rebirth.
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This is nonsense, of course. If the lion eats the gazelle, it guarantees the continuation of the lion only, but it ends the life of the gazelle. The continuation of the gazelle occurs not because of, but in spite of preying lions.
There are few subjects so marred by lazy thinking than the role of death in biology.
Brian H says:
February 14, 2012 at 10:18 am
Everything R. Gates writes has the intended outcome of preventing the ruination of his grandchildren’s atmosphere by polluting it with deadly CO2. From that, all else follows. Just stop CO2-ing and everything will be fine!
That doing so will devastate the world’s economy, and achieve none of its claimed outcomes, is apparently not something he is willing to take on board, or even discuss.
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I hope you are putting some of that considerable talent for fiction to work writing novels!
Many thought provoking comments above. To my mind it would seem a large proportion of western society, much addicted to technology and access to dependable energy, would not survive long if required to “live with nature”. I am beginning to wonder if persons in power are very aware of this. They are certainly not stupid and reactions to an impending mini ice age are documented in the 1970s. If a massive reduction in available energy can be synchronised with a mini ice age, which can occur over a period of ten years or less, would result in extreme population reduction before awareness of the coming disaster can lead to unmanageable civil unrest.
Machiavellian indeed!
More Soylent green said:
If man is but a part of nature, there cannot be any AGW.
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Actually, the exact opposite conclusion would logically follow…but you seem to have a predefined destination to your thinking, and so that is exactly where you will arrive…logic be damned!