Environmentalism is Anti-Humanism

Environmentalism is anti-humanism by Joshua Mahorder.

After the failures of socialism, economically, historically,

and ethically, the left-liberal intellectuals not wanting

to abandon socialism, employed several new strategies.

It has been suggested that these several manifestations

can be subsumed under one general category, postmodernism.

After a review of postmodern philosophy and philosophical influences,

Stephen Hicks explains his central argument

in explaining postmodernism.

Postmodernism is the academic far-left epistemological strategy

for responding to the crisis caused by the failures

of socialism in theory and in practice.

In other words, one socialism was discredited theoretically,

economically, in several ways, historically and ethically,

those who were still ideologically committed to socialism

despite its failures had to try to achieve socialism

and central planning by appealing to other goals.

One such strategy was the pursuit of egalitarianism,

that is, equality between every disparate group,

even between humans and the environment.

Thus, the modern environmentalist movement,

influenced by prior streams of thought, was born.

Describing further his analysis as to how the public failures

of socialism plus postmodernism and modern environmentalism coalesced,

Hicks writes,

the second variation was seen in the left turn

that rising concern with environmental issues took.

As the Marxist movement splintered and mutated into new forms,

left intellectuals and activists began to look for new ways

to attack capitalism.

Environmental issues, alongside women's and minorities' issues,

came to be seen as a new weapon in the arsenal against capitalism.

Traditional environmental philosophy had not been in principle

in conflict with capitalism.

It had held that a clean, sustainable and beautiful environment

was good because living in such an environment

made human life healthier, wealthier, and more enjoyable.

Human beings, acting to their advantage,

change their environments to make them more productive,

cleaner, and more attractive.

The new impetus in environmental thinking, however,

brought Marxist concepts of exploitation and alienation

to bear upon environmental issues.

As the stronger party, humans necessarily exploit harmfully

the weaker parties, the other species and the non-organic environment itself.

Consequently, as capitalist society develops,

the result of the exploitation is a biological form of alienation.

Humans alienate themselves from the environment

by dispoiling it and making it unviable,

and non-human species are alienated by being driven to extinction.

On this analysis, the conflict between economic production

and environmental health, then, is not merely in the short run.

It is fundamental and inescapable.

The production of wealth itself is in mortal conflict

with environmental health.

And capitalism, since it is so good at producing wealth,

must therefore be the environment's number one enemy.

Wealth, therefore, was no longer good,

living simply, avoiding producing and consuming as much as possible,

was the new ideal.

The impetus of this new strategy captured perfectly

in Rudolph Barrow's red-degree integrated

with a new emphasis on equality over need.

In Marxism, humankind's technological mastery of nature

was a presupposition of socialism.

Marxism was a humanism in the sense of putting human values

at the core of its value framework and assuming that the environment

is there for human beings to use and enjoy for their own ends.

But egalitarian critics began to argue more forcefully,

just as males putting their interest highest,

led them to subjugate women.

And just as whites putting their interest highest,

led them to subjugate all other races,

humans putting their interests highest,

had led to the subjugation of other species

and the environment as a whole.

The proposed solution then was the radical moral equality

of all species.

We must recognize that not only productivity and wealth are evil,

but also that all species from bacteria to wood

lice to art varks to humans are equal in moral value.

Deep ecology, as radical egalitarianism applied

to environmental philosophy, came to be called,

thus rejected the humanistic elements of Marxism

and substituted Heidegger's anti-humanist value framework.

It ought to be noted that prior to this,

the moral grammar of modern environmentalism

was prepared through romanticism, the late 18th to mid-19th century,

especially Rousseau, with its revolt against reason,

as well as against the condition under which nature

has compelled him to live, its grudge against reality,

its dislike of industrialization and bourgeois society,

its emphasis on nature as morally superior to civilization,

its suspicion of human mastery over nature,

its emphasis on authenticity over progress,

emotion, intuition, and moral sentiment over reason,

and pastoral idealization of pre-industrial life.

The anti-impact frameworks,

in defending the undefendable, Walter Block makes a simple

but profound point regarding the nature of human existence

in his chapter on littering.

The creation of garbage is a concomitant of the process

of producing and consuming.

Extrapolating on this principle, continued human existence

in flourishing depends on production and consumption,

that is, human action that manipulates

and transforms the physical environment

in which we all exist.

This is recognized by John Locke in his homesteading theory

of property, in which man owns his own body,

uses his body to manipulate the physical world around him,

and comes to also own external property,

therefore, to inhibit humankind's free

and voluntary transformation of nature

in production and consumption,

so long as it does not violate the property rights of others,

is anti-human and evil.

In the modern west, in areas influenced by the west,

many, especially elites, have adopted and presupposed

an environmental philosophy of anti-impact.

Rather than property rights and freedom

in service of human flourishing,

as the ideal standard of value by which any manipulation

of the environment is judged,

many have instead established minimal or no human impact

on the environment as the ultimate moral standard.

In other words, humans should not impact the environment,

therefore, while minimal human impact is better,

no human impact is ideal.

Of course, this is impossible for living humans

existing in time and space.

Held consistently, humans are the problem,

which inculcates guilt and, or leads to a deadly conclusion,

humans must be eliminated.

Alex Epstein writes in his moral case for fossil fuels,

the essence of going green, the common denominator,

in all various iterations,

is the belief that humans should minimize their impact

on non-human nature.

If anyone thinks this is exaggerative or melodramatic,

consider this, if human impact is bad,

and if anti-impact is the moral ideal,

then even minimization of human impact on the environment

is insufficient and incomplete.

It is impossible for humans not to impact the environment.

Further, the consistent conclusion is that there should be no humans,

not just fewer humans.

Now, that means that one or more of the following things must occur,

many humans must not be born and or many existing humans must die.

Epstein, again, writes,

by associating impact with something negative,

you're conceding that all human impact

is somehow bad for the environment.

Additionally, this is the logical end

of holding human non-impact as your standard of value.

The best way to achieve it is to do nothing at all,

to not exist.

Of course, few hold that standard of value consistently,

and even these men do not depopulate the world of themselves,

but to the extent that we hold human non-impact as our standard of value,

we are going against what our survival requires.

Thankfully, most do not hold the anti-impact framework consistently,

and many may not be epistemologically conscious

of their own presuppositions,

but the existence of this standard makes people vulnerable

to guilt manipulation.

When you feel bad for existing,

then you are willing to submit to a spectrum of policies

and measures offered by political elites

to at least minimize your impact.

If you are going to continue to exist

and impact the environment,

then you must at least submit to whatever central planning schemes,

wise and unselfish experts propose.

For example, consider the words of environmentalist Bill McKibbin,

concerning how people would supposedly live

if fossil fuel use was more than halved,

and witness why socialism, central planning,

and environmentalism cohere so comfortably together,

each human being would get to produce 1.69 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually,

which would allow you to drive an average American car nine miles a day.

By the time the population increased to 8.5 billion in about 2025,

you'd be down to six miles a day.

If you carpooled, you'd have about three points of CO2 left in your daily ration,

enough to run a highly efficient refrigerator.

Forget your computer, your TV, your stereo, your stove, your dishwasher,

your water heater, your microwave, your water pump, your clock.

Forget your light bulbs, compact fluorescent or not.

As observed in McKibbin's quote above, if people feel bad for existing

and are thus open to whatever they have to do to minimize their impact,

then central planning in which elites determine every aspect of what you're allowed to do,

down to whether or not you get a light bulb becomes obvious.

In bourgeois dignity, why economics can't explain the modern world,

Deirdre McCloskey writes, the new alternative to central planning socialism is environmentalism.

Environmentalists are often credited as being idealistic.

That may be the case, but their ideal, if it is human non-impact instead of human flourishing,

is anti-human and evil. They may not commit suicide to achieve their goals,

but they propose suicidal anti-human policies.

Humanizing nature and dehumanizing humans.

Millions of people have been killed by governments in attempts to achieve central planning

designs. The type of energy a lot of more, the anti-impact environmentalist

propose would mean the deaths of billions of people.

If true, this would require both elevating non-human nature to a level of moral significance

that is at or above humans and simultaneously devaluing human life below nature.

In case the reader thinks I exaggerate, the modern environmental movement does both.

What is the goal of saving the planet or protecting the environment mean?

The environmentalists ultimately mean that the planet needs to be saved from humans.

Protect the environment from what or from whom. Protect the environment for what?

Protect the environment for whom? The planet needs to be protected from you.

Doubtless many will argue that the environmentalists just want to save the planet for humans.

But with anti-impact still the ideal, this still entails comprehensive central planning

to the extent that human existence must severely retrench if it cannot be eliminated.

Further, we have many of the environmentalists telling us in their own words that they are anti-human.

The group Earth first literally cries, mourns, and screams over crimes against trees.

This is arguably also why movies like Wally and the Lorax are ideologically loaded with anti-impact,

anti-human, anti-freedom presuppositions. A 2019 Washington Post article was titled

Progressive Seminary Students offered a confession to plants. How do we think about sins against nature?

It reads, I think there is a pressing question that many Christians and people of no faith

are grappling with. What is our moral responsibility to non-human life forms?

If we can sin against the natural world, how do we name and atone for that sin?

It was tweeted from a chapel at Union Seminary.

Today in chapel we confess to plants. Together we held our grief, joy, regret, hope, guilt,

and sorrow in prayer, offering them to the beings who sustain us, but whose gift we too often fail

to honor. What do you confess to the plants in your life? Maintaining the religious spiritual motif,

we are all now sinners in the hands of an angry Greta Thunberg.

Alan Gregg wrote in mankind at the turning point in 1974, the world has cancer, and the cancer

is man. In 1994, Jacques Cousteau stated, in order to stabilize world population,

we must eliminate 350,000 people a day. Prince Philip of England once wrote in a forward to a 1987

book, I must confess that I am tempted to ask for reincarnation as a particularly deadly virus,

but that is perhaps going too far. I would argue that such anti-human thinking is a cancer.

David M. Grabber wrote in 1989 concerning the views of Bill McKibbin and himself.

That makes what is happening no less tragic for those of us who value wildness for its own

sake, not for what value it confers upon mankind. I for one cannot wish upon either my children,

or the rest of Earth's biata, attain planet, a human-managed planet, be it monstrous or, however

unlikely, benign. McKibbin is a biosentrist and so am I. We are not interested in the utility of a

particular species or free-flowing river or ecosystem to mankind. They have intrinsic value,

more value to me than another human body or a billion of them. Human happiness and certainly

human fecundity are not as important as a wild and healthy planet. I know social scientists who

remind me that people are a part of nature, but it isn't true. Somewhere along the line at about

a billion years ago, maybe half that, we quit the contract and became a cancer. We have become

a plague upon ourselves and upon the Earth. It is cosmically unlikely that the developed world

will choose to end its orgy of fossil energy consumption and the third world its suicidal consumption

of landscape. Until such time as Homo sapiens should decide to rejoin nature, some of us can only

hope for the right virus to come along. These people, and any operating on the anti-impact framework,

do not deserve the moral high ground they claim. They are anti-human, often openly so.

Alex Epstein averaged toward the end of his book. We're not taught that some people truly believe

that human life doesn't matter, and that their goal is not to help us triumph over nature's obstacles,

but to remove us as an obstacle to the rest of nature. P-208, he warns further,

make no mistake, there are people trying to use you to promote actions that would harm everything

you care about. Not because they care about you, they prioritize nature over you, but because they

see you as a tool. We should not be surprised that the overlap between socialism and

environmentalism. We should also not be surprised that the proponents of both would kill millions,

or even billions, to achieve their impossible anti-human goals. Both involve political control of

others. Mises once wrote, every socialist is a disguised dictator. We might add every anti-impact

environmentalist, who are typically socialist also, are would-be dictators.

Environmentalists, at least the true believers that hold the anti-impact goal consistently,

want you dead. They will settle in the short term for you to feel guilty for existing, producing

and consuming, and willing to comply with any degree of central planning and freedom curtailment

to save the planet from you. For more content like this, visit mises.org.