The point at which I recognized "the beginning of the end" for genuine and nature-rooted "environmentalism" was when "Green Consumerism" emerged in the later 1980s - a concept that now dominates the Green Movement almost to the point of monopoly.
The idea was that Green values would be promoted by properly-directed expenditure of Green consumers, by their buying choices.
This replaced the earlier idea that those who aimed to preserve the natural world should reduce their consumption...
Half a century ago an archetypal environmentalist tried to be self sufficient by living as a modern peasant on "three acres and a cow"; nowadays he works as a sustainability bureaucrat - and inhabits a solar-panelled mansion with a hybrid and a electric car for each member of the family.
Since the late 80s there has been a vast proliferation of "consumer guides", further shaped by totalitarian regulations; that advise and direct people on how to spend their money such as to support sustainability, diversity, feminism, or whatever totalitarian Leftist agenda item most takes your fancy...
And these are mirrored - in a much smaller way- among those who purport to oppose Leftism (on the "Right"), and even among those who purport to support Christian values.
The current world (including the blogosphere!) is therefore replete with advice and instructions about which companies and products we "ought" to choose, and which we ought to avoid.
This is very popular because, apparently, nearly everybody seems to enjoy moralistically advising other people what they should and shouldn't do with respect to their own particular hobby horse.
...Especially while pretending that this is all morally highly-significant, and that the adviser's own lifestyle preferences are objective evidence of moral superiority.
So public discourse is full of stuff about the need either to-buy, or to-boycott, this - or that.
In the UK, we have seen the ultimate reductio ad absurdum of training young children in schools to regard the issue of plastic drinking straw usage as a major issue of values; and to celebrate the "banning" of such instruments-of-the-devil as a triumph of environmental protection.
This consumerist moral perspective is grossly inadequate as a life-goal; because it necessarily supports the existing system in a deep and qualitative way; while pretending to influence it by living in accordance with superficial, quantitative differences: supposed distinctions that are often too small, too temporary, and too uncertain to have even the potential to make a significant positive difference.
Indeed; this perspective is worse than inadequate, worse than useless: it is a profoundly harmful way of living - because it is strategically stupid and deliberately dishonest.
And not by accident.
The fact that Values Consumerism emerged when it did, and that it is supported by the globalist totalitarians (Western and International politics, Big Media, Big Finance, Big Corporations etc.); demonstrates that it is Values Consumerism which is literally and without exaggeration a tool of Satan, an instrument of the Devil...
But doesn't values consumerism trace it roots further back to say at least John Ruskin who said what you do with your pound is essentially a voluntary support for that thing -a cultural act, and this was said by GK Chesterton and John Paul II too? In contemporary times the Campaign for Real Ale in the UK has showed how this can be a positive cultural force. And I came across the Campaign for Real Bread too that advocated buying from local bakers and regional breads. But there was a time even before recent values consumerism where there was popular support for products/services (for example, Credit Unions, Building Societies) because they perceived them to be better at improving social capital/genuine social welfare than the alternative? I know a Christian butcher, who also has Christian pictures on the walls of his shop, supporting him rather than Tesco has to be -to me- a good thing and make a positive difference.
ReplyDelete@Luke - The point of this post is to explain that what seems like a superficially plausible strategy for good, is actually the opposite.
ReplyDeleteThat does not (of course) rule out temporary and partial benefits of a very specific nature - but it does rule out the claim (or optimism) that Values Consumerism can have a positive transformative overall benefit.
Despite decades of failure with the world descending into totalitarian/ materialist/ leftist evil - it seems nigh impossible to shake this delusion - probably for psychological reasons.
I like to make two points in these discussions. The first is that environmental stewardship is a deeply conservative, even sacramental undertaking. The second is that the evil regime's "environmentalism"--climate change, "green"
ReplyDeleteenergy, cap-and-trade schemes, carbon taxes etc.--is deflection from actual environmental problems and genuine stewardship.
@A-G - I agree completely. The "environmentalism" of the past several decades at first ignored, and then become increasingly aggressively destructive of, actual nature. The corrupt hypocrisy of the professional environmentalists is matched only by the gullibility of the masses to their propaganda.
ReplyDelete