Defining ‘The Greens’ (Part 1)
Posted by jennifer, April 15th, 2009 - under Opinion.
Tags: Philosophy
According to George Megalogenis writing in the Weekend Australian neither the “right” nor the “left” in Australia can now win power without the support of the Greens.
But what exactly do the Greens stand for?
I recently suggested there are different types of Environmentalists, for example there are those like Tim Flannery who support geoengineering solutions to cool the planet, while Goreists tend to be more interested in changing societal attitudes.
According to the website for the Australian Greens, their vision is for a “fair, independent and sustainable” Australia. The home page has a banner stating they are about “peace and non-violence, grassroots democracy, social and economic justice and ecological sustainability”.
No one could disagree with any of this, but what does it mean in terms of the environment, power and politics?
The Australian Greens website also explains that it is part of the Global Greens network and that it owes its inception to a visit in 1984 by West German Green, Petra Kelly.
I’ve read bits and pieces of the book ‘The Environmental Movement in Germany’ by Raymond Dominick and interestingly it claims you need to go back to the Second German Empire, from 1871 to 1918, to understand how the Greens forged their identity. This was a period of rapid industrialization. Reference is made to most of the local industries dumping their waste directly into rivers and streams with absolutely no treatment creating major public health as well as other environmental issues.
At that time, despite the deteriorating conditions most Germans are reported as ignoring or resisting pleas from a few early environmentalists for a Naturschutz crusade.
Mr Dominick writes, “Many people had a hard time perceiving the problem, perhaps because the anthropogenic deterioration of the environment differed in fundamental respects from other challenges humankind had confronted before. Indeed, it directly contradicted the lessons of collective human experience from those many millennia when civilization struggled to protect itself from the overpowering forces of nature. The conservation crusade required the adoption of a revolutionary new vision, one that would see Nature neither as menace nor as a trove of inexhaustible resources, but rather as a fragile life-support system.”
And so Nature was successfully redefined. This was for political purposes, not because of new scientific insights. There are now, however, whole scientific disciplines that have developed around the belief that Nature is a “fragile life-support system”.
Are the Greens and some ‘scientific disciplines’ based on Romanticism? I plan to explore this idea in Part 2 of ‘Defining the Greens’.
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Notes
‘Nation leans to the left by George Megalogenis, The Weekend Australian, April 11-12, pg 18
Easter Musing on Life and Environmentalism, by Jennifer Marohasy http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2009/04/easter-musings-on-life-and-environmentalism/
Australian Greens, http://greens.org.au/
The Environmental Movement in Germany: Prophets and Pioneers 1871-1971, by Raymond H. Dominick III. Indiana University Press, Bloomington & Indianapolis, 1992. quote from page 4.
The image of Chris Ho is from the Australian Greens website.
P.S. I think I have made it plain in the past that I believe that Aborigines managed bushfire more intelligently than we do. By so doing survived through considerable past climate change. I suspect this puts me in conflict with ‘The Greens’ – some of them even write nasty things about me in the newspaper, or stuff their fingers in their ears and say daft things like ‘little is known about Aboriginal burning’. Intelligent use of fire is a major issue in maintaining green, healthy, diverse bush, rather than a scorched desert. We true ‘greens’ know that.
Jen, you invite me to:
“Tell something about why you are an environmentalist taking to the extent possible, a rational and logical approach to your explaination. Please.”
You are right, it is hard to be rational and logical because it is essentially about beliefs and values and the good news is socities have changed over the last four decades. But I was working in conservation-related areas before then. So my approach is pretty much common sense about a “do no harm’ conservation attitude to the natural environment. All very well until I take stock of my many impacts from my activities as a typical enough consumer and disposer. So I have spent a little of the last few decades thinking and acting on ways that the free market might do a better job, just as I used to think it did a fair job on the economy generally. I find it hard to generalise, but I do see the free market having no chance on air and water environments. I always see regulation by government as a last resort as there is too much evidence of regulation capture made worse by massive donations to political parties. And government failure is an issue. They stuffed up irrigation pricing about a century ago in many countries. So yes, I am a mere pragmatist, an optimistic cynic on how to resolve environmental problems. You have to look at each issue on its merits but if you wanted to generalise about environmentalists a good place to start is a classification is to whether they are inherently biased to either free market or other approach.
Glad that you care about magpies Davey:))))! I had one magpie patient yesterday….
Davey , the romantic rhyme was not a Swedish one, actually I read it from a commercial ad for Australian wine, Annie’s Lane;)!
Thin King Man; I like your style and your substance; there is, along with other undesirable qualities, a strong strain of expedient non-conformity amongst greens; simply put they vilify the social framework which makes their denial of modern existence possible; a reverence for nature is a thoroughly decadent condition; the elitists, like Glen Albrecht, Clive Hamilton, Monbiot and other prominent greens/alternatives, who disparage consumerism, materialism and estrangment from the true path of natural rhythm, are well known for their hypocrisy because they utilise all the mod-cons of modernity in spreading their message of rejection of these accoutrements. They are also misanthropes; they all subscribe to the Erhlich view of Malthusian doom and now have a voice in the Whitehouse in the form of Holdren.
All that is good and decent and civilized in life has come from asserting an anthropogenic primacy over nature and its dictates. Various descriptions of the psychology behind the denial of this and the worship of nature have promulgated; self-loathing extrapolated to the rest of humanity; return to the womb syndrome; cultism; authoritarianism; totemism; misonewism. personally I like the philosophy that humans and animals are equal as a possible explanation for why humanity should be subjugated to natural process; from this mental jaundice comes all sorts of delightful abberations; vegetarianism, PETA and high rates of starvation in India while productive lifestock roams the streets befouling all and sundry. Given all this it never ceases to astound me that people vote for the greens, a party which by definition puts people last.
I’m rather sick of the verdant greens and azure blues of nature and all the rest of the fearful symmetry; give me a black rose or the colours of the LASER [irony, remember little will] anytime.
Oh Ann! A loaf of bread, a flask of wine, and thou beside me in the wilderness! (Preferably wholemeal bread, organically grown wine, and a wilderness without polar bears, tigers, crocodiles, death adders, spiky bushes etc.) We greens must stick together against those terrible rednecks – er, actually, I thought rooinek was the Afrikaans word for an Englishman, or am I confused (again)… I must go, my magpie is demanding (vegan) breakfast. Might try a cucumber sandwich.
Whilst it should be self evident that we all have an interest in maintaining biodivesity to understand the political movement that has captured the role to ‘defend the environment’ perhaps the words of two Tasmanian greens, one an academic (influencing our kids), the other a fiction and propaganda writer (influencing our adults), can best describe the green political movement:
Pete Hay and Richard Flanagan in 1995 made the following observations:
Flanagan: “I’ve always had this sense of the seventies being the age of great dreams … great nationalist dreams. Is that right Hazy? Things are much smaller now aren’t they?”
Hay: “Whitlam has been belittled by history and that’s unfortunate because Whitlam symbolised huge aspirations. Aspirations that were nationalist and cultural….
Hay: “And as for you and me, we’re the Pariah Dog Party.”
Flanagan: “Watermelon Greens, Hazy.”
Hay: “Watermelon Greens mate.”
Flanagan: Green on the outside, red on the inside.”
Hay: “The difficulty is, as my wife who is pretty astute has pointed out, watermelons are mushy and soft and insubstantial….”
Jen; true greens are able to read the signs of change, both positive and negative by themselves i.e. without help from some group or organisation, e.g. Peter Cundall
Gavin,
Are you an intune with nature? And what exactly does that mean?
Jennifer,
You asked of Gavin,
“Are you an intune with nature? And what exactly does that mean?”
I couldn’t find where Gavin had used ‘intune with nature’ so I have to ask why are you asking a question of something you wrote?
Jeremy C,
I’m simply curious. Gavin wrote “about reading the signs” and made mention of “Peter Cundall”. Mr Cundall promotes organic gardening and I think, happy to be corrected, talks about being intune with nature and the seasons etcetera.
Gavin, I think, grew up in rural Tasmania, and this might be the type of language he grew up with … it goes with “reading the signs” don’t you think?
Do you agree with Gavin, that “true greens are able to read the signs of change, both positive and negative”?
I certainly don’t agree with Gavin, and I’m a green! I’m certain that there are some people who are very in tune with nature and can read the signs – either through sheer fluke of perception they have genetically inherited, or through cultural immersion in nature (which could just be a result of genetics), or through simply having lived on the land and just learned to recognise a pattern. I’m also certain that those people slot in to all sorts of political persuasions. But on the whole I think it is related to recognising physical evidence that others simply are unaware of – rather than some sort of connection to a spirit realm or the mother earth or whatever.
Jennifer,
As you said earlier in this thread that things can only be framed from an ideological perspective any answer I give on ‘signs’ (or signs and wonders) will only be interpreted as such and so no use at all.
MattB,
Yes, And being explicit about this “physical evidence” can progress understanding.
But don’t you mean, in the first sentence, “do agree” with Gavin?
Bazza et al,
Commonsense is a funny thing. What did Einsten say, its about our prejudices?
My very early years were spent on a small landholding south of Darwin in the Northern Territory of Australia – my parents grew vegetables, pasture seed and ran buffalo.
We left when I was just seven, to pull a caravan around Australia. I went back there a few years ago and found the waterhole where we used to swim as children. But it was overgrown with bamboo. I asked the old woman who now lives there why they had let it become overgrown and didn’t they swim there anymore. She laughed and said you couldn’t swim in the creek because of the crocodiles.
When I returned to Brisbane I asked Dad about the crocodiles. I asked were they a problem when we lived there? Why had I not be concerned about them when swimming in the waterhole as a child? He replied that they were freshwater crocodiles not a real problem, but he would shoot any that took up residence in our waterhole anyway.
And Gavin would probably consider my father someone who could read the signs.
PS So how does one reconcile the importance Gavin attaches to “reading the signs” with Bazza’s ideas about “no harm”?
Um…. no. Gavin said “true greens are able to read the signs of change… by themselves”. I don’t agree – my evidence being that I’m a true green and I have no special ability to read nature, signs, or whatever. Why do you think I mean I agree with him?
Why do you need to reconcile two different individual’s thoughts?
So, can they both be correct, or doesn’t it matter because they are just thoughts?
I could say that although I have never called myself green, it probably helps if one was once a keen gardener, farmer, fisherman or forester to be “in tune with nature” and sure, most of my early contacts were well grounded in one or more of these most serious endeavours.
From the business side, banking, building, manufacturing, mining, retailing, trade and transport its sometimes much harder to put people back into the landscape along with other native things we still desire so we struggle on with the jargon of the day. Labels are too convenient.
Recycling must be another measure. Dumping by any society of say their waste over the nearest back fence is a primary measure of who is not green today.
Jen – of course if you really want to push the definitional envelope – how do we feel about restoration ecology or terra-forming new functional landscapes.
i.e. tree strips – the pitch might be same grass production due to less wind run (and therefore evapotranspiration), reduced water table, biodiversity enhancer, carbon sink, extra woodlot income?
But management more complex?
So are you a natural systems at all cost type of greenie or could you entertain a mixed purpose bio-engineered system. Are they philosophically kosher?.
And of course you could engineer grazing landscapes that may be sustainable (like wall to wall swards of spear grass) yet totally biodiversity impoverished.
MattB and Jennifer,
A German philosopher, Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900-2002) suggested the metaphor of ‘fusion of horizons’. Two people, on the same spot, back to back, will have different views and thoughts. They may argue bitterly – it’s ocean – no, it’s mountains…the sky is cloudy – no, it’s blue… a slight turn of the head by each might resolve the matter.
I am greatly encouraged by the diversity of views expressed on this thread, with little ranting dogma or abuse. Australian philosophy on what it means to be ‘green’ is developing. We must not let it be decided by ‘The Greens’ alone. Priesthoods are always dodgy, because nobody knows more about God than anyone else. Scepticism is healthy. Thanks, Jen, for raising this fundamental issue.
[quote]According to George Megalogenis writing in the Weekend Australian neither the “right” nor the “left” in Australia can now win power without the support of the Greens. [/quote]
Well that’s just flat wrong for a start. When do the Liberals ever receive Greens preferences?
About the only time it happens is when the Greens do a split ticket, and that’s only ever in seats where it’s not likely to make a difference to the outcome anyway.
Ann Novek April 15th, 2009 at 11:03 pm
mentioned a possible conflict between bird-fancying environmentalists and wind-energy environmentalists. There may be a way to resolve the apparent squabble with a technological fix: the Mamikon Spinner design for windmill blades. Preliminary research suggests that birds don’t like Spinners, and that they would be less likely to attempt a shortcut through a Spinner than through a conventionally designed windmill blade. More research is needed to determine the relative efficiency of Spinners. At the moment, there’s ongoing litigation between Mamikon and a company that may be interested in marketing his design; so commercial, off-the-shelf windmill Spinners are still vaporware. Here’s a link to an article about the technical aspects of Mamikon Spinners.
http://tinyurl.com/cm62cn
Jeremy C: ‘BTW. I really liked how Lazlo was able to put greenery people, Malthus, the Puritans and Mao in the same basket. Very original and entertaining but just underlines what I am saying.’
Malthus: like Ehrlich, Holdren etc – the Population Bomb.
Puritans: we know better than you, your ways are evil and you must change – stop using airconditioners, cars, planes etc
Mao: totalitarian – Jim Hansen and democracy “isn’t working”
Do you start to get the picture?
Lazlo,
I though a Puritan was someone who was concerned that someone else was having some fun or pleasure, but the sense of your description seems to fit this intepretation.
Green Davey,
Your metaphor is much like the three blind fakirs and the elephant parable, when the first, on holding the elephant’s trunk announced it to be a python. No, no, exclaimed the second blind fakir, while holding onto the elephant’s leg, I am telling you, it is a tree we have here. Then at the rear of the elephant we finally hear No, no, both of your are very wrong, as he holds onto the elephant’s tail, I am telling both of you that we have a lion.
This parable highlights the errors that happen when we become too specialised in our interpretion of nature, and is the hallmark of the deductive method when used in the absence of empirical data.
Take the simple statement : The sun rises in the east and sets in the west.
This is an objective fact.
However some interlocutors will seriously question this observation and insist that it is the earth which rotates causing the illusion of the Sun rising in the east and that the previous statement is thus wrong.
In one sense the interlocutor is correct, but only in a strict physical sense, but in terms of the original observation, quite irrelevant for what was not under discussion was the mechanism producing the illusion but the fact of simple observation.
It seems to me, from personal experience, that Greens, perhaps those of a more intense hue than normal, think llike the interlocutor two paragraphs above. I would suggest that what we might be witnessing is another difference in epistemology between Aristotle and Plato, or his successor Socrates (bearing in mind that Socrates had to commit suicide for losing an argument).
But the fact remains that the sun is observed to rise in the east, as presently defined, and if asked, any observant individual would answer the question correctly by pointing to the position along the observed horizon of the Earth.
It’s when we discover contradictions to this fact in historical documents or portrayals of celestial observations on the ceiling or walls of old monuments, care must be taken not to dismiss those observations as errors, and therefore “primitive” misinterpretations of present assumed “facts”.
Louis,
I don’t think that Oliver Cromwell took over England because he was ‘concerned’. He had a jihadist zeal to control people. Now AKA greenism..
N’est’ce pas?
Lazlo
[...] Defining the Greens (Part 1) is here, http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2009/04/defining-%e2%80%98the-greens%e2%80%99-part-1/ [...]
Lazlo,
In running with ignorance you are just displaying your prejudices. Go and look up the Puritans perhaps start at wikipedia. Puritans and aircon – now that comment gave me a belly laugh.
If you just continue with your ignorance then other people will be able to control you.
[...] Part 1, http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2009/04/defining-%e2%80%98the-greens%e2%80%99-part-1/ [...]
From the above diatribe masquerading as an informed opinion…
“The conservation crusade required the adoption of a revolutionary new vision, one that would see Nature neither as menace nor as a trove of inexhaustible resources, but rather as a fragile life-support system.”
So the air, water and numerous resources we require to actually live` are not actually, in fact, our life support system?
Science? Environmentalist?
Looks and smells a lot more absolute crap.
Continues to amaze how bloody minded ignorance passes for wisdom in these parts.
The consolation of course is that your need to rubbish on about all this, reflects the real growing movement towards the Greens fairer, more informed and realistic understanding of the place of contemporary human life and culture, in current circumstance.