Enlightening comments, John, that enhance and perhaps sustain the
conversation (but do we want to?).
My point, as Chris restated in clarion tones, is to decide WHAT we
want to sustain. I don't believe there is a great amount of agreement on
this point. I'm afraid the larger, societal conversation on this point is
nowhere near as clear on this issue as are we on this list.
My fear is that the establishment wants to sustain our society at
the expense of nature, and just uses the terms, "sustainable/ility" as a
buzzword to defuse ecological criticism while making only superficial
gestures toward the environment. For example, insofar as recycling is a
function of the PR department and not an element in the production process,
then it remains such a superficial gesture.
Perley's key use of the construct, "ecological sustainability" makes
the essential qualification of WHAT we want to sustain: the planetary
ecology, of which we humans are a part but not the whole.
-Tc
Anthony R. S. Chiaviello, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Professional Writing
Department of English
University of Houston-Downtown
One Main Street
Houston, TX 77002-0001
713.221.8520 / 713.868.3979
"Question Reality"
> ----------
> From: John Foster[SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Monday, December 17, 2001 10:58 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Environmentalism vs Anti-environmentalism: left vs
> right?
>
> Sustainability means to both maintain and *enhance*. So the conundrum here
> is quite obvious. To enhance means and implies also to compare existing
> practices to some *benchmark* of operability. And that notion of
> operability
> must derive from some deduction which cannot be found through empirical
> comparison or knowledge. There are few controls where antecedent
> conditions
> may be known prior to imposition of a sustainbility management regime.
> Thus
> all notions of sustainability infer only 'making progress towards
> sustainability' - otherwise there would be some 'benchmark' or some
> existing
> standard of operability which there is not.....except in neolithic cases.
> And these examples are about as meaningful to corporate and state
> governance
> as is the Dodo bird.
>
> The dichotomy between culture and nature cannot be a true dichotomy either
> since culture is totally dependent on nature, not vis versa. Humans have
> lived on earth for perhaps 3.5 million years. The earliest 'symbolic'
> culture existed perhaps up to 40,000 years ago. Thus if humans are no
> exactly sure about such primary functions such as *ecological
> sustainability*, then they cannot be very sure about any other
> 'judgements'
> which they may deduce from nature.
>
> In fact there are two primary distinctions in life: one is that there is a
> world of 'facticity' and (2) there is a world of 'expression'. For those
> judgements which are no factical, there is only 'human expression'. That
> which is 'consititutive' and that which is 'expression' thus are two
> different realms of meaning which are interdependent, but 'human
> expression'
> is dependent on the constitutive which is nature, and facticity.
>
> Aside from most neolithic societies, there are no examples of the modern
> form of symbolic culture forming and expressive humans of *maintaining and
> enhancing ecosystems* yet in modern history. All civilizations have failed
> and damaged their dependent ecosystems to beyond repair or to a point of
> nearly complete dis-repair. There are a few minor exceptions of
> 'civilizations' maintaining ecosystems ( a few in North America) but these
> have dissappeared because of the invasion of Europeans with muskets,
> disease, alcohol and residential schools ( in short genocide).
>
> The large civilizations are failures of human cultural expression
> (European,
> and middle east) and have only survived by spreading to dominate new
> lands
> to spoil. The recent decline and fall of the American Empire is only one
> example of many in the 7000 year history of ecological distruction.
>
> chao
>
> john foster
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Chris Perley <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Monday, December 17, 2001 7:15 PM
> Subject: Re: Environmentalism vs Anti-environmentalism: left vs right?
>
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