Quoting James A Tantillo <[log in to unmask]>:

> aww, c'mon Gus . . .  tell us what you really think.
>
> :-)
>
> You've given us all a lot to chew on, and I'd definitely like to read what
> you've written more carefully and perhaps respond in more detail later,
> but I must draw attention to one comment that you make in response to
> Crichton's statement, "There are two reasons why I think we all need to
> get rid of the religion of environmentalism."
>
> You reply:
>
> "Environmentalism is NOT a religion and no matter how often Crichton and
> the wise use crowd says it is so doesn't make it so."
>
> I think this is simply a dogmatic (and wrong) statement on your part, and
> it seems to me that you are guilty of committing some of the same logical
> sins you've condemned Crichton for--for no matter how often diZerega and
> the dumb use crowd says it *isn't* a religion doesn't make it so, either.
>

Religion can of course mean whatever you want it to mean if you don't mind
about communicating clearly with others.  Here are some reasons why the claim
that environmentalism is a religion in the sense that Crichton uses the term
does not work very well for many (most) environmentalists:

1. A great many people who identify with OTHER well established religions not
only consider themselves environmentalists, they even sometimes have the
apocalyptic view Crichton criticizes.  There are green Christians - even
Mormons and Evangelicals - as well as Buddhists, Jews, Pagans, and on and on.

2. Religion in the sense that most people who consider themselves religious use
the term involves living with, or attempting to live in a right relation with
the super-human.  By analogy, secular people have enlarged the term to include
Marxism, and indeed any view that is strongly felt and gives someone meaning in
his or her life - but that is not even close to what Chrichton is getting at.
He identifies it with the "irrational" that is impervious to fact and lives in
myth.  That definition does not even do justice to theistic religion.

3. Environmentalism is a religion to some people in the sense that they find
personal fulfillment in nature.  But this is not Crichton's definition.  And in
popular parlance the word clearly means more than that as well.

> If you take Emile Durkheim's distinction between "substantive" and
> "functional" concepts of religion seriously, then it is clear that many
> secular worldviews can, and do in fact, *function* as a religion.  This is
> a commonly understood point in virtually all the humanistic disciplines,
> including the humanistic social sciences such as anthropology and
> political science.  As an empirical matter, environmentalism does in fact
> function like a religion, and so is in fact, as an empirical matter, a
> religion for many people.
>
See above.  This is not Crichton's use of the term, which is the only one I am
addressing.

> Even John Rawls, as I expect you would know from his book _Political
> Liberalism_, argues that when a secular philosophy such as liberalism
> becomes an overall worldview, which clearly is the way it can function,
> say, for certain academics in the modern academy, then it ought to be
> considered a "comprehensive doctrine" just like Christianity, Judaism,
> Marxism, etc.  Just because a comprehensive is not a substantive,
> denominational faith in the "substantive" Durkheimean sense does not mean
> it is not a religion, for it is still a religion in the "functional"
> sense.
>

Again - Crichton does not use the term religion as meaning "comprehensive
doctrine."  Indeed, his view of science is as a comprehensive doctrine - and I
very much doubt that Crichton would describe science as a religion.  He wants
to subordinate environmentalism to science after all - and ast the ame time
remove it from "religion."

Personally, I think it is more confusion than clarity to equate "comprehensive
doctrine" with "religion".  But that is not the issue at hand.

> All one need do to see environmentalism expressed as a comprehensive
> doctrine (cf. "Again - names, please") is to take a look at a book like
> Edward Goldsmith's _The Way: An Ecological World-View_ (London: Rider,
> 1992).  Goldsmith truly means it when he says that environmentalism is THE
> way.
>
I never said there were no environmentalists who regarded it as a religion -
different ones depending on the definition given the term "religion."  My
criticism was on Crichton's use of the term and to whom he applied it.  I did
not deny there were such - and even pointed to some - but I did deny that they
were representative of environmentaliosm as a movement.

Here is what I wrote in my post: "The question Crichton does not even attempt
to answer is how representative they are either in absolute numbers or
among the leading lights."

I will put my list of names up against the ones you mention any time in terms
of influence on the environmenental movement.

By analogy, abolitionism and feminism were complete ways of life for some, but
those who called themselves abolitionists, or who call themselves feminists,
include a far wider range of folks than that.

> For an explicit analysis of a secular worldview that is closer to
> environmentalism than liberalism as "functional religion," see e.g., the
> following article by Wesley Jamison et al. that appeared in Society and
> Animals not too long ago:
>
> Jamison, Wesley V., Caspar Wenk, and James V. Parker. 2000. "Every Sparrow
> that Falls: Understanding Animal Rights Activism as Functional Religion."
> _Society and Animals_ 8 (3):305-330.
>
I think Callicott has done an excellent job of showing the very real tensions
between animal rights and animal liberation and any coherent form of
environmentalism.  His criticisms of these positions seem to me quite
persuasive.  And you admit that animal rights is "closer" to environmentalism
than liberalism.  Closer is very far from identity.  Mars is closer to earth
than Saturn, after all.

I made a strong ethical argument for the compatibility of the Scottish
Enlightenment's liberal tradition with deep ecology in the journal Review of
Politics, by the way.  (Fall, 1996)  It is also on my web site
www.dizerega.com, under "ecology."  It comes at the matter differently than
Callicott.  So I would argue that in important respects environmentalism can be
closer to some kinds of liberalism than to animal rights views.

> Anyway.  I very much enjoyed your comments and hope they spark a lot of
> discussion.  But I fear on the religion assertion you are very much
> mistaken.
>
As you see, I am not convinced that my abbreviated comments were wrong!

best wishes,

Gus

> kind regards,
> Jim
>




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