Purpose and Context, Law for Sustainability
Jacques-Louis David, The Emperor Napoleon Crowning Himself. Ca. 1806-7. Musée du Louvre, Paris, France. © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY.
On Thanksgiving in the United States many no doubt expressed gratitude for having won the freedom to breathe. With the defeat of a president working only for the interests of a few, rather than the many, we have won a reprieve from autocracy. We can now return to the effort to face the great responsibilities before us. We must restore environmental programs and ramp them up to head off the coming climate catastrophe; stop accelerating extinctions; save natural areas; stop poisoning the world, and develop food, shelter and waste systems for billions, while instituting justice and greater economic equity. All of this depends on policies that embrace universal needs, and overcoming the lie that the world rightly belongs to any exclusive club. This deception has captured so many.[1] The vote has given us a chance to be free of such dangerous delusions. There is much work to be done before we are truly liberated.
Environmental citizens are those who face the truth of what is happening to the world. Re-establishing the primacy of fact takes work and courage. In addition to having the courage to see pollution, diminishing wildlife, and heating oceans, we have to take a good look at what people believe and why they don’t see or seem to care about what’s happening. We need the conversations that will free us from an onslaught of lies. We have been tricked into battling each other when our fate depends on the ability to combine all perspectives in order to solve the great puzzle of how to exist together. Great questions are presented: how can we continue advancing excellence if meritocracy itself is divisive?[2] Are those who succeed to blame for the plight of those left behind?[3] These are pressing questions but immediate focus should be undoing the noxious cliché that equates liberalism with elitism. The historical fact is that Democrats are the ones who have tended to support government action to care for people, while Republicans have become the party of those who have most benefitted from exploitative and damaging behavior. The money from these harmful sources has funded Republican campaigns and relentless propaganda to blame the wrong elites. The resentment of the exploited has been misdirected. Many intellectuals so despised by the right are indeed guilty of neglect, but anti-intellectualism has so confused public discourse that the real violence being done – the right’s support of economic and political oligarchy - is unrecognized by their followers, many of whom focus their ire on immigrants, minorities, and pregnant women. The healing of a sickened planet begins with treating the disease of this political confusion.
Environmental citizens are those who face the truth of what is happening to the world. Re-establishing the primacy of fact takes work and courage. In addition to having the courage to see pollution, diminishing wildlife, and heating oceans, we have to take a good look at what people believe and why they don’t see or seem to care about what’s happening. We need the conversations that will free us from an onslaught of lies. We have been tricked into battling each other when our fate depends on the ability to combine all perspectives in order to solve the great puzzle of how to exist together. Great questions are presented: how can we continue advancing excellence if meritocracy itself is divisive?[2] Are those who succeed to blame for the plight of those left behind?[3] These are pressing questions but immediate focus should be undoing the noxious cliché that equates liberalism with elitism. The historical fact is that Democrats are the ones who have tended to support government action to care for people, while Republicans have become the party of those who have most benefitted from exploitative and damaging behavior. The money from these harmful sources has funded Republican campaigns and relentless propaganda to blame the wrong elites. The resentment of the exploited has been misdirected. Many intellectuals so despised by the right are indeed guilty of neglect, but anti-intellectualism has so confused public discourse that the real violence being done – the right’s support of economic and political oligarchy - is unrecognized by their followers, many of whom focus their ire on immigrants, minorities, and pregnant women. The healing of a sickened planet begins with treating the disease of this political confusion.