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.
Although stating this risks insult, it is perhaps most accurate to understand the split as a struggle to grow up. The adult is ready to attend to the tasks of need and commonality, and the immature fights to remain in what seems a safe retreat. The adult sees the need to be informed and the immature does not see the need to do the necessary mental work. The adult is sensitive to being manipulated and the immature adopts an undeserved pride in thinking for themselves. Positing a winner-takes-all battle between right and left does not fool the adult, who is faithful to civic discourse and also knows that real conservatives want to protect what we have left of nature and democratic society. Having an adult outlook is not a matter of chronological age – it is the youth of America who are doing the most work in service of the imperative to combat climate change.[4]
Once, America led the world in environmentalism. We developed the first major legislative efforts to protect the very ground on which we stand, the air we breathe, the water we drink, and our fellow living creatures. This was a fulfillment of the noblest American aspirations, showing how democracies are a means by which citizen representatives create the parenting acts we most desire to be performed for us. But like the protests against war, racism, sexism, and other injustices, those who will not uphold the basic commonality of all people often fear the recognition of faults in their chosen group. Focusing on enemies around them they fear that criticism causes us to be weakened in the eyes of adversaries. Yes, we have adversaries, but they are not an excuse to forsake our responsibility to evolve. Criticism that comes from a love of our potential, a hope to be better, is necessary to make us stronger. Knowing our environmentally damaging acts is the only route to safety. Recognizing our unjust acts is the only path to fairness. We can choose what to believe, but that does not produce certainty, only its appearance. We are born to be vulnerable and uncertain, and learning to be responsible under those conditions is the only way to develop our potential for creating a better world. Recognition of our limitations can lead to the appropriate measure of humility that permits appropriate self-criticism and recognizes the need to work together.
Many are responding to the divisive political culture we now have, saying that we must somehow increase our identification with each other. If we can see ourselves in the population, know that it is us, know that we belong to it - then we can belong to each other. Maybe this can remind us that the greatness of America is not its strength or wealth but that its Constitution embodies this idea in its Preamble, where the purposes of our government are stated. The possibility of friendship is our heritage. It is a duty as well as a long-neglected pleasure awaiting rediscovery, and it comes in a trillion different forms. Democracy is nothing more than the evolution of humanity from groups of enemies to friends. We know that the Republican base has been whipped into a fury of anger and resentment towards Democrats, fearing they will eliminate police departments, confiscate guns, transfer wealth to the “undeserving”, destroy traditions, and so on. But is not liberal anger, towards those who uncritically accept such calumny, also of concern?
As I take a breath and remember how horrific it has been to experience rips of our social fabric, the crumbling of the edifice of our commitment to truth, the tearing down of the house of international cooperation, I feel my anger. Honesty demands I recognize that I am furious with those who reject science, good journalism, and respectful dialogue. I have little patience with those who think we do not need to do anything about climate change, environmental injustice, or refugees. The stunning violation of those who readily believe insane right-wing conspiracy theories borders on the unforgiveable.[5] I think they have allowed themselves to be led by the nose and to be herded into corrals. How does one make common cause with those who voted for a man who made fun of the disabled, took children from parents, gave license to pollution and poisoning, and took an axe to our protections and values? If that criminal made the seat of the President into a golden throne and placed a diadem on his own head,[6] as he has pathetically been trying to do, I would hate those who cheered. The spirit of Napolean haunted Europe for a long time. After his first exile he returned to make war once more. How much were his supporters despised by those anxious for Europe to grow up?
Perhaps such anger can be tamed. Perhaps I can try to be like those parents of the early age of television, like those leaders and judges of legend, who remain calm and strive towards justice instead of vengeance.
I cannot see the utility of denying my hatred of these things. But standing up and breathing the fresh air once again has brought with full force to my mind the necessity of empathy. I confess I push it away. I want to remain in my imaginary city of enlightened, friendly beings. I hesitate to do what I think must be done: to enter the walled cities of those I regard as lost and make friends in those awful places. I must not become like them, trapped within shells of uncaring. The job is to help them come out, and see the new sky, and breathe deeply of the fresh air. I believe that we will all be saved when they rise up, blink their eyes, and smile. Policies to develop local economies will help. Flooding the airways with rational competition for rightwing radio, television and print news will help. Civic education will help – for adults as well as children. Expanding engagement with government will help. Showing that transitioning to clean practices actually saves money will help. But I believe that the crux is getting to know each other better and valuing that act. I assume that most people are inherently reasonable and of good will, and have simply been misled. I assume that a real effort to reach those who feel left behind will help them feel included. The responsible can do much to save this planet by themselves, and that is how we must now proceed. But to truly do the work that must be done to heal this sick planet, a far greater portion of humanity must be enlisted. We may never get everyone, but we need many more than we have now.
We are still in a very, very dark world. Those who practice politics like a game or a war are still hard at work, and we cannot but resent them for it, and those who unthinkingly applaud them. Forgiving this sin is hard. But while we may be hobbled by the cultural war, we are not crippled. We can still drag ourselves towards the light. At long last there is light! For this, and for the chance to do the hard work before us, we may give thanks.
[1] See, for example, the many departures from factual history in the recent piece by Maureen Dowd’s brother, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/26/opinion/thanksgiving-dowd-2020.html, such as that the outgoing president gave the country a strong economy, when in a period of steady improvement due to the previous administration’s rescue of the collapsed economy under Bush, he boosted deficits sky-high to vastly increase the wealth of the already super-rich, creating stock market highs while harming millions by cutting government programs. Every sentence in the piece will disturb those who follow real news but some misconceptions need explaining, such as the argument that the president was unjustly labeled a racist because he and Senator Tim Scott created opportunity zones. The idea for these came from Senator Cory Booker as well as Scott, and Booker is now concerned that they are being implemented in a manner designed to benefit real estate developers rather than communities. https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/congress/article237472594.html. See also, for example, The GOP and the future of democracy in America - The Boston Globe: in which Steven Livingston and W. Lance Bennett note that the "descent of the GOP into illiberalism did not begin with Trump's ride down an escalator five years ago. It started with the party's Faustian bargain with racism, along with its embrace of billionaire backers who fund elections, think tanks, and media networks producing propaganda for extremists. All of this serves as a distraction from decades-long strategies to legalize voter suppression."
[2] See, for example, The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good?, by Michael Sandel.
[3] One treatment of this question is David Brooks’ “The Rotting of the Republican Mind”, which notes that “people in this precarious state are going to demand stories that will both explain their distrust back to them and also enclose them within a safe community of believers. The evangelists of distrust, from Donald Trump to Alex Jones to the followers of QAnon, rose up to give them those stories and provide that community. Paradoxically, conspiracy theories have become the most effective community bonding mechanisms of the 21st century. For those awash in anxiety and alienation, who feel that everything is spinning out of control, conspiracy theories are extremely effective emotional tools. For those in low status groups, they provide a sense of superiority: I possess important information most people do not have. For those who feel powerless, they provide agency: I have the power to reject “experts” and expose hidden cabals.” https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/26/opinion/republican-disinformation.html.
[4] See https://www.ourchildrenstrust.org/, in particular Juliana v. US, in which youth plaintiffs obtained federal court rulings that the “right to a climate system capable of sustaining human life” is a fundamental right. For example, in the ruling filed October 15, 2018 denying federal motions (6:15-cv-01517-AA Document 369), Judge Aiken stated again what she found in 2016 (217 F. Supp. 3d at 1250), that “where a complaint alleges knowing governmental action is affirmatively and substantially damaging the climate system in a way that will cause human deaths, shorten human lifespans, result in widespread damage to property, threaten human food sources, and dramatically alter the planet's ecosystem, it states a claim for a due process violation. To hold otherwise would be to say that the Constitution affords no protection against a government's knowing decision to poison the air its citizens breathe or the water its citizens drink.” (p. 48).
[5] QAnon’s stories about leading liberals who are really Satan-worshipping pedophiles is only one example. Tune into right-wing television or radio to hear how duplicitous, hateful and evil are the true motives of what rational people call progressive or even moderate political views. The Deep State idea promulgated by the very people seeking to capture our democracy has portrayed brave government employees loyal to the Constitution as traitors. Millions recklessly choose to believe these vicious fantasies. For historical perspective see Richard Hofstadter’s 1964 essay “The Paranoid Style in American Politics” (“His sense that his political passions are unselfish and patriotic, in fact, goes far to intensify his feeling of righteousness and his moral indignation.”) http://faculty.washington.edu/jwilker/353/Hofstadter.pdf.
[6] Napolean took the crown from the Pope and placed it on his own head. https://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/napoleon-crowning-himself-emperor-pope.
Once, America led the world in environmentalism. We developed the first major legislative efforts to protect the very ground on which we stand, the air we breathe, the water we drink, and our fellow living creatures. This was a fulfillment of the noblest American aspirations, showing how democracies are a means by which citizen representatives create the parenting acts we most desire to be performed for us. But like the protests against war, racism, sexism, and other injustices, those who will not uphold the basic commonality of all people often fear the recognition of faults in their chosen group. Focusing on enemies around them they fear that criticism causes us to be weakened in the eyes of adversaries. Yes, we have adversaries, but they are not an excuse to forsake our responsibility to evolve. Criticism that comes from a love of our potential, a hope to be better, is necessary to make us stronger. Knowing our environmentally damaging acts is the only route to safety. Recognizing our unjust acts is the only path to fairness. We can choose what to believe, but that does not produce certainty, only its appearance. We are born to be vulnerable and uncertain, and learning to be responsible under those conditions is the only way to develop our potential for creating a better world. Recognition of our limitations can lead to the appropriate measure of humility that permits appropriate self-criticism and recognizes the need to work together.
Many are responding to the divisive political culture we now have, saying that we must somehow increase our identification with each other. If we can see ourselves in the population, know that it is us, know that we belong to it - then we can belong to each other. Maybe this can remind us that the greatness of America is not its strength or wealth but that its Constitution embodies this idea in its Preamble, where the purposes of our government are stated. The possibility of friendship is our heritage. It is a duty as well as a long-neglected pleasure awaiting rediscovery, and it comes in a trillion different forms. Democracy is nothing more than the evolution of humanity from groups of enemies to friends. We know that the Republican base has been whipped into a fury of anger and resentment towards Democrats, fearing they will eliminate police departments, confiscate guns, transfer wealth to the “undeserving”, destroy traditions, and so on. But is not liberal anger, towards those who uncritically accept such calumny, also of concern?
As I take a breath and remember how horrific it has been to experience rips of our social fabric, the crumbling of the edifice of our commitment to truth, the tearing down of the house of international cooperation, I feel my anger. Honesty demands I recognize that I am furious with those who reject science, good journalism, and respectful dialogue. I have little patience with those who think we do not need to do anything about climate change, environmental injustice, or refugees. The stunning violation of those who readily believe insane right-wing conspiracy theories borders on the unforgiveable.[5] I think they have allowed themselves to be led by the nose and to be herded into corrals. How does one make common cause with those who voted for a man who made fun of the disabled, took children from parents, gave license to pollution and poisoning, and took an axe to our protections and values? If that criminal made the seat of the President into a golden throne and placed a diadem on his own head,[6] as he has pathetically been trying to do, I would hate those who cheered. The spirit of Napolean haunted Europe for a long time. After his first exile he returned to make war once more. How much were his supporters despised by those anxious for Europe to grow up?
Perhaps such anger can be tamed. Perhaps I can try to be like those parents of the early age of television, like those leaders and judges of legend, who remain calm and strive towards justice instead of vengeance.
I cannot see the utility of denying my hatred of these things. But standing up and breathing the fresh air once again has brought with full force to my mind the necessity of empathy. I confess I push it away. I want to remain in my imaginary city of enlightened, friendly beings. I hesitate to do what I think must be done: to enter the walled cities of those I regard as lost and make friends in those awful places. I must not become like them, trapped within shells of uncaring. The job is to help them come out, and see the new sky, and breathe deeply of the fresh air. I believe that we will all be saved when they rise up, blink their eyes, and smile. Policies to develop local economies will help. Flooding the airways with rational competition for rightwing radio, television and print news will help. Civic education will help – for adults as well as children. Expanding engagement with government will help. Showing that transitioning to clean practices actually saves money will help. But I believe that the crux is getting to know each other better and valuing that act. I assume that most people are inherently reasonable and of good will, and have simply been misled. I assume that a real effort to reach those who feel left behind will help them feel included. The responsible can do much to save this planet by themselves, and that is how we must now proceed. But to truly do the work that must be done to heal this sick planet, a far greater portion of humanity must be enlisted. We may never get everyone, but we need many more than we have now.
We are still in a very, very dark world. Those who practice politics like a game or a war are still hard at work, and we cannot but resent them for it, and those who unthinkingly applaud them. Forgiving this sin is hard. But while we may be hobbled by the cultural war, we are not crippled. We can still drag ourselves towards the light. At long last there is light! For this, and for the chance to do the hard work before us, we may give thanks.
[1] See, for example, the many departures from factual history in the recent piece by Maureen Dowd’s brother, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/26/opinion/thanksgiving-dowd-2020.html, such as that the outgoing president gave the country a strong economy, when in a period of steady improvement due to the previous administration’s rescue of the collapsed economy under Bush, he boosted deficits sky-high to vastly increase the wealth of the already super-rich, creating stock market highs while harming millions by cutting government programs. Every sentence in the piece will disturb those who follow real news but some misconceptions need explaining, such as the argument that the president was unjustly labeled a racist because he and Senator Tim Scott created opportunity zones. The idea for these came from Senator Cory Booker as well as Scott, and Booker is now concerned that they are being implemented in a manner designed to benefit real estate developers rather than communities. https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/congress/article237472594.html. See also, for example, The GOP and the future of democracy in America - The Boston Globe: in which Steven Livingston and W. Lance Bennett note that the "descent of the GOP into illiberalism did not begin with Trump's ride down an escalator five years ago. It started with the party's Faustian bargain with racism, along with its embrace of billionaire backers who fund elections, think tanks, and media networks producing propaganda for extremists. All of this serves as a distraction from decades-long strategies to legalize voter suppression."
[2] See, for example, The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good?, by Michael Sandel.
[3] One treatment of this question is David Brooks’ “The Rotting of the Republican Mind”, which notes that “people in this precarious state are going to demand stories that will both explain their distrust back to them and also enclose them within a safe community of believers. The evangelists of distrust, from Donald Trump to Alex Jones to the followers of QAnon, rose up to give them those stories and provide that community. Paradoxically, conspiracy theories have become the most effective community bonding mechanisms of the 21st century. For those awash in anxiety and alienation, who feel that everything is spinning out of control, conspiracy theories are extremely effective emotional tools. For those in low status groups, they provide a sense of superiority: I possess important information most people do not have. For those who feel powerless, they provide agency: I have the power to reject “experts” and expose hidden cabals.” https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/26/opinion/republican-disinformation.html.
[4] See https://www.ourchildrenstrust.org/, in particular Juliana v. US, in which youth plaintiffs obtained federal court rulings that the “right to a climate system capable of sustaining human life” is a fundamental right. For example, in the ruling filed October 15, 2018 denying federal motions (6:15-cv-01517-AA Document 369), Judge Aiken stated again what she found in 2016 (217 F. Supp. 3d at 1250), that “where a complaint alleges knowing governmental action is affirmatively and substantially damaging the climate system in a way that will cause human deaths, shorten human lifespans, result in widespread damage to property, threaten human food sources, and dramatically alter the planet's ecosystem, it states a claim for a due process violation. To hold otherwise would be to say that the Constitution affords no protection against a government's knowing decision to poison the air its citizens breathe or the water its citizens drink.” (p. 48).
[5] QAnon’s stories about leading liberals who are really Satan-worshipping pedophiles is only one example. Tune into right-wing television or radio to hear how duplicitous, hateful and evil are the true motives of what rational people call progressive or even moderate political views. The Deep State idea promulgated by the very people seeking to capture our democracy has portrayed brave government employees loyal to the Constitution as traitors. Millions recklessly choose to believe these vicious fantasies. For historical perspective see Richard Hofstadter’s 1964 essay “The Paranoid Style in American Politics” (“His sense that his political passions are unselfish and patriotic, in fact, goes far to intensify his feeling of righteousness and his moral indignation.”) http://faculty.washington.edu/jwilker/353/Hofstadter.pdf.
[6] Napolean took the crown from the Pope and placed it on his own head. https://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/napoleon-crowning-himself-emperor-pope.
RSS Feed
