AGENDA
- Finish discussion of art attacks
- Discuss Scruton, "Conservatism Means Conservation"
Action module
- Lifestyle choices--recycling, etc.
- Activism--civil disobedience, uncivil disobedience
- Politics, government--having a political philosophy, running for office, voting
Environmental politics in the US
- Environmentalism is associated with liberal end of American politics
- Biden--inflation reduction act, Justice 40 initiative, rejoined Paris Agreement; ended drilling in ANWR
- Republican candidates--reject his entire agenda; but some green initiatives: new parks in Texas
- Political science/history question: Why such a difference?
- Political philosophy question: What is a conservative? Can conservatives be environmentalists?
Roger Scruton (SCREW-ton)- British philosopher who has written on the philosophy of conservatism
- You read "Conservatism means Conservation"
- "Conservation is the quintessential conservative cause"-- p. 2
- He also wrote a book making this argument -->
- His theory of conservatism is rooted in political thinking of Edmund Burke and others
- Departs from US conservatives--not as focused on individual freedom and free markets
Conservatives vs. Liberals -- 5 contrasts (according to Scruton)
Oikophilia (from Greek: home-love)
- conservative: has love of home, wants to preserve and protect home
- "it is the love of home that provides the most effective motive on which the environmental movement can call"--p.2
- Do you think home is a local concept for him? What about America as our home, or even the earth as our home?
- liberal: focused on good of all, the least advantaged, equality
Does it make a difference where you live?
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| Where we live |
Love of beauty
- conservative: values beauty in surroundings
- "aesthetic judgment is the primary form of environmental reasoning" -- p. 7
- liberal: more concerned with progress, equality, the least advantaged
Example: wind turbines, solar panels
Preservation
- conservative: wants to conserve resources and ways of life; see themselves as stewards or trustees
- there ought to be a "partnership between the dead, the living and the unborn" -- p. 2, cites Edmund Burke
- liberal: progress, not preservation
Application (he doesn't discuss here): fox hunting, other types of hunting (banned in the UK in 2014); in the US: Ducks Unlimited
- conservative: looks for local solutions
- liberal: supports government solutions at all levels including global (the UN)
Local action: neighborhood association that cleans creek, girl scout troop that keeps highway clean, civic association that protests new highway or train tracks
*Texas conservatives are not Scrutonian conservatives! Legislature and conservative Supreme Court have blocked local control--e.g. Denton plastic bag ban.
- conservative: supports private property, capitalism; but growth can be incompatible with love of home and love of beauty
- liberal: distrusts; worries about greed leading to depletion
Application: environmental problem of suburbs
- "The most important man-made environmental problem in this country is that presented by the spread of the suburbs. Suburbanization causes the increasing use of automobiles, and the dispersal of populations in ways that exponentially increase the consumption for energy and non-degradable packaging" -- p. 3
- If Americans want to live in the suburbs, its only because government policies have made them desirable--subsidies, problems in the inner cities, zoning
- Poundbury (p. 4-5)
The Scrutonian Conservative Environmentalist's approach to some of the topics we've discussed
- Climate change--agrees with Bjorn Lomborg (adaptation, geoengineering)
- Restoration vs. Rewilding--what would he say?
- Exporting recycling to a developing country--what would he say?
- Environmental injustices (e.g. Bullard)--what would he say?
- groundwater depletion