Ishmael
A short review 114
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Posted 11:28 AM on 20 Sep 2006
by David Roberts -
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David Roberts is staff writer for Grist. You can follow his Twitter feed at twitter.com/drgrist.
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mihan Posted 3:35 am
20 Sep 2006
The person who lent it to me had a similar reaction, but was given it by a friend who had a life-changing experience and insisted it be passed on. I was the lucky victim.
But I have little tolerance for talk, whether actual or in writing.
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Biodiversivist Posted 3:47 am
20 Sep 2006
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Help acquire and protect ecological hotspots, give to a conservation organization: http://www.saveourbiodiversity.com
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El Gato Posted 4:30 am
20 Sep 2006
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Bart Anderson Posted 5:01 am
20 Sep 2006
The quick skimming I did of Quinn's books made me realize that the time for my being receptive to Quinn had passed.
On the other hand, the books that I once idolized look slightly ridiculous in retrospect: "Steppenwolf" by Herman Hesse, "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand, "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac, "Lord of the Rings"...
Perhaps the key experience is that of discovering ideas and philosophies that glow with meaning and importance. In the long run it may not matter what the particular books are. They have awakened one to the life of the mind, and that is what matters.
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GreenEngineer Posted 5:02 am
20 Sep 2006
In that context, I'd like to recommend the movie Instinct with Anthony Hopkins. It's not so much based on Ishmael as inspired by it. It obviously does not have the means to go into the depth of ideas that Ishmael explores. But it does touch on some of the most important aspects of the book, and it is also a very good story, grippping and well-acted.
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Lisa Hymas Posted 5:51 am
20 Sep 2006
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MorganTucker Posted 6:12 am
20 Sep 2006
Ishmael was required reading in my highschool, and as such, was an interesting discussion point, but as a stand-alone-read? I agree with you. I don't like how-to manuals, no matter how well disguised, and this "how to live your life" manual isn't particularly well disguised. It's also not particurly new, the concept of releasing the death-grip we develop on life is a century-old one.
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Tom Philpott Posted 6:14 am
20 Sep 2006
And by the way, I hope no one's feelings get hurt seeing a beloved novel trashed. Tastes vary widely -- there is no real arbiter -- and they mutate over a lifetime.
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black angus Posted 7:33 am
20 Sep 2006
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 7:39 am
20 Sep 2006
Quinn opened up the possibility for me to have hope for saving the world by opening my eyes to what I already knew intellectually but didn't really embody: We are not humanity. Before then, I was a population and environmental activist, but I was driven by outrage about what was happening. I had no real hope that we would avert catastrophe. I still don't know for certain that we will, but now I'm convinced it's at least possible because I understand that it isn't human nature that's driving us to destroy the world but our culture.
This is just my opinion, of course, as are all the negative ones here. And, if one loathes Socratic dialogues, or can't suspend disbelief to accept the conceit of a telepathic gorilla as a teacher, well, then, I wouldn't expect you to like the book.
BTW, I know a bunch of other people (including some older than me!) for whom these books have been and continue to be meaningful.
Oh, and GreenEngineer? If you think squirrels are Takers as Quinn intended the term, I'm afraid he didn't successfully convey to you what he meant by it.
The world is sacred and I am sacred as part of it.
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Biodiversivist Posted 8:18 am
20 Sep 2006
That is what I was taught in the 70's also. Hmm, seems to me that if we were still hunter-gatherers, we 6.5 billion primates would have wiped this planet clean long ago or died trying. Was it our culture that put 6.5 billion of us here or our nature? Was it our nature that created our culture? Isn't it all water under the bridge now? What culture will be best suited to accomodate 10 billion people and keep the planet alive?
Define human nature, define culture. I suppose solutions that prove to work are what matter, the rest is conjecture.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Help acquire and protect ecological hotspots, give to a conservation organization: http://www.saveourbiodiversity.com
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bookerly Posted 8:23 am
20 Sep 2006
Perhaps I was too old when I got it, but I also found it boring and a bit silly. The ideas didn't resonate. My mystical self is missing somewhere perhaps.
The Mars books by Edgar Rice Burroughs had talking gorillas too, as I recall. I liked them and Ayn Rand when I was 12. By the time I was 14, they both evoked other reactions in me (grin).
Transformative writers for me were Mark Twain, George Bernard Shaw, Lu Xun, Dostoevski, Hemingway, Achebe and Ralph Ellison.
I would be curious for people to say exactly how this book has affected their approaches to environmentalism and politics. Thanks to John Fish Kurmann for trying to do so.
patrick
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GreenEngineer Posted 8:59 am
20 Sep 2006
I'm pretty sure I understand what he was trying to say. I didn't so much at the time, but my understanding has evolved in the ensuing ten years, and I think I get it now. My comment was not a criticism of the underlying idea but of his expression of the -- admitedly challenging -- concept.
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Kit Stolz Posted 2:40 pm
20 Sep 2006
This can be proved, I think. This is a book that has been popular, is widely known and still in print many years after its publication, and seemingly wouldn't be especially difficult to dramatize.
Yet when it was attempted (as "Instinct," in l999) despite some great actors (Anthony Hopkins and Cuba Gooding) it bombed.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0128278/business
Why?
As Roger Ebert said: "The movie's just so darned uplifting and clunky, as it shifts from one of its big themes to another while groaning under the weight of heartfelt speeches."
Look at it this way. The name "Ishmael" brings to mind "Moby Dick." The themes of "Moby Dick"--revenge, ruination, obsession, bitterness--continue to echo through in our culture today, but the themes of "Ishmael" have yet to even achieve critical mass.
Why is this? It's not because Melville is an easy writer to read. He's not. It's because the story he told cannot be forgotten.
"Ishmael," by contrast can be easily forgotten.
In fact, despite its high-mindedness and its seriousness, it's rather enjoyable to forget.
That's a little sad, for the sake of the issues it raises, but it's also the difference between great art and a mediocre polemic.
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KBestO Posted 12:58 am
21 Sep 2006
That being said, I am a high school teacher who teaches English and Environmental Sustainability, and I use Ishmael as our introductory text in the Sustainability course. I think the ideas Quinn introduces, the idea of Mother Culture, society being held captive, and the value of biodiversity, are absolutely essential to becoming a conscious citizen, and are things most high schoolers have never thought about before. The idea that there is no one right way to live, that draws kids in and gets them started on the path to thinking about the implications of their everyday actions. Obviously, people who read Grist are already well on their way to being knowledgable about sustainabilty and are (hopefully) conscious citizens and consumers, but that's not true of citizens as a whole in America. We view it as elementary and subpar because most of us have moved beyond those ideas. To people who live their life with Mother Culture buzzing in their ear, Quinn's ideas are eye-opening and revolutionary, and I think it's a mistake to trivialize Ishmael. It has it's place in the sustainability movement, and I for one, cheer when one of my students wants to borrow a copy for a friend. Better that than another episode of Laguna Beach, people.
<steps off soapbox>
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KBestO Posted 1:00 am
21 Sep 2006
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caniscandida Posted 2:02 am
21 Sep 2006
To be sure, it is not easy for modern readers to appreciate what kind of texts they are. We should realize that they are works of art, quite artificial, and not intended to be reports of anything like actual, credible conversations, even though much of their art goes into presenting them in a realistic way. Nor are they plays. We misread the dialogues, if we read them expecting either attempts at real conversation, or dramas with impressive characterizations; and inevitably we will be disappointed with the interlocutors. The function of these "wimps" and "wet noodles" is usually not to challenge Socrates, or any of the principal speakers who replace Socrates in the later dialogues, by looking at a subject in an entirely new way; no, they are just supposed to illustrate the logic-based methods of developing arguments which were part of the formal study of dialectic, the preferred philosophic activity at Plato's Academy. (Not that I deny that they can nevertheless provoke some good philosophic thinking in such vital, violent Virgos as David Roberts.)
Also, Plato does not commit himself to any positive assertion that is made in the dialogues. What is important is the question. The dialogues tell us what kinds of questions were being asked by Plato and his colleagues at the Academy, and what kinds of answers, or methods of answering, Plato found especially interesting. But there are several kinds of dialogue too, from different periods in his life, with different objects, and different points of view.
Plato was not himself a "Platonist." Platonism was invented some time after his death, by fundamentalist, authority-loving types of the sort who find security in insisting on the truth of books, but who themselves misread the very texts that they venerate.
On the other hand, we can be reasonably confident we know at least two things about what Plato really thought: first, he believed the execution of Socrates by the Athenian democracy was a great miscarriage of justice; secondly, and to a large extent as a consequence, he did not like democracy. (Indeed, most historical and philosophical writers of antiquity mistrusted democracy.) Whether he literally preferred the totalitarian states that his characters so carefully design in "Republic" and "Laws" is to be doubted. But on the basis of his probably genuine, autobiographical "Seventh Letter," mostly about his involvement in the politics of the great Sicilian Greek city Syracuse, it seems clear he most practically liked the idea of monarchy in the hands of an enlightened dictator, if not exactly a "philosopher-king."
On Socrates as enemy of democracy, I.F. Stone's "The Trial of Socrates" is wonderful. In 2003, in a pre-Democratic-primaries interview, John Edwards named it as Most Influential Book.
On "Ishmael": I do not know it at all. But it is apparently unlike Plato's dialogues in at least two very important ways, if, as has been said in this thread, the quality of the writing is poor (Plato's Greek style is brilliant and delightful), and if the intention of the author is to preach and convert.
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 2:47 pm
21 Sep 2006
The world is sacred and I am sacred as part of it.
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 2:49 pm
21 Sep 2006
The world is sacred and I am sacred as part of it.
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 3:00 pm
21 Sep 2006
What I find interesting is how much some folks seem to enjoy savaging what others enjoy and are inspired by. I used to be monumentally arrogant about my opinions, but I really try to refrain from being so these days.
The world is sacred and I am sacred as part of it.
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amazingdrx Posted 3:51 pm
21 Sep 2006
As usual one of my favorite philosophers provides illumination. Thanks again Canis!
Of course many good folk, especially the faithbased, would rather depend on authority figues in the form of experts to make important life decisions for them. Like wether or not climate disaster is real and how best to address it.
Some would prefer to employ dialectic to decide. Taking alleged facts presented by experts and arguments based on those alleged facts, and subjecting them to a good going over by a lot of different often anoying people who, wether they know it or not, emulate the example Socrates set.
Correct me if I'm wrong (dialectically of course), but isn't that what we have here in this very excellent blog?
Maybe Dave's skeptical leadership of this dialectic helps it along somehow. I think it does.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 4:06 pm
21 Sep 2006
My opinion on why: Ishmael has never been made into a movie because the necessary concepts cannot be crammed into 2 hours. Quinn himself tried and then said it would require a 6-hour miniseries, but what network is going to finance and broadcast it? I also think it would be really difficult to render the character of Ishmael believably; for all the wonders CGI has wrought, animating a gorilla that both looked real and conveyed the emotions and thoughts Ishmael has during the dialogue would be an enormous challenge. And a very expensive one because he'd be in almost every scene. A guy in a gorilla suit, or a live gorilla, simply would not work.
In Moby-Dick, Melville explored motivations and ideas that had existed for some time in our culture and had deep resonance. That's precisely why the book is now considered a classic of American literature, though, as I understand it, it wasn't a success when first published; Wikipedia claims it recieved mostly negative reviews at the time.
Daniel Quinn, on the other hand, set out to inspire something fundamentally new and transformative in the minds of his readers at the deepest level of cultural worldview, and I think it's way too early for anyone to conclude he has failed. He certainly didn't predict his ideas would have dramatically changed the world just 14 years after the first book was published.
I think those of us inspired by his work are in the process of changing the world--though, admittedly, not as quickly as I'd like--and I haven't by any means surrendered. And let's face it: The modern environmental movement has been around for decades longer than Ishmael without achieving critical mass, and it doesn't seem to me to be close to hitting the tipping point, either. As I see it, the real world-changing gains are being made by those who have moved beyond the traditional approach of environmentalism, which basically can be summed up as "lobbying for stronger laws and regulations to 'protect the environment.'"
The world is sacred and I am sacred as part of it.
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David Roberts Posted 4:19 pm
21 Sep 2006
I didn't address the subject matter at all. I simply said that judged purely qua fiction, it ain't great.
I'm working sporadically on a follow-up.
www.grist.org
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Bart Anderson Posted 7:12 pm
21 Sep 2006
You found a book that gave you pleasure and enlightenment. That's something that other people can't take away from you.
Daniel Quinn is a successful published author, with several cult classics to his credit. Most of us would-be writers would kill to have achieved what he's achieved.
I disagree with the proposition that Quinn should be judged as fiction. Caniscandida rightly points out that the roots of "Ishmael" go back to Plato's Dialogues. Modern fiction, in contrast, is a young whippersnapper, only 300 years old. And for much of that time, the novel was considered trash by educated people.
Not only do philosophical dialogues like Ishmael have a distinguished pedigree, but many of them have been popular and literary successes. Consider:
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig
Walden II by B.F. Skinner
1984 by George Orwell
Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy (a long-time bestseller)
Utopia by Thomas More
Island by Aldous Huxley
Ecotopia by Ernest Callenbach
One doesn't go to these books for characterization and suspense. That's like looking for a detective story in a cookbook. Wrong genre.
Similarly, these books don't pretend to be academic treatises. Their goal is to show us the meaning behind facts - to present a vision.
From what I've read of Quinn, he does just that in Ishmael. The metaphors of the Leavers and Takers are powerful and apt. He's been able to communicate ideas that are taboo in our society of Takers. From the loyalty Quinn inspires in his readers, it is evident that he has hit a nerve.
Unfortunately for me, I'm too old to be able to appreciate the book. It's a life-changing book, and I've already had my life changed enough times by books.
Besides I agree with Quinn already, so why should I go over the same ground again? The books was meant for people other than me.
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caniscandida Posted 8:56 pm
21 Sep 2006
Of the books in your list, under the heading "philosophical dialogue," I only know George Orwell's 1984 and Sir (Saint) Thomas More's Utopia. The former is formally not a dialogue at all; however it certainly is intended to be a vehicle of Orwell's political-philosophical values and musings. C.S. Lewis considered it something of a lesser work, and much preferred the same author's simpler, more tightly constructed fable, Animal Farm.
Before Henry VIII arranged for him that rather unpleasant introduction to a heavy sharp piece of steel and a block of wood in the Tower of London, Thomas More was one of England's premier humanists, able to compose in both Greek and Latin. It should therefore not surprise anyone that he perfectly understood the purely speculative, non-committal nature of Plato's dialogues. Utopia is certainly not a serious political/ethical/social recommendation, to the effect that "we ought to change England, and make it look like this." Rather, he was just thinking out loud, so to speak, following through the logical implications of certain great values of his civilization, time and place.
Also, to be clear, although, as I said, Plato's dialogues should not to be read as a genre of historical prose or of dramatic poetry, nevertheless they are definitely literary works, and ought to be criticized as such.
I repeat, I do not know Daniel Quinn's work, and so cannot criticize it. There is plenty of fiction, though, in which intelligent talking animals are characters. So my initial question, my only question so far actually, is, Is the choice of a gorilla, to be the wise teacher, well done? Is it necessary that the wise teacher be a primate, closely related to Homo sapiens? From what little I can perceive, reflectedly, about Quinn's fiction, I think I would have been much more impressed if the wise teacher were, say, an old crow. Or a Galapagos iguana. Or one of Robert/Frogfish's Thaumoctopus mimicus.
One very impressive pop-religion-spirituality-enlightenment-whatever author who ought not to be overlooked is Carlos Castan~eda. The first three volumes of his fake/artificial/fictitious (?) memoirs as naive UCLA anthropology student in Mexico, location scrupulously and pseudo-professionally unidentified, are IMHO masterpieces, especially the third, "Journey to Ixtlan." The powerful image, one of Don Juan's instructions, of looking quickly over one's left shoulder and beholding one's own death, ever in slow pursuit, has remained with me ever after.
Alas!, Carlos was unable to sustain the literary quality in his too numerous sequels. In the first three books, the border between Don Juan's world and ours was close, tangible, real. After that, it became specialized, professionalized and boring.
Whatever title we may give to the genre of those first three books, it should be observed that they have a lot in common with the biblical genre called "apocalyptic," instanced especially by the latter chapters of the Book of Daniel, in the Hebrew Bible, and by the Book of Revelation in the New Testament.
And to bring this all back to young David Roberts, both Carlos and the apocalyptic parts of the Bible are all there in "The Matrix."
And if young David was anything like as cute as Keanu Reeves, he no doubt has a few love scars, which he might be willing to share with all of us on a future occasion.
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 3:15 pm
22 Sep 2006
I do find it odd that you chose to write a fairly long post solely to give your opinion of Ishmael as a work of fiction. The book isn't new, it hasn't recently attained a high profile for any reason, and you don't typically review books as far as I can recall. Why this one? Why not keep the focus on the substance of Quinn's ideas? They are the point, after all.
If you prefer a treatise, one of Quinn's earlier attempts to publish the ideas that ended up in Ishmael, The Book of the Damned, might be more up your alley. He wasn't able to complete that expression of his ideas (which he self-published in installments) and so he gave up, but he didn't employ the artifice of the Socratic dialogue and Ishmael the telepathic gorilla was nowhere to be found. And the tone of the book is incendiary, like nothing else of his I've read.
The world is sacred and I am sacred as part of it.
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 3:19 pm
22 Sep 2006
The world is sacred and I am sacred as part of it.
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Tom Warren Posted 7:16 pm
22 Sep 2006
I'm one of those whose life was/is profoundly affected by Quinn/Ishmael. I separate my enviro-activist friends into two groups - those who "get it" and those who ... "don't". (JFK absolutely gets it, btw)
It's impossible to respond to all 27 comments following the Ishmael piece, but I'd like to reinforce some of Kurmann's observations:
Yeah, Ishmael is a lousy novel, in exZACKly the same way that "Silent Spring" is a lousy science essay that wasn't peer-reviewed. Sometimes the medium is too cramped for the wisdom contained. Both works are equally, impressively, seminal.
Quinn's power is not in his use of the Socratic dialogue (which he uses rather well, despite some detractors' objections - pssst it's the reader who must in reality answer the questions, not the character Alan). The power is in his synthesis of a great many core truths that at this point in human culture lie just below the surface of our perception; that "on the tip of our tongues" phenomenon. You may legitimately object to Quinn's literary skill -- or lack of same. But his wisdom/truth is unassailable. (Yes I know many will "assail" it anyway, ... have at it. :-)
I slightly disagree with JFK's assertion that Quinn's central point is "no one right way". Quinn's central point is that it is not culture's methodologies that are at issue, it is our attitudes. We simply must change - fundamentally- the way we look at our relationship to `Nature'. We must possess "changed minds." I also think Quinn has been gently trying to break the news to us in all of his books that civilization is headed for a train wreck (or a plane crash to stay within Ishmael's frame of reference), and has been for 10,000 years. How we react to the news is the central question. Douglas Adams said it better when he pointed out that it was prolly a bad idea that we ever came down outta the trees.
Most serious detractors of Quinn object to the fact that he presents damn few solutions to the problem he so profoundly presents. -- and they are correct. Each must find their own way, ya know? It pisses some people off not to be presented with solutions and to be forced upon their own resources, Quinn takes heat for that. (So did Plato and Socrates).
Telepathic Gorilla? ... White Whale? ...White Rabbit? ... One Ring? ... Herald Angel?
You pays yer money, you takes yer plot device ....
Nuff for now. G'night
Tom
Pleasant Hill, Oregon
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bookerly Posted 7:37 pm
22 Sep 2006
Dear Tom and John and anyone else who loves Ishmael.
I read it, but got no coherent message from it except something about modern human culture is all bad.
But what does that mean?
We lost our way. From where to where?
See, the problem I have with the no solutions mode, is that the criticisms struck me as overy vague, so it didn't really impact me.
FWIW, I don't believe in telepathic gorillas, white whales, one ring, white rabbits (okay, but not the kind you mean (grin)).
How did it change your life? I only personally know a couple of people who read it and were deeply moved by it (personally being in the physical world (smile)), and neither is an environmentalist. I didn't understand the transformation.
"Givers" and "Takers"? Aren't we all both? (I will exclude everyone in the top 10% of income as primarily takers if you want, or is that not what his meant?). My reaction was it meant "us" and "them", mainly meaning those who liked the book and those who didn't.
Dear KBestO, how about having your students read "Stand on Zanzibar" and "The Sheep Look Up" by John Brunner.
I haven't read them in many years, but it seems to me that they pretty much had American culture right on, and were fun reads besides.
patrick
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Biodiversivist Posted 2:00 am
23 Sep 2006
I think we need to find ways to protect our biodiversity using methods that mesh with human nature. This article http://environment.guardian.co.uk/conservation/story/0,,1... is an example that comes close to what I would propose. Give young men a cause, a reason to be, like protecting the last Rhinos, and they will leap to it. Using a hardened murderous army of desperately poor young men to do that is, however, not optimal:
When the LRA officials subsequently signed a ceasefire with the government, it included pledges to protect the endangered rhino and to allow the park rangers to resume their work unmolested.
Mr Ojul told agency reporters at the talks: "The statistics we were shown were devastating and shocked us, and so we have given a tacit commitment that we will do whatever possible to live in harmony with the animals. We will act as their curators and do everything possible to see they are not harmed for posterity.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Help acquire and protect ecological hotspots, give to a conservation organization: http://www.saveourbiodiversity.com
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Tom Warren Posted 2:55 am
23 Sep 2006
biodiversivist's "because it instills in many of its readers a desire to save what remains of our biodiversity." is probably as good an answer as any for this forum. Kurmann knows this stuff very well and probably can guide you through a longer discussion.
I readily admit Quinn is not for everyone. If you're willing to give up Quinn's lyrical Joseph Campbell-like mythopoeia, you could get a more sanguine understanding of the same stuff from E.O. Wilson's new The Creation combined with Jensen's Endgame ... particularly if you wish to avoid Telepathic Gorillas. <g>
tom
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bookerly Posted 6:11 am
23 Sep 2006
Makes sense to me. Anything that helps instill that desire in people is okay, I guess.
But I agree we with Biodiversivist we need more "how to" at this point.
Not a fan of E.O. Wilson, but there it goes.. (smile).
Actually, I don't mind talking gorillas, but there is a tone to the book that didn't work on me (age maybe!!! (smile)).
patrick
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bookerly Posted 6:23 am
23 Sep 2006
I also have some problems with Quinn's political ideas, but I will wait for David to begin that discusssion (grin).
patrick
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 1:22 pm
23 Sep 2006
Since I have no reason to think you willfully misunderstood him, I'll assume this is due to his failure to understand how deeply our cultural mythology was embedded in people's minds when he wrote that book. He came to understand this after people started writing to him with their reactions to it and, as a consequence, his later books are more direct and emphatic. When asked if he'd pulled his punches in Ishmael, he replied that he'd learned instead that he needed to really "sit down" on his punches if his message was going to get through. There are major themes in Ishmael that many of his readers--including me the first time I read it--simply don't get because he wasn't clear enough to punch through his readers' acculturation. He's tried to remedy this by revising passages of the book each time it was published in a new edition (mass market paperback, trade paperback, and 5th anniversary hardcover).
The concepts Quinn used are Leavers, not Givers, and Takers, though he's since expressed regret at choosing those particular terms because they've been so widely misinterpreted. As Quinn originally intended, Leavers are those who leave the rule of the world in the hands of the gods while Takers are those who take the rule of the world into their own hands. Which doesn't really tell you what they do, of course.
As I understand it, the key difference between Leavers and Takers is that the latter (which Daniel Quinn, and you, and I, and almost certainly everyone who's read Ishmael are) have a worldview and lifestyle founded on growth without limit, progressively destroying, one after another, all other human ways of life (cultures) while wiping out species after species in the community of life (extinctions). This growth is absolutely essential to being a Taker.
In Quinn's formulation, Takers believe--that is, act as if--the world was made for them to conquer and rule. They also assume there is one right way to live--and it's their way, of course, meaning not only that they can wipe out other cultures but that to do so is a good and wonderful thing. [These first two characteristics of our culture are being questioned by growing numbers of people as time goes on and their destructive consequences become more undeniable, but they have by no means gone away.] And they practice what Quinn calls totalitarian agriculture, which treats all the food in the world as human food, placing no limits on the conversion of biomass into human mass.
In my view, the great value of Ishmael and Quinn's other four books on "saving the world" lies not in their literary attributes, the quality of which is a matter of opinion (I, personally, have enjoyed all but one of his books a great deal), but the fact that they attempt to get to the roots of our ecological crisis employing the discipline of systems thinking. Even more importantly, Quinn does this in a way that is intended to be much more accessible to the average person than your typical nonfiction treatise; that is, he dresses his ideas as fiction in three of those 5 "saving the world" books (the other two are mostly written for people who are familiar with his work) and voices them through characters one is intended to relate to and empathize with. I mean, let's face it: How many people read the average Lester Brown or Bill McKibben book? Ishmael, on the other hand, is a book that keeps chugging right along, passing from reader to reader.
Whether or not you agree or disagree with Quinn's conclusions as to what the root causes of our eco-crisis are, I think his application of systems thinking itself is a much-needed contribution to the great project of figuring out how to stop destroying the world--and ourselves as part of it. I'm not the only one who thinks so, either. Many others have been affected and moved by Quinn's insights, including such luminaries in sustainability circles as the late Donella Meadows (for those who don't know her name, she was a systems thinker, founder of the Sustainability Institute, and coauthor of The Limits to Growth and Beyond the Limits), Paul Hawken (author of The Ecology of Commerce: A Declaration of Sustainability and coauthor with Amory and Hunter Lovins of Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution), and Ray Anderson (CEO of Interface, a carpet manufacturer, and author of Mid-Course Correction: Toward a Sustainable Enterprise: The Interface Model.
It's been my experience that many long-time environmental activists don't get much out of Ishmael even if they enjoy it. I suspect this is because he doesn't give them anything concrete to do in the book other than share this new way of understanding the world and our place here; he's not one to produce a "50 simple things you can do" list, and those are the kinds of
"solutions" they're used to hearing. If they go past Ishmael, they'll also find that Quinn doesn't share their "protect the environment" mindset, nor does he endorse the kinds of tactics they traditionally employ, which largely center around lobbying for stricter legislation and regulation; in fact he critiques the inherent inadequacy of that approach. It seems to me that the kind of people who become committed activists often have very strong assumptions about the best ways to address our eco-crisis--that's why they are driven to act--and many seem resistant to accepting that these ways simply won't work. It's as if they think this would mean acknowledging that they've been wasting their time, though this isn't in fact the case.
My exploration of Quinn's ideas has profoundly changed the way I think and live as an activist. Before, I was a population growth activist and feared we'd never be able to grow enough food to feed 10 billion people by the middle of the 21st Century; now I understand that it would be a great tragedy if we ever grow enough food to feed 10 billion people because that will mean there will be 10 billion people--for a while.
I used to be an environmental activist working for stricter environmental laws and regulations in hopes of coercing people into treating the planet better, though I also assumed that people were selfish and greedy and shortsighted and destructive by nature so there was no real chance we'd ever succeed; now I understand that the negative feedback of such measures can, at very best, ameliorate the damage a bit. Only changing the root causes of people's behavior can actually end our world-destructiveness, and those root causes lie in our culture, not human nature.
I don't talk about our ecological crisis and solutions to it the way I did before Quinn's books helped me change my mind. I don't recommend the same sorts of remedies. I no longer reject the world and think of humanity as fundamentally flawed. I'm no longer an ethical vegan, nor a nominal Christian, as I was before being introduced to Quinn's work (especially Providence and The Story of B). My understandings of human history, economics, education and schooling, the human need to belong, and much more are dramatically different.
The world is sacred and I am sacred as part of it.
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 1:29 pm
23 Sep 2006
The world is sacred and I am sacred as part of it.
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David Roberts Posted 2:37 pm
23 Sep 2006
How, John? How? Quinn has convinced you to think so broadly and comprehensively about the system we're in that you've talked yourself out of every concrete action you used to take to make things better. Now you ... what? Float in pure understanding?
You say you now recommend new solutions. Well, what are they?
(I say all this as someone enormously sympathetic to your perspective and temperament. Ever since I wrote the original post I've been mulling how to approach the follow-up. Still haven't quite got a handle on it. But you're getting at some of the crucial points, so I'm going to Socratic dialogue you. Apparently you're into that sort of thing. ;)
www.grist.org
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bookerly Posted 4:10 pm
23 Sep 2006
Well John Fish Kurmann, I went and read the speech, and looked at some of his other writings...
Beyond factual errors (most people expect world population to peak below 9 billion not at 10 billion and above), there are some clear logical flaws.
He seems to assume that each person eats the same, and so requires the same amount of biomass. This is what I call the bourgeois American flaw.
It can't really imagine another life style. Note that vegan/vegetarians use much less resources than other people.
And food is hardly the only issue affecting biomass. There are idiocies like ethanol (especially corn based).
Take some of the tests wandering around about your ecological footprint (a good one will ask you lots of detailed questions, not just make assumptions).
See how different lifestyle choices can impact the planet.
Make your own choices.
Mr. Quinn at some point in his web site suggests we should not feed the people of Africa, because doing so encourages their population to grow (and more people is bad).
There are a number of reactions I had to these comments. If I ever cool down enough, I may share some of them. (grin).
I agree that Americans need to change our culture.
But like most Americans (blind in a world full of vision), Quinn makes assumptions about thought that the world does not all share.
There are other cultures in the world that don't automatically see themselves apart from nature, needing to dominate it.
Quinn, doesn't get it.
patrick
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Tom Warren Posted 3:07 am
24 Sep 2006
The range is 9.5 - 12 Billion for most informed projections. (E.O. Wilson in his latest uses several figures, but mostly uses 10 Billion.)
"He seems to assume that each person eats the same, and so requires the same amount of biomass. This is what I call the bourgeois American flaw."
Not a logical flaw, Patrick, just a bourgeois one. He "seems" to assume this by the simple act of averaging. (No matter how you cut it, we've all got a problem with our biomass requirement, n'est-ce pas?)
"Mr. Quinn at some point in his web site suggests we should not feed the people of Africa, because doing so encourages their population to grow (and more people is bad)."
You say that like it's a 'bad' thing. <g> Quinn has in other places made it clear that feeding Africa's endangered populations is something he is for. He is guilty of believing that more food = more people, however. ;-) Any reading of his Rats in a Cage experiment, etc. will lead some to mistakenly conclude that he recommends witholding emergency food aid. Not true. He's speaking more about all of us consuming less food; but, yeah, it is a hard point to acquire in a hurried reading of him.
"There are other cultures in the world that don't automatically see themselves apart from nature, needing to dominate it."
If you got it from reading Quinn that he doesn't understand that, you've rather fundamentally misperceived his thought. He's concerned with illustrating the dominant culture on our planet. However, if at this point you are counting on those few other cultures to be of significant influence as we move through the Bottleneck ... well, ...
but hey, okay, Quinn's not your cuppa tea. He doesn't "get it" in the way you require him to. Kewl.
tom
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Bart Anderson Posted 4:44 am
24 Sep 2006
Quinn is only one of a chorus of voices on the same theme. He is not very good at pointing to other sources of information. Be sure to read widely. If I were a teacher, I would assign other readings with Quinn.
He is not very good on specifics, particularly on proposed solutions. There are a huge number of efforts being made -- from alternative farming methods, to relocalization, to "simple living." Spend a few minutes on Google and you will find enough articles and ideas to keep you busy for a lifetime.
His quietism and passivity is disturbing, as David R. says.
Appreciate Quinn for his contribution, but recognize his shortcomings.
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bookerly Posted 10:59 am
24 Sep 2006
Dear Tom,
I have never seen any serious figures as high as 12 billion, the UN last I looked was using 8.7 billion, and this estimate has dropped (for a long time it was 9 billion). I am not a fan of E.O. Wilson, so don't know where he gets his figures or if he even says.
Why does it matter? In terms of sheer numbers, people who are population alarmists naturally prefer higher figures. 8.7 billion will be tough enough, but maybe doesn't sound as scary.
As to averaging, it does matter. Tom, I am going to average you with Bill Gates. My GOD!! I had no idea you were such a pig.
Now, I will average myself with an Indian peasant. Hey, cool, I consume almost nothing.
(For the sarcasm impaired, not Tom, the above were intended as illustrative only!)
So, averaging is not useful in this sense. In terms of biomass consumption, who the person is matters a great deal more. Additional Indian peasants will use less than additional McMansion owners.
If we lump them all together, we end up whitewashing the McMansion owners. This becomes a problem.
See, the problem is not the total number of people (though that is a problem), the problem is how those people live. And what values they have.
And as Americans, we are at the bottom of the moral pyramid in terms of our consumptive values.
I don't believe that more food equals more people. There are a number of flaws with this argument. One, is that why don't wealthy people who can afford unlimited food have more children?
Another is why do people in areas of food shortage have more children?
I'm not sure why Quinn doesn't seem to get this.
The US is the dominant culture right now in the world, but it is not the only one.
If you think that other cultures are not important, well, then you are an American!!! (grin)
There are many interesting things happening away from American influences, but you have to see them (and it is hard to do so while in America).
I prefer Brunner!
patrick
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 11:42 am
24 Sep 2006
For the record, your assertion that "most people expect world population to peak below 9 billion" isn't accurate. The U.S. Census Bureau currently projects that the most likely scenario for future growth (referred to as the medium variant; there are also low and high variants) will result in a population of just over 9.4 billion in mid-year "A.D." 2050, with growth continuing after then. Opinions do vary, however.
The United Nations Population Division's medium variant projects that the world's population will be nearly 9.1 billion in 2050, and, again, that growth won't have peaked at that point. Note those are projections only to 2050, so another 50 years to reach 10 billion from either 9.4 or 9.1 billion doesn't seem far-fetched to me.
Personally, I suspect, given the likely imminence of peak oil, the consequences of climate disruption, and other limits to growth we face, that we'll never reach 9 billion, though I may be too optimistic in that regard. Even if I'm right and we never get to 9 billion, we still may grow too much for the biosphere to sustain. We may already have, though I prefer to operate under the assumption we have not.
No, Quinn doesn't assume that people all consume the same amount of biomass, nor that all biomass conversion has occurred or will occur in the production of food. That'd be silly. Just because he doesn't state otherwise is no license for listeners/readers to infer ignorance of these facts on his part. He was writing a speech to an audience with the intent of delivering one particular message about the damage our growth is causing to the community of life and his view of one element driving our growth. You can't expect him to cover all related details in such a talk. If listeners (and now readers) wanted a more complete exploration of his ideas, they'd have to read his books.
It's also rather too simplistic for you to state "that vegan/vegetarians use much less resources than other people." I was a vegetarian and then a vegan for a total of about 11 years, so I know well the veg dogma on this issue because I've repeated it many times. They always compare their diet of choice to the typical American diet high in grainfed animal foods, which certainly does use a much greater amount of resources than a vegan or vegetarian diet. But the American industrial ag system is by no means the only way to procure meat and other animal foods, and much land would be far healthier and sustain more biodiversity if grazed by large herbivores than farmed for grains and beans.
You're not the first person to infer that Quinn "suggests we should not feed the people of Africa, because doing so encourages their population to grow (and more people is bad)." This is not at all the case based on my reading of his work so you're going to have to produce a quote where he states that. My understanding of his point about the connection between food production and population growth is this:
Most people think we must increase food production every year to "keep up with" population growth and "end world hunger," when, in fact, increases in food production fuel further population growth, which entails the conversion of biomass into human mass, destroying biodiversity and producing a rising wave of extinctions. These food production increases also fail to end world hunger because hunger today is not a result of inadequate food production but of socioeconomic conditions which prevent people from either providing their own food or buying food from others. Nowhere that I've seen--and I've read all his work on this subject that I'm aware of--has he said food exports to Africa or anywhere else should be stopped.
And Quinn certainly recognizes there are other cultures in the world that don't see themselves apart from the rest of the world (he doesn't accept the concept of "Nature"). That understanding is, in fact, fundamental to his work. There have always been humans living in other ways despite the fact that what he calls Taker culture has been progressively destroying cultural diversity right along with biodiversity.
The world is sacred and I am sacred as part of it.
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 11:53 am
24 Sep 2006
Quinn was writing a novel, not a nonfiction book with the customary bibliography, so, no, his books don't direct you to other sources. His website does to a certain extent, however, and he has explicitly encouraged his readers to check his work with other sources.
What exactly are you referring to when you accuse him of "quietism and passivity"? There's nothing passive about changing minds. As far as I'm concerned, it's the most dramatic and transformative thing one can do, and it's also by no means the only thing one can do. It's not "change minds" or do the other kinds of things more traditionally done in response to our ecological crisis. He doesn't forbid these sorts of actions, which he refers to as "programs"; he points out their inherent reactivity and inadequacy.
The world is sacred and I am sacred as part of it.
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 12:49 pm
24 Sep 2006
The vast majority of the people of our culture have a false understanding of human history and what it means to be human. They unquestioningly accept a false cultural mythology regarding the connection between food production and population growth. They mistakenly think humans are in some meaningful way separate from the rest of the community of life. All of these false ideas (and more) form the framework within which they think and are able to act. If you show them evidence those ideas are false, and they accept it, that framework begins to change, and all the thought and action they engage in begins to change as well.
Now, it's important to remember that what we have here is a cultural problem, so changing a small number of minds in this way can only change the trajectory of the culture a tiny amount. That's why many more minds still need to change before we have any chance of putting an end to our destruction of the world. Those who have been profoundly moved by Quinn's work (including, apparently, the person who recommended Ishmael to you) are continuing that effort. But, if enough minds do ever change in this sense, dramatic change in our culture is unstoppable.
Solutions? If enough minds ever change, you won't have to legislate and regulate pollution controls because people will understand that we cannot pollute the air and water and soil and hope to be healthy. They'll understand that we are animals, and so we'll be affected just as other animals are. And they'll do their best to find ways to do the things we need and want to do without producing anything worthy of the name pollution. Ideas like Zero Waste and "green chemistry" contain at least a measure of this understanding.
You won't need a Kyoto protocol because people will understand that we cannot keep jacking around with the climate, one of the basic life support systems of the planet, and hope to thrive in the future. They'll turn to ways of life (that term is meant to encompass lots of different kinds of change for brevity's sake) and energy sources that don't have catastrophic climate effects.
Once people understand that increases in food production fuel population growth, and that we cannot grow forever on a finite planet without killing it and ourselves like cancer kills the host it's part of, we'll stop working so damn hard to keep increasing food production. And it is hard work, no doubt about it. There are farmers and agronomists and plant breeders all around the world busting their butts to try to ensure we grow more food next year than this year.
Quinn wrote what I think is a very valuable speech explaining why this approach is the only way we can ever hope to solve the eco-crisis. Try as I might, I don't think I can yet say it better than he did, so here it is: "Protecting the Environment: Whose Business Is It?" If you want to see how I did try to say it several years ago, though, take a look at "Regulatory Wrangling and the Death of the World."
But don't misunderstand me or Quinn: There's nothing in the mandate to change minds that precludes doing other things to try to limit the damage in the meantime. It doesn't forbid strengthening the Clean Air Act, or getting the U.S. Senate to adopt the Kyoto Protocol, or whatever legislative/regulatory program you prefer. It just asks us to recognize that these kinds of measures cannot get us where we want to go, and suggests we keep working on the only approach that will. I, personally, don't spend much time on programs because I think my own talents as a writer and public speaker are best applied to changing minds rather than writing to the Bush administration and the guys who supposedly "represent" me in Congress, Rep. Sam Graves and Senators Christopher Bond and Jim Talent. But not everyone has the talent or temperament to write or speak in public about such things, so they may well spend more of their time on letter-writing and protests and direct actions while also passing these ideas to their circle of friends, family, and acquaintances.
What I'm talking about here comes straight from systems thinking, as I mentioned in an earlier post, so this seems like a good time to point to an article I really like by Donella Meadows titled "Places to Intervene in a System." I think Meadows both substantiates Quinn's approach and helps to explain why the mainstream environmental movement has failed to put an end to our world-destruction. If you find it helpful, her follow-up, "Dancing with Systems" might be, as well.
If you want more explanation or clarification, David, go right ahead and ask.
The world is sacred and I am sacred as part of it.
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Bart Anderson Posted 3:24 am
25 Sep 2006
There are lots of people presenting the kinds of "things to do" that you refer to. Why should he duplicate their work?Readers have asked for it.
He has a receptive audience that is ready to move on to the next steps. If his goal is change, he has passed up a golden opportunity.
There are different kinds of "things to do" lists. I would assume that he would favor those activities that focus on systemic change. For example, re-localization vs replacing lightbulbs.
Quinn was writing a novel, not a nonfiction book with the customary bibliography, so, no, his books don't direct you to other sources. His website does to a certain extent, however, and he has explicitly encouraged his readers to check his work with other sources.We have been trying to convince David that Quinn's works are not conventional novels and should not be judged according to those criteria. Are you trying to tell me that Quinn's novel can have a telepathic ape but not a bibliography? BTW, it's not at all unusual for a didactic novel to have an afterward or bibliography.
The books I saw recommended on his website tended to the philosophical rather than the practical and scientific.I don't think that Quinn has any problem with being didactic and giving advice. The problem is that he has not followed through and given more complete advice. What exactly are you referring to when you accuse him of "quietism and passivity"? There's nothing passive about changing minds. You're correct that his book-writing is not passive. I'm referring to his philosophy.
In dipping my toes into online discussion groups about Quinn a few years ago, I was struck by the high proportion of philosophizing to productive activity. "Changing minds" often turns into mental masturbation unless it is paired with action. If Quinn criticizes existing activism, it takes away his credibility if he has no alternatives to suggest. David pointed out that Quinn's effect on you seemed to be to reduce your activism. Was your energy re-directed into new activities? Which ones? Your answers might give us a better understanding of where Quinn could lead us. Apparently a book needs to be written: After Ishmael.
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 3:39 am
25 Sep 2006
Take the issue of food. Like many contributors to (I'm a big admirer of Tom Philpott's work, in particular), and readers of, Grist, I'm profoundly concerned about the catastrophic effects of the industrial food system: the air and water pollution, soil degradation, animal cruelty, exploitation of workers, direct human health impacts, greenhouse gas emissions, and so on. Now, I could (and once did) spend my time lobbying for, and prodding others to lobby for, stronger laws and regulations to address such things as petrochemical use, CAFO pollution, worker conditions, animal welfare standards, energy and resource efficiency, soil conservation, and so on. It wouldn't be "bad" or useless to do any of those things, mind you, but their effects would be limited, and they are all taken in reaction to bad things that are already happening--they're reactionary. The evidence of history has shown us the limitations of that approach. While some gains have been made, no doubt, the cumulative damage caused by industrial agriculture continues to grow. This is due to many factors, of course, not the least of which is that the greater weight of power in the halls of the nation's legislatures lies with those who profit from and support the current system.
Now, I'm not saying I never engage in any of the kind of advocacy work I've just described, because I occasionally do. I don't do much of it, though. Instead, I accepted an offer to serve in the governing body of an organization called the Kansas City Food Circle. Our mission is:
The Kansas City Food Circle is building a community food system in which farmers, eaters, chefs, and grocers know and trust each other. Our network enables us to share our knowledge and experience while we work together promoting the benefits of locally-grown organic and free-range foods. We cooperate in nourishing each other today while seeking to sustain the ability of future generations to nourish themselves through healthy farming practices.
Now, we're a small organization, with limited membership and budget, but the effects of our work, in combination with other such groups around the nation, are rippling far and wide. We are focusing on building an alternative community food system rather than on reforming the present transnational one, on proactive and visionary actions rather than reactive and programmatic ones. And that reminds me of my favorite Buckminster Fuller quote, which Quinn blessed me with in his book Beyond Civilization: Humanity's Next Great Adventure: "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."
Now, you might be saying to yourself: Big deal? Other folks are doing similar kinds of work focused on building alternatives to the present systems. Which is absolutely true. Quinn doesn't claim a monopoly on visionary action, nor to be a prophet dispensing received wisdom from a higher power that no one else has access to. It's not surprising, in fact, that others are coming to similar insights in their own ways; Quinn is a product of this same culture, after all.
The point of my story above is to illustrate how exposure to Quinn's work inspired me to change the way I thought and acted (admittedly, he had an easy time of it with me because it didn't take me long to become frustrated with the mainstream environmental movement's approach). More than that, he helped me to see the nature of social change, what needs to change, and what it's possible to change, very differently. And his work continues to help people change their minds, people who will, hopefully, go on to create a great many new visionary initiatives.
More examples of what look to me to be (to one degree or another) visionary alternatives:
Cradle-to-Cradle Design
Zero Waste Systems
The Precautionary Principle
Green chemistry
The Relocalization movement
Natural Capitalism
I'm not suggesting that everything done under each of these banners is visionary; heck, I can't possibly even know about all that. No, what I'm saying is that there's--at the least--a visionary kernel at the core of them all, and sometimes much more. And I don't know if any of them were created by someone inspired by Quinn's ideas, other than Natural Capitalism. One of the cowriters of the book by that name was Paul Hawken, who was influenced by Quinn's work and wrote cover blurbs for more than one of his books.
Ultimately, what's important is that the visionary initiatives expand and multiply, not whether Quinn directly inspired them. But his work is one way to help inspire such action by some people, and that's all to the good, in my view.
The world is sacred and I am sacred as part of it.
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 4:06 am
25 Sep 2006
I've addressed some of your points/questions indirectly in the post I was writing while you were posting. I do have a few more comments, however:
Quinn's concrete "what to do" book is Beyond Civilization: Humanity's Next Great Adventure. And he's done his best to answer his readers who have asked "What do I do now?" You may not like his answers, but he has answered that question and hundreds more on his website.
And I continue to disagree with you that Quinn's philosophy is "passive." In addition to the above, I think he answers that criticism quite effectively in his "Just Talk" essay.
Yes, Quinn certainly could've included a traditional bibliography in his books (well, maybe not Ishmael, because it was published through a contest). Would mainstream publishers have published them with bibliographies, though? Perhaps. Either way, he didn't insist on bibliographies as a condition of publication. I'm okay with that decision.
You wrote (how do folks create those cool boxes?):
In dipping my toes into online discussion groups about Quinn a few years ago, I was struck by the high proportion of philosophizing to productive activity. "Changing minds" often turns into mental masturbation unless it is paired with action.
I've been to some myself, and I know what you mean. Have you considered the possibility that the sort of people who aren't inclined to action of the sort you have in mind are precisely the sort to be drawn to such online discussions, though? Active people are doing other things, I suspect, so you're probably not getting a complete picture of the folks who've been inspired by Quinn's work.
The world is sacred and I am sacred as part of it.
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Tom Philpott Posted 4:11 am
25 Sep 2006
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Tom Philpott Posted 4:17 am
25 Sep 2006
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David Roberts Posted 4:22 am
25 Sep 2006
www.grist.org
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 4:29 am
25 Sep 2006
The world is sacred and I am sacred as part of it.
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Bart Anderson Posted 4:37 am
25 Sep 2006
Change people's minds and their actions will change.
(philosoophical idealism - ideas come first).
Social movements don't work this way. Changing people's minds is only one part of a complex process that involves much else: protests,
conflict, new legislation, luck, economics, underlying technological change.
One example: the ecological consciousness of the 70s only became widespread with the energy crisis. The ideas had been around for a decade or two.
Changing minds is the most effective strategy.
Many of us on Gristmill are fond of the written and spoken word. I think we overrate our own importance. I have been impressed with the wide variety of people who are working on this problem - scientists, farmers, political activists, regular people.
If change is not fast and clean, it is not real.
(For example, impatience with "regulatory wrangling")
It's understandable to be frustrated with the slow pace of change. I think it's a mistake, though, to give up and retreat into philosophizing.
As an alternative, I would suggest the strategy of the UK's Fabian Society, named after Quintus Fabius Maximus, the Roman general. The Fabian Strategy eschews direct confrontation and flashy campaigns in favor of persistent effort over the long term. The Fabian Society was an important architect of social democracy (reformist socialism).
All or nothing
("the mainstream environmental movement has failed to put an end to our world-destruction.")
It's common to expect long-standing problems to be solved immediately. No matter if the problem has been going on for 10,000 years, if it is not solved in a couple of decades, the strategy is declared a failure.
Unfortunately this short-sighted approach can lead to passivity or to self-destructive revolutionary violence.
Studying the trajectories of social movements in history gives one patience. Labor, feminism, minority rights -- all these took centuries to develop.
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Bart Anderson Posted 4:44 am
25 Sep 2006
Just want to point out that we all probably agree at least 90%. Talking about Quinn is a good way to draw out ideas.
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Tom Warren Posted 4:55 am
25 Sep 2006
"Dear Tom,
I have never seen any serious figures as high as 12 billion, the UN last I looked was using 8.7 billion, and this estimate has dropped (for a long time it was 9 billion). I am not a fan of E.O. Wilson, so don't know where he gets his figures or if he even says.
Why does it matter? "
It matters Patrick, because you made it matter by faulting Quinn for presenting 10 billion as not factual. It seemed to matter to you then as a way to object to him.
I'm a new guy here, so I apologize, until this exchange I didn't really understand the way you respond to folks by cherry-picking their words and publications based upon your biases. (Actually I agree with much of your sentiment about the population issues you raise. However, you must be wilfully really not looking if you've not encountered the 12 billion number.) A cursory glance reveals these, ranging in date from 1994 to this month:
http://www.acdis.uiuc.edu/Research/S&Ps/2001-Sp/S&...
http://www.ifpri.org/2020/briefs/number05.htm
http://www.ilea.org/leaf/richard2002.html
http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Feb04/AAAS.pimentel....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overpopulation
http://www.ecology.com/feature-stories/population/populat...
http://www.popco.org/press/articles/2004-1-un.html
http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/michael/blog/?p=174
You'll see I've included an explanation of the UN figure you are using, please note that it is the medium case scenario ....
Of course it is predictable that you will now say these are not 'serious' figures. ;-)That's okay; JFK is right to note we're prolly not gonna get to 9 billion anyway, and so hey, you win, Quinn is not factual!
As for the rest ... What Kurmann said.
I'm done on this, but thanks alot for allowing me to get an idea of how debate proceeds here.
tom
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 5:42 am
25 Sep 2006
It seems to me that you're also interpreting "changing minds" too narrowly. Introducing someone to the work of Daniel Quinn is only one possible way a mind will change over time. Other thinkers can and do also produce such effects, as do changing conditions (who would have changed their mind if there were no negative consequences to our way of life?), personal experiences, direct action campaigns, and many other factors. The people you refer to as taking action have in some sense changed their minds, whether or not they've ever made the acquaintance of a certain fictional telepathic gorilla. How do I know? Because people live what they think. If they've changed the way they live, they must also have in some sense changed the way they think, however much they do or don't articulate this change.
And I think I've made clear elsewhere on this page that I sure as heck haven't "retreat[ed] into philosophizing."
The world is sacred and I am sacred as part of it.
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caniscandida Posted 12:26 pm
25 Sep 2006
As I wrote way earlier in this thread, I know nothing about "Ishmael" and what it is supposed to accomplish, and I know nothing about Daniel Quinn and what his agenda might be. So it is not altogether clear why this subject has been introduced.
As was recently brought to my attention, some of us have big fish to fry; and perhaps a bit disrespectfully, it was suggested that some of us have bigger fish to fry than others. It seems to me that there is no need for us to stand around comparing the size of our fish. I think we should each of us agree that all of us have mighty impressive fish in hand, and let it go at that.
Bart wrote:
<<
Many of us on Gristmill are fond of the written and spoken word. I think we overrate our own importance. I have been impressed with the wide variety of people who are working on this problem - scientists, farmers, political activists, regular people.
>>
There is never enough good writing, good thought, good art. The more the merrier. I am unaware that anyone who writes in Gristmill in any form exaggerates his or her "importance." I am grateful for every contribution, and I recognize that everyone who contributes, and surely very many who read without contributing, are admirable activists in their own ways.
<<
It's understandable to be frustrated with the slow pace of change. I think it's a mistake, though, to give up and retreat into philosophizing.
>>
Well, I have no idea what Daniel Quinn wants us to do, but I strongly dislike the suggestion that philosophy is equivalent to feckless couch-lying and bonbon-munching. Philosophy is one of the four great vehicles of knowledge, and of self-expression, along with Art, Religion and Science. Condemn Philosophy, and you are stifling humanity.
I am not quite sure what "philosophizing" is supposed to mean. Is it indeed morally equivalent to masturbation? And is that a bad thing? Masturbation has many defenders, after all; indeed, countless, if what I am told is correct.
Does anybody masturbate in "Ishmael"? E.g., the human narrator, or the telepathic gorilla? Do they do it together? Are they next to each other on a couch, watching a porn video? Gorilla porn? Human porn? Ostrich porn? (Ew.)
<<
As an alternative, I would suggest the strategy of the UK's Fabian Society, named after Quintus Fabius Maximus, the Roman general. The Fabian Strategy eschews direct confrontation and flashy campaigns in favor of persistent effort over the long term. The Fabian Society was an important architect of social democracy (reformist socialism).
>>
Terrific suggestion. Fabius Cunctator, "the Delayer," "the Lingerer," "the Slow-Goer," among other possible translations of that honorary title, probably scored a decisive victory, in the long run, just by getting his guys to drag their feet up and down Italy, and showing up not quite in time. Compare also Tolstoy's hero, the Taoist Russian general Kutuzov, in "War and Peace." Same idea.
On activism vs. quietism: I dislike the suggestion that seems to be present here and there in what Bart has written, that people for whom thinking and writing and "philosophizing" are major moral vocations are somehow impeding the work of the "activists" -- as if they were a totally separate group of people, when in fact we all know every one of us is in one way or another an activist. I rather doubt that Bart intended that much.
If "quietism," a term that Bart used, is understood to refer to the lifestyle of people who tend to spend a lot more time reading things and writing things on computers, than organizing rallies in front of stores that sell SUVs and swordfish, then that is rather inaccurate and unfair.
Again, I have no idea to what this refers in "Ishmael."
Technically, "quietism" is an ethical opinion of certain Catholic types, mostly enclosed monks and nuns, who believed that a passive prayer life, intended to render the person at prayer totally submissive to the intervention of God's grace (cf. Bernini's famous "Saint Theresa of Avila in Ecstasy), was superior and preferable to any other kind of activity.
It is not at all obvious that anyone who has contributed anything to Gristmill believes that pro-environment activism is in any way a bad or deficient thing. So I cannot help wondering why in the world Bart might have wished to erect this straw man.
If Daniel Quinn says anything to that effect -- and I gather, from skimming John Fish Kurmann's messages, that he has not -- , then one might indeed question why any environmentalist would spend any time reading his books.
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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bookerly Posted 6:35 pm
25 Sep 2006
Dear Tom and John,
I guess I really hit a button with you. Let me explain somethings about population, numbers, and my relationship to them (grin).
And btw, feel free to "cherry pick" me an disagree, that's what the blogsphere is often about.
First of all, no one, neither myself or Quinn or even the UN knows how many people there will be in 50 years. That is almost 2 generations, and damn tough to predict.
I had said "last I looked" and at that time ( some years ago), the numbers were for 2040 and were indeed down around 8.7 billion. Some people think we will be back down to 8.7 billion by the end of the century.
http://www.populationeducation.org/gazette/Archive/2002/0...
But I do see the 9.4 billion estimate for 2050, and stand corrected. (smile).
However, and a big however.
Several things about population estimates. They are as much political as statistical. In the US, for instance (our country), anti-immigration activists routinely use the highest numbers to promote fear.
Often times they claim that population will continue to increase forever. Yet the most amazing story about population forecasts is not the exact numbers (too many variables), but the trends. Which are all downward.
For instance, six years ago, in China
China sees population peak in 50 years, then decline... (from 1.6 billion)
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/9349/n...
And more recently
China may peak at 1.45 billion, and earlier
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-12/28/content_3978...
As to 9.4 billion, if that is your number and mine was 8.7 (different years, alas, we should have specified years of peak.... which is something that no one knows (for what it's worth, the further into the future a prediction is made, the less validity it has (by me, you or anyone!)).
I am not a fan of Encarta (see elsewhere) but you may be (grin). From their discussion
"More recently, the UN Population Division has looked ahead to possible scenarios for population growth over the next 300 years. It concludes that, under the medium variant, world population would peak at 9.3 billion in 2075, and stabilize in about 300 years from now at around 9 billion. But such is the uncertainty of such long-range projections that the figure in 2300 could be as high as 36.4 billion, or as low as 2.3 billion."
http://uk.encarta.msn.com/text_761561241___0/Population.h...
I do have a problem with "it is conservatively estimated that we will reach 10 billion by the end of the century" presented as a factual statement.
But let's get to the meat of the numbers issue. Which is why it matters. Tom says it matters because I made it matter by attacking Quinn.
To me, it matters because numbers are used to drive politics, and when we have choices of lots of competing numbers, the ones we choice reflect our values as much as anything factual (since no one knows).
So, we have all demonstrated that we have sources for our numbers. What next?
We can exchange insults and go home (grin), we can try to figure out which number is right (answer, we really don't know), or we can set aside the number chase and go after the real issues around philosophy.
Up to you! (I pick number 3, but will play with number 2 if you insist.)
patrick
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bookerly Posted 6:42 pm
25 Sep 2006
My first negative reaction to Mr. Quinn came on reading the following
"As it presently stands, agriculturally abundant countries like ours are supporting growth in Third World countries in Asia, Africa, and South America (where all those starving millions are to be found). If we were to limit food production to a sufficiency for our own population, this support would disappear, and the starving millions would doubtless be the first to go. Your friends doubtless don't want to hear this. "
http://ishmael.com/Interaction/QandA/Detail.CFM?Record=73...
Have I misunderstood the intent of his remark? First of all, the remark is wrong. The US is not supporting population growth in Asia with it's agricultural abundance. Nor South America, nor really, Africa.
Secondly, I find the tone disturbing. Am I misreading? Please tell me how.
Or if you want to tell me how this statement is true, please explain.
Frankly, as someone who is "selling" a philosophy and a way of seeing the world, he should perhaps be more careful of how and what he writes. Else idiots like myself will get the wrong impression.
patrick
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Bart Anderson Posted 6:51 pm
25 Sep 2006
Let's assume that Quinn is right, that a new worldview is necessary. How can that worldview be spread?
I'd argue that the best place to look for answers is in the history of other worldviews: science, Christianity, humanism, Islam, socialism, Buddhism, etc. Over time, each worldview developed a complete culture around itself. The culture provides meaning for its members, as well as ways to participate in the culture.
We need a comprehensive Green Culture, incorporating: philosophy literaturetraditionsheroes and saintsart systems of law and moralityRight now, we have many of the parts of such a culture, but they are scattered and unaware of each other. Permaculture, Deep Ecology, ecology (the science), environmental movements within various religions, simple living, new schools of economics, green science fiction, environmental fiction, primitivism, relocalization, organic gardening/farming, green building, activism of various kinds.
Building a Green Culture means making connections among the member movements. By itself, each movement is limited and parochial. But together, in a common culture, the different movements can be world-changing.
Activism without an underlying philosophy leads to rudderlessness and burnout. Philosophizing without action is fruitless. Both need each other, and in a diverse culture, both are available.
A rich culture provides many different modes of activity in which to find meaning. In Medieval Christianity, for example, one could be a monastic, a scholar, a saint, a righteous ruler, a loyal subject. Shouldn't the same be true for a Green Culture?
(This is in reply to caniscandida's defense of philosophy. As you see, I don't disagree.)
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bookerly Posted 6:53 pm
25 Sep 2006
While I don't care for Mr. Quinn, it doesn't mean that I don't appreciate the good work being done by John or Tom Warren or any others that are inspired to work by Mr Quinn.
I tend to agree with Bart on most of this, and with CanisCandida, David and Tom Philpott.
And maybe with other posters higher up the chain.
Nobody has read Brunner?? Sigh....
patrick
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Bart Anderson Posted 7:09 pm
25 Sep 2006
YES! Great sf writer. Maybe that's why you and I agree - at least in this thread ;-)
In addition to the two works you mentioned above (The Sheep Look Up and Stand on Zanzibar), I liked Brunner's Shockwave Rider (the fore-runner of cyberpunk) and the under-appreciated Total Eclipse.
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bookerly Posted 7:52 pm
25 Sep 2006
Bart, first of all, I also am a big fan of his various books (Brunner's, and how come he never got a loyal following like Quinn (grin)?).
If we want to get to a green culture, we need to make sure it includes people of various kinds and is not limited to white middle class males (with an occassional guest "other"). This would require seriosly dealing with race, sexual and class (in no order) issues within American culture.
And then, there is the question of how to relate to folks in other countries.
(BTW, I am not accusing Bart of failing to do this, merely want to make sure it is all on the table, and that the table is built and designed by everyone!)
I have actually mixed feelings about a green culture. It seems to me that if we call it such, we tend to seperate the green culture from others, and then it tends to be in opposition to others. Maybe I am wrong.
I have sometimes wanted rather to make sure that every way we organize has a natural green component. (And I hope conservative would do this too, so we could agree on this issue, and fight it out on others!).
pace,
patrick
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 1:16 am
26 Sep 2006
For me (and for Quinn, I think), the issue remains the trend of continuing growth, despite the fact that growth appears to be slowing, and may even stop sooner than we can imagine right now (ominous music rises in the background). In fact, those of us who have long been warning that we're pushing the limits to growth aren't surprised at all that growth of various kinds is slowing. Still, it is continuing right now and even nearer-term projections (say 20 years out) for growth are to levels that are, in my view, both unsustainable ecologically and unsupportable when fossil fuel production begins to decrease. It seems clear to me that the sooner we end population growth the less chance there will be of a massive dieoff, and I'm all for avoiding that if it can be avoided.
The world is sacred and I am sacred as part of it.
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 1:34 am
26 Sep 2006
Quinn stated in a related Q&A the following:
Readers often tend to mistake observations for recommendations. I'm not doing anything like "proposing 'unlocking' the food" in MY ISHMAEL any more than I'm proposing to put a cap on food production in THE STORY OF B...I see myself as being like the Surgeon General who, in 1964 published the first definitive report linking smoking to cancer. He didn't say, "You must stop smoking," he just said, "Smoking puts you at tremendous risk." Like the Surgeon General, I don't make proposals, I just make connections. What people choose to do with those connections is up to them.
Regarding how Quinn sells his ideas, what can I say? He has seemed to me to be more curmudgeonly than necessary on a number of occasions, but he does put his pants on one leg at a time like the rest of us, and so he does have his own personality quirks.
Who is supporting the populations of countries around the world that don't grow enough food to feed themselves if not (in part) the United States, which, as I already noted, is the world's top exporter?
The world is sacred and I am sacred as part of it.
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bookerly Posted 3:34 am
26 Sep 2006
John,
I may be misinterpreting him, but frankly his own language (HIS, not mine) suggests that he thinks cutting the food chain would solve the problem. If he is writing for publication and to influence people, he should be more careful.
As to the idea that America feeds the starving world, this is simply not true. A lot of our food exports are at the high end, and go to be consumed as luxuries (beef to Japan, for instance).
Except for countries with specific weather problems (some of which, ahem, may be caused by us), or political problems (war), most countries can feed themselves. At least now.
In fact, poorer countries complain because they can't sell us surplus food as a means of eradicating poverty!!
So, we have a disconnect between our world views (America feeds the starving exacerbating population problems vs. America sells luxury high end foods and uses its import controls to keep the world in poverty).
patrick
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Bart Anderson Posted 4:09 am
26 Sep 2006
patrick: I have actually mixed feelings about a green culture. It seems to me that if we call it such, we tend to seperate the green culture from others, and then it tends to be in opposition to others. Good point. I think it's important to have interconnections with other worldviews - to be able to talk and form alliances with people who hold different opinions on other issues (pace Jason Scorse). Buddhism seems especially good at co-existing with other belief systems, and not setting itself in opposition. Might be a good model.
John Fish Kurmann: [Quinn] was pointing out the reality of the situation: If the U.S., the world's leading exporter of food, were to stop exporting food, those who are already starving would doubtless be the first to die.I think the dynamic is more complicated. For example, U.S. agriculture is now generating trade deficits (WSJ). Also, famines are probably more a result of government policy than overpopulation and natural disasters (for example, the Irish potato famine). See the work of Amartya Sen for scholarly analysis.
Food activists maintain that many food problems in the Third World are caused by the undercutting of local farmers by subsidized fossil-fuel agriculture in the U.S. and elsewhere.
At this point, I think that political-economic factors are more important than ecological ones.
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 8:00 am
26 Sep 2006
One thing, though: To my mind, we need not one Green Culture but many Green Cultures, each suited to its particular place of the world. That's the only way they can, in fact, truly be green as far as I'm concerned.
The world is sacred and I am sacred as part of it.
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 9:07 am
26 Sep 2006
When dealing with plain text, there's always the question: Is the author implying something more, or am I inferring a meaning s/he didn't intend? Absent the ability to ask the author what s/he had in mind, I try not to make conclusions about implications. If it's not stated explicitly, it's not stated, as far as I'm concerned. And Quinn has nowhere stated explicitly that he favors cutting off food exports; in fact, he's stated explicitly that he is not advocating any such thing.
As a writer myself, I can attest to the difficulty of anticipating how readers might interpret one's words. Too many readers with too many of their own biases, preconceptions, prejudices, and so on to head 'em all off before they go astray. But Quinn and I do try to anticipate these kinds of misunderstandings.
I'm not sure it makes any sense to talk about our differences on U.S. food exports as differences in worldviews. They're disputes over facts, and worldviews aren't matters of fact but of meaning.
Unfortunately, as it turns out, the facts aren't as easy to find as I expected. I've Googled and Googled trying to come up with a clear and concise summary of what the U.S. exports and where it goes and failed. I'm not willing to spend hours wading through U.S. Department of Agriculture data for a post few people besides you will likely read. If you know of a summary of that sort, please share it, Patrick. Anyone else is welcome to do so, too.
I did find some info on food aid for "A.D." 2005 which is interesting. Here's a quote:
Food aid, which by definition must be either free or sold at "concessional rates," currently constitutes less than two percent of all food trade internationally and a tiny 0.015 percent of world food production.
Total food aid deliveries last year came to 7.5 million metric tons, down from 10.2 million metric tons in 2003. Of those totals, two-thirds consisted of emergency aid for dealing with natural or human-made disasters in 2003; 59 percent was emergency aid last year.
The United States, which provided a whopping 56 percent of all food aid last year, is far and away the largest supplier. It is followed by the European Union with 20 percent, Japan (eight percent), and South Korea, Canada, Australia, and China, each of which accounted for about 2.75 percent of the global total.
Apart from South Korea, the U.S. is alone among donors in selling part of its food aid, instead of giving it away...
...Last year, the major recipients [of global food aid] included Ethiopia, North Korea, Sudan, Bangladesh and Eritrea.
We may just have to agree to disagree unless I happen across a clarifying article somewhere.
The world is sacred and I am sacred as part of it.
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 9:26 am
26 Sep 2006
The world is sacred and I am sacred as part of it.
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bookerly Posted 10:22 am
26 Sep 2006
John,
One of the problems I have with Quinn is his choice of language as I have stated before. But let me clarify a bit.
There are people on the right who oppose feeding starving people (some of them pose as population activists, or immigration activists). Sadly, the population control movement has a long history of ties to the eugenics movement. The oft quoted Malthus was deeply concerned by the growing numbers or not only people, but especially by the growing numbers of those people he considered genetically inferior. (Guess what color they were!)
This being the case, people who talk about population should be especially sensitive to language and its implications.
If they are not, they will find themselves "misunderstood" (maybe) by others. The major population groups are very aware of these issues and are careful as a result.
Quinn should be as well. For instance he says "If the coming oil crisis results in a global famine and the death of billions (which is not unthinkable, though I personally am reluctant to make predictions about the future), then this would not work AGAINST saving the world, it would work FOR it."
http://ishmael.com/Interaction/QandA/Detail.CFM?Record=70...
How can I interpret this except as thinking that the death of billions would be a good thing for the world? And that given his belief that people are starving in Africa, Asia and South America, that most of those deaths would be non-white people?
Either he is the most insensitive person ever, or what??? Can you explain this?
patrick
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bookerly Posted 10:33 am
26 Sep 2006
I doubt that US corn ends up in Chinese feedlots for animals. I suspect that most of it ends up in flour products for making different kinds of bread (or even some in the local porridge called "jiu" which is a staple).
You are making the mistake of thinking of China and Chinese agriculture as being just like the US, but in a different place. There are other choices for corn than "
But be careful, it is not that the US is feeding "starving China", it is that some products are grown in the US that China does not produce, and that by importing them, the variety of the local diet is improved.
Just as the fruit and vegetables and other crops (coffee, tea anyone?) that go to the United States are not intended to prevent you from starving (grin).
China has eliminated starvation (but not poverty), as have most countries of the world (not affected by weather or local political conditions).
Look closely at the food aid information, food aid is not directed towards India or China (together about 30% of the world's population) or even towards all African nations (many of the most populous do not receive ANY food aid).
Most agricultural trade these days is about variety and seasonability.
patrick
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Tom Warren Posted 12:12 pm
26 Sep 2006
For instance he says "If the coming oil crisis results in a global famine and the death of billions (which is not unthinkable, though I personally am reluctant to make predictions about the future), then this would not work AGAINST saving the world, it would work FOR it."
http://ishmael.com/Interaction/QandA/Detail.CFM?Record=70....
How can I interpret this except as thinking that the death of billions would be a good thing for the world? And that given his belief that people are starving in Africa, Asia and South America, that most of those deaths would be non-white people?
Either he is the most insensitive person ever, or what??? Can you explain this?"
Ohhh Patrick, a little too much truth for ya? I do believe we've caught you thinking anthropomorphically rather than biospherically. Is there a human population problem or is there not?
Would the "world" be better or worse off if 4-5 billion people left it? Certainly the whales would like to see a few less of us, I believe. I'm pretty sure the few remaining gorillas would like some of us to go away too. (They prolly won't care if the deaths are pretty or not.)
Can you give us a plan to prevent the deaths of those billions? If ya have a sound one, I will personally drag Quinn into our camp and make him help implement the plan. Otherwise I'm gonna try to reconcile his plan with another guy you'll find insensitive too: Derrick Jensen.
Quinn isn't rooting for the deaths, nor is he rooting for the casualties to be non-white. He's simply stating a rather obvious fact. Insensitive? Yeah, if you think that it's insensitive to tell a terminal cancer victim that he ought to write out a will ....
best,
tom
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Tom Warren Posted 12:27 pm
26 Sep 2006
... and something more about the Africans and Asians being more at risk.
If you don't buy Quinn's more food = more people scenario, then just quit reading here, okay?
JFK and I have a bit o' a disagreement about Quinn's stance on food. I and a friend of mine have coined the "Right Side Rats" argument that food distribution is the real culprit. Kurmann objects, but I'll let him tell ya why. ;-)
But in a nutshell here's my argument, based upon a belief that in fact more food does indeed unavoidably mean more people and that one can humanely mitigate population growth by ratcheting down the food supply as long as there is equity in distribution. (Kurmann always goes apoplectic at this <g>)
Here's the deal:
Don't produce more Big Macs nor produce them at a faster rate. Just send more of the same supply of Big Macs to Darfur, Bangladesh, etc etc. and send less of them to 9th grade cafeterias in North American/European suburbia.
(And don't gimme crap about using unhealthy Big Macs as the example)
Cheers,
Tom
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 1:51 pm
26 Sep 2006
The Question (ID Number 702)...
I recently read about Peak Oil. The theory states that we will soon (within ten years) run out of cheap oil, which is the basic resource for everything in our modern society and most importantly, our modern agriculture. The result of the oil-induced collapse will be (literally) billions of deaths. What is your opinion on this? Is it too late to save the world now?
...and the response:
As I understand the term, saving the world means preserving it as a viable home to life, including human life. At the moment, the greatest threat to this goal is the continued uncontrolled growth of the human population. I personally doubt that even our present population is sustainable, since it is by now well known that, because of our impact on the earth, we are in a period of mass extinctions. To sustain our six billion, so much biomass is being taken from the species around us that we are seriously attacking the diversity of the living community that makes the earth a viable home to life, including our own. Thus you have to see that maintaining and increasing our population of six billion is not at all equivalent to "saving the world." If the coming oil crisis results in a global famine and the death of billions (which is not unthinkable, though I personally am reluctant to make predictions about the future), then this would not work AGAINST saving the world, it would work FOR it. The period of mass extinctions would come to an immediate end. Civilization would be devastated, of course, but human life would not disappear. The alternative of continued human growth to an anticipated twelve billion would, I feel sure, produce a much more dire future and a general and irreversible ecological collapse that would doom all or most large terrestrial organisms like mammals, including humans.
The explanation is in bold. If the only choices we have are either continued growth--the ongoing conversion of more and more of the world's biomass into human mass, and a resulting mass extinction (which, as I recall, means the extinction of half or more of the total number of species)--OR a dieoff of billions of humans due to a petroleum crash, he'll take the latter--and so will I.
That doesn't mean he and I want either one to happen. As I've posted before, what he wants to happen is a "New Renaissance," and I'd be pleased as punch with that myself, yes I would.
Quinn is not responsible for the fix we're in, with 800 million malnourished people (I didn't check but I think that's still the current estimate), the population still growing by 76 million per year, biologists telling us we're in the early stages of causing the 7th Mass Extinction in the history of the world, and peak petroleum perhaps already here. Our way of life is responsible for that. Is it insensitive for him to try to get us to face reality in time to avert the most horrific of outcomes? I don't think so. And surely you understand that a 7th Mass Extinction would also cause billions of human deaths, quite possibly a greater number of billions than a petroleum crash because the population will likely be larger before it comes to that. And there's no guarantee that Homo sapiens wouldn't be one of the species wiped out in such an extinction.
I wouldn't be so sure that a crash caused by declining petroleum production would result primarily in the deaths of materially poor people of color, either. We in the industrialized world are the ones with lifestyles utterly dependent on the availability of cheap and abundant petroleum, not those folks. And most of us (me included) have no real survival skills if the power and water stop working and the supermarkets go bare. Many of those "poor" people could still fend for themselves if only the socioeconomic system the U.S. and its allies have jammed down the world's throat would just get the hell out of their way, and a petroleum crash would likely bring it down hard.
The world is sacred and I am sacred as part of it.
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 2:01 pm
26 Sep 2006
Now, I'm not saying this could happen overnight. There'd have to be a transition period, because people who've been driven from their land won't immediately be able to go back to feeding themselves. But that's the only real solution I can see: Relocalization everywhere.
The world is sacred and I am sacred as part of it.
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 2:34 pm
26 Sep 2006
Most agricultural trade these days may be for the purposes of variety and to provide fresh produce during the off-season when measured in monetary terms, but is that the case when measured in total quantity of food traded? I don't know, but I wonder. The kinds of food imported by materially poor countries that cannot feed themselves are grains--commodity crops--the production of which is highly subsidized in the U.S., resulting in artificially low prices. On the other hand, foods shipped to wealthier countries for the sake of variety and during the off-season are typically high-value items like tropical fruits & nuts, cocoa, coffee, tea, etc. This imbalance in the monetary value assigned to the different sorts of crops being traded between industrialized and less-industrialized countries needs to be taken into account.
I could Google up more info about all this but I have to get up early so I'm goin' to bed.
The world is sacred and I am sacred as part of it.
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bookerly Posted 10:54 pm
26 Sep 2006
Dear John,
See the comments of your ally Tom Warren, and understand why language matters.
Dear Tom,
Why is it people always think the world will be better off with several billion "others"? Not you (you might include me in the "better off without" (grin))?
Ironically, global warming (created largely by a relatively small percentage of the world's population (US and some of Europe) will have a more negative effect on people than sheer numbers.
And many of them will not die passively, but will migrate North. Welcome your new neighbors, and try not to tell them that you expected them to lie in place and just die.
Anyway, Tom, your truth, not mine. Apparently we don't live in the same world! HeHe (Chinese for HaHa).
Back to John
John, while I did not include the whole Quinn answer for brevity, the impact of his language remains the same. Not to you perhaps, but it raised the hair on the back of my neck. For a guy who doesn't advocate mass deaths, he sure "wink" "wink" talks about it a lot.
Am I being unfair? Maybe, but he established a tone again and again by use of intermperate or insensitive language. If he really wants to communicate with large numbers of folks, he needs to consider how best to do so.
I am glad YOUR green culture includes a diversity of folks, I see no sign of such diversity in Quinn's writings. (It may be there, but the negative insensitive writings popped up quickly and repeatedly, the other did not).
Note that Quinn says the "he alternative of continued human growth to an anticipated twelve billion would, I feel sure, produce a much more dire future" (the alternative to the death of billions). If suggesting that the deaths of billions is preferable to the current population trends (and he is choosing the worst case scenario), is not troubling, than we have a serious divergence of viewpoints.
Because it suggests that he considers a mass dieoff the preferable alternative. And if he has others, he should write differently.
The man could be a good guy, but he talks too much like what I consider among the worst trends in what I call neo-environmentalism. This is those who's main concern is preserving their way of life and their privileges without regare for humanity as a whole.
patrick
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bookerly Posted 11:12 pm
26 Sep 2006
Dear John,
There are numerous grains grown in China, including sorghum, millet, rice and wheat. I have no idea what people feed cows, but think that imported corn is among the least likely crops, due to expense.
Yes, China meat consumption has increased (and with it obesity and various health problems). But there is probably as much pork and poultry eaten as beef. And farms are small (mostly), so herds are small. Which again, makes imported corn an unlikely feed source.
Some articles about corn consumption in China.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-08/22/content_4994...
http://www.wanfangdata.com/report/vpro.asp?id=532
http://english.people.com.cn/200608/23/eng20060823_295942...
http://www.fas.usda.gov/grain/circular/2004/05-04/grainto...
The last article suggests that lower Chinese production will help US exports (presumably to other countries, since China was a net exporter).
BTW, one of the things you need to understand about China is that it is a big country. It may export corn in the NorthEast will importing in the SouthWest (I made this up, to illustrate size, not as an actual example) due to the proximity of local buyers and suppliers in other countries.
http://www.farmdoc.uiuc.edu/marketing/grainoutlook/html/0...
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/35430/...
http://www.chinaccm.com/4S/4S14/4S1401/news/20060111/1805...
http://www.fapri.org/bulletin/jan99/chinaWorldGrainMarket...
http://www.farmdoc.uiuc.edu/marketing/weekly/html/021604....
Note that the above suggests that China compete with the US in exporting corn to Korea, Indonesia and Malaysia.
Anyway, this should give you enough to read as you wish.
FWIW, the statistics about exports and imports are complicated, but as far as I know, given the size of Chinese corn production (even falling a bit) there is little liklihood that imports would go to the animal feed market (I can of course be wrong, and welcome additional evidence).
BTW, I searched on google using ("corn consumption" China)
One of the problems with Quinn that I have is that I find his analysis of food production and issues related to food to be overly simplistic and wrong.
patrick
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occassia Posted 5:22 am
27 Sep 2006
Activists are, by definition, passionately committed to the work we do. We don't like to hear that, at best, our work will produce only short-term gains. And that's what Quinn is saying, damn the man. We are only rearranging deck chairs if, while engaged in good work, we are not also working to change deep cultural assumptions about how the world operates and what role we play in it.
Lisa
occassia-- Singer Creek Canyon, Willamette Valley, Pacific Plate
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 1:21 pm
27 Sep 2006
And, no, the death of billions in the near-term due to a petroleum crash is not more troubling to me than the death of billions due to a mass extinction (possibly including humans) in the longer-term. And now I go back to trying to avert both scenarios.
The world is sacred and I am sacred as part of it.
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 1:35 pm
27 Sep 2006
The world is sacred and I am sacred as part of it.
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bookerly Posted 5:00 pm
27 Sep 2006
Dear John,
Hmmm, I knew I hit a nerve (grin). It was the part about anti-immigrant activists who masquerade as population activists, eh?
My last post on this subject is this link to a Quinn page carrying an article from NPG (Negative Population Growth), which is primarily NOT a population orgranization, but an anti-immigration organization.
http://www.ishmael.com/Education/Science/tightening_confl...
patrick
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Tom Warren Posted 10:40 pm
27 Sep 2006
I like presenting my simplistic food redistribution scheme because it doesn't address reality reality. "Whut?" You say? Yeah, when one pokes holes in it, such as your sadly accurate "I mean, let's face it, we're not going to starve people here to feed the starving millions anyway." it illuminates all the holes in other, more complicated, schemes too. Most of 'em are as easily shot down, where in a more benign world all of them would work ... I like the "portability" of the criticisms. It tends to make comprehension of Quinn's truths about less benign reality easier to acquire. (The Taker Thunderbolt was never airworthy to begin with!)
Such criticisms are easy. There's a problem, too, with your: "Consequently, land redistribution would be a far more powerful way to remedy the situation than simply redistributing food from countries where most people have too much food to eat (like the U.S.) to those where people are malnourished." All the NGOs cringe at the distraction of land reform, feeling frustrated enough to grab people by the shoulders and shake 'em till they "get it" that the malnourished need the food now and won't be around to plant crops when the sunny day comes that there is land reform.
I suppose I'm saying you have to work with the Big Macs we have on hand at this exact moment if ya wanna avoid some of those billions starving in 2006 (I am not alone in this observation <g>) It's all so frustrating, paticularly when one begins to comprehend that we're prolly chasing the tiger of more food = more ... uh ... "others". (hee hee)
So, I guess, what? ... we send 'em existing Big Macs now only until we get the desertification-due-to-global-warming problem under control and have convinced the wealthy land holders to give back some land to the malnourished? We've got a lot of work ahead to avert the deaths of those billions Patrick thinks it's so callous of Quinn to talk about!
Oh and a note to ya, Patrick: Aside from the "cherry picking", as you grow up you'll discover that it's also not helpful to project questionable intent and false implications on to others when building your straw men. You have no idea whether I include myself in those billions of deaths or not, you simply find it convenient to assume I don't. This is particularly vexing to me since I rant so much about 'Triage' being the better choice than 'survivalism'. :-(
I'd hurl the age-old complaint at you that they used to hurl at Socrates, "Deal with the argument!" but, as you say, that's not the way it's done in the world of the blogosphere. It's much more satisfying to toss red herrings (or is it carp?) from the safety of the sidelines.
However, since I sit tonight in that nasty tower overlooking the Strip in Las Vegas, barely able to move after being hyperstuffed at a buffet with enough food to feed a refugee camp in Darfur, I do sympathize with your concern that perhaps I might not suffer the fate of the soon-to-be-starving billion "others" quite so rapidly, should Mr. Kurmann's land redistribution scheme fail. I hope your scheme comes to my - and their -rescue.
Indeed.
best,
Tom
temporarily Las Vegas, not
Pleasant Hill, Oregon
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kmp Posted 12:50 am
28 Sep 2006
So dust off those old copies of To Kill a Mockingbird, Catcher in the Rye or The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, fall back into a comfy chair, and read a banned book today! Maybe, just maybe, Ishmael is somewhere on the list....
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amazingdrx Posted 12:54 am
28 Sep 2006
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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amazingdrx Posted 2:13 am
28 Sep 2006
Remember Tom Paine! Oh yee of the electronic phampheteering!
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2006/9/28/...
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 1:29 pm
28 Sep 2006
Just because you say Negative Population Growth (NPG)is an "anti-immigrant" organization doesn't make it so. They are, in fact, an organization concerned about population growth which focuses primarily on the U.S. Opposing further U.S. population growth--in fact, favoring U.S. population reduction--they are in favor of reducing current immigration levels, making them, perhaps, anti-immigration (though that's a crude oversimplification), not "anti-immigrant." If a family asks to move into your house and you say no, does that necessarily mean you dislike them personally? Of course not. It means you want to decide how many people can live in your house, and you already have as many residents as you think your house can support--maybe even too many.
Why does NPG focus on immigration? First, because immigration (both legal and illegal) currently adds over a million people a year to the U.S. population. More importantly, the U.S. Census Bureau projects that immigration in combination with higher fertility rates among immigrants are projected to be the primary drivers of future growth.
While I don't expect you to change your mind, Patrick, other readers are welcome to judge for themselve by going to NPG's site. And, no, I'm not a member of this or any other organization that favors reducing immigration, though I also favor reducing immigration. And, no, I don't have anything against folks with darker skin than honkies like me.
The world is sacred and I am sacred as part of it.
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 1:38 pm
28 Sep 2006
The world is sacred and I am sacred as part of it.
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Bart Anderson Posted 6:21 pm
28 Sep 2006
While this strategy of "agreeing to disagree" is often a great idea for individuals, it is an inadequate response for intellectuals or writers.
Maybe it's a good time for us to take a respite, and mull things over.
However the issues that have been discussed are important and need to be written about with more rigor and depth.
For example, the attitudes that disturb some of us in Quinn are not restricted to him alone. They are a significant trend in the environmentalism. I'm thinking of the various lifeboat theories, such as that of Garrett Hardin.
The sentiments are sometimes expressed by Deep Ecology and peak oil advocates, survivalists, primitivists, etc.
The late Donella Meadows had a similar worldview to Quinn, as JFK points out, but she seemed to have a more developed social consciousness. See, for example, her short essay Who Causes Environmental Problems?
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amazingdrx Posted 10:47 pm
28 Sep 2006
I confess that if I encounter propagandizing that attempts to hide these key disagreements, I prod (waterboard) the suspect (wing nut) until they reveal the actual point of disagreement.
For instance: When a netizen says, "we can't determine wether global warming is nature or human caused."
I do not argue global warming, charts and graphs. I try to elicit the real disagreement behind the attacker.
I poke 'em with this. I say, "you think global warming is a liberal conspiracy, right?"
Then they talk up. the talking points roll out and you know it's just a Limbaugh rerun. Moveon. Hehey. Nothing to argue here.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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caniscandida Posted 11:03 pm
28 Sep 2006
This little essay is written with a remarkably graceful, self-effacing punchiness, and an exhilarating desire to embrace all humankind, to comprehend where we all stand as Actors and as Acted-upon. Meadows' metaphor of the lens, as an imperfect tool, helping us see very well in one regard, but not well at all in another, teaches a most valuable lesson, that humility and compassion are always necessary companions of forthright activism.
Does Daniel Quinn write half so clearly and winningly? I gather, from many comments in this thread, that he does not. But I am in no position to judge.
I do indeed trust the judgment of Bart, however, and would most certainly welcome attending another forum, in which the prodigious energies of John and Tom and Patrick may be refocused on some of the themes that have appeared already, and others perhaps that await discovery.
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 11:27 pm
28 Sep 2006
I don't see anything in the Donella Meadows essay you cited, Bart, that is either a revelation to me or would be to Quinn if you sent it to him. Nor have I ever seen him reduce our predicament to the I=PAT formulation. I can't imagine he ever would because there's nothing in there about the overriding influence of worldview, which is central to his work.
I do hope no one here will base their opinions of Quinn's work on those who dislike it alone. It's quite easy to judge for yourself the clarity of his writing and his tone and to evaluate his message. If you're unwillng to check one of his books out from the library, he has a collection of essays, speeches, and dialogues online.
The world is sacred and I am sacred as part of it.
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Bart Anderson Posted 7:39 am
29 Sep 2006
Quinn is lucky to have a staunch advocate John Fish Kurmann!
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bookerly Posted 11:15 am
29 Sep 2006
Folks can always move on to another forum by not posting. But there are important (to some of us) issues here and we need to delineate them.
(And as an aside, I love the Donella Meadows article, it speaks to many of the things I regularly blog here.)
The anti-immigration trend in the US is a critical issue and one that environmentalists have tended to shy away from (though David Roberts did attempt to discuss the issue at one point).
Here is a link to an overview of the movement.
http://www.homestayfinder.com/Dictionary.aspx?q=immigrati...
And an article about the conflict within the environmental movement.
http://www.homestayfinder.com/Dictionary.aspx?q=immigrati...
There are many important issues involved here including issues of race, population, nativism and the environment.
It is a passionate debate with few friendships across the aisles (so to speak).
This debate speaks to why there is an environmental movement and an environmental justice movement and why they rarely intersect.
patrick
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 4:28 pm
29 Sep 2006
To think immigration levels need to be reduced in order to stop U.S. population and consumption growth isn't "anti-immigration" in any cold-hearted, mean-spirited way. My view is that the best thing we can do for people in other countries who see their best current option as emigration to the U.S. is to enable them to live better lives in their homelands. Not to callously give them the back of our hand but to do what is within our power to help them stay where they are and thrive.
As I see it, allowing more than a million immigrants to settle in the U.S. every year--primarily at the behest of those who profit from the willingness of many immigrants to work for low wages--isn't ultimately in anyone's best interest, and certainly not in the interest of achieving sustainability here,
I've expressed my views on immigration in my own writing, though I haven't written anything new on the subject in 5 years; but, then, the situation hasn't really changed much over that time. One of my takes on it was "What Future for the Melting Pot?" and another was "The Other Face of Immigration."
One thing which has changed is that the U.S. is now estimated to be on the verge of reaching a population of 300 million and is gaining one additional resident every 10 seconds (due to a combination of birth and immigration rates) according to the U.S. Census Bureau. One need not be "anti-immigrant" to be gravely concerned about the consequences of this growth.
The world is sacred and I am sacred as part of it.
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bookerly Posted 5:18 pm
29 Sep 2006
Dear John,
Population growth and immigration are not the same issues. One is related to how many people there are. One is related to where those people are. Not the same thing, at all.
In fact most legitimate (my choice of words) population organizations stay away from the issue of immigration for two reasons, it has no relevance to their work (which is global in nature) and the ties of many in the anti-immigration movement to racist and nativist organizations and ideas (no, I am not accusing you of this, but look closely at your allies).
The Southern Povery Law Center (scourge of hate groups) considers much of the anti-immigration trend in this country to be similar to other types of "hate". They even have a special newsletter devoted to it. They call it Immigration Watch.
http://www.splcenter.org/intel/news/item.jsp?aid=81
The idea that consumption is tied to immigration is unfortunately wrong. If you moved to Mexico and consumed like the average American inside the United States, you would not change your impact on world resource usage.
Immigrants to the United States often fall into two categories, the poor undocumented, and the relatively well off who come for reasons of family or for school/work. People who are well off who migrate to the United States, may very well have lived similar lifestyles (in terms of consumption) in their home countries. Changing where they live does not affect issues like global warming.
For the poor undocumented, many of them continue to live at the bottom of the heap, consumption wise, and add very little to the US consumption picture at least initially.
The only way consumption matters is if, somehow, people can be persuaded to live in poverty in other countries.
This is not going to happen. (Forget about whether it is wise, fair or just).
A few of my students are "temporary" immigrants to the United States, where they come to study or work for a period of time. Some may stay, some will return. I am a migrant myself.
In fact, an unknown number of Americans live, work and study in other countries. I assume you would call for them all to return and consume inside the United States? (Canada generally lists about a quarter of a million, numbers for Mexico range from 125,000 (probably too low) upwards to one million (almost certainly way too high!).
Ironically, the Native Americans are not impacted by immigration as much as they are impacted by the continued theft of their resources by.... (guess who... we can all look in the mirror on this one!).
Nor are poor Americans (we can go into this more if you like (grin)).
There is no such thing as sustainability in one nation (unless you stop consuming anything made with resources from other countries).
Even regional sustainability makes more sense across "national" borders (San Diego is part of Mexico, Seattle part of Canada, the Great Lakes region is on it's own (grin)).
BTW, how would you "enable people to live better lives in their homelands"?
A few of my Native American Indian friends insist it is not too late for you to go back to Europe (me too!!) (grin).
They look at the way Americans treat the land and sincerely believe we have no connection to it... (FWIW).
I may not get "to decide" who other people are. But I do get to call it as I see it. I spent a number of years on this issue and am quite familiar with many of the players (grin)..
pace,
patrick
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 2:01 am
01 Oct 2006
I think it's pretty well-established that most people who immigrate to the United States do so in order to improve their standard of living. Yes, some immigrants are refugees from political persecution, genocide, and other horrors, but they are far fewer in number than those who migrate for economic reasons. The majority of immigrants were materially impoverished in their home countries, saw little or no hope of improving their lot because of repressive economic and governmental institutions, and left their homelands in hopes of doing better elsewhere. They came to the U.S. because, for all this nation's faults, it is still possible for motivated individuals to work hard and become financially successful. In other words, yes, it does typically make a difference in an individual's consumption levels whether or not someone migrates to the U.S.
The greater effect on U.S. aggregate consumption from immigration is due to the fact that immigrants, generally speaking, have higher fertility rates than native-born Americans. Moreover, the Center for Immigration Studies asserts that immigrant women from 7 of the top-10 sending countries have higher fertility rates than women who remain in those countries. This isn't surprising to me: If your economic future brightens, having a larger family becomes more feasible.
Now, given that I think of the U.S. as the most overpopulated nation in the world--being both the third most populous nation (after China and India) and near the top in per capita consumption levels--I also am convinced that U.S. population growth needs to stop. Well, you can't stop U.S. population growth without addressing immigration levels. We need not do so through punitive measures against individual immigrants, however.
Regarding Americans who live in other countries, it's up to the people of those host countries to determine whether or not they want the Americans to stay. Some of them may decide that what they gain from the Americans' presence outweighs any burdens the Americans impose. I'm in no position to say one way or the other.
While I agree that it makes more sense to think in terms of eco- or bioregions than national boundaries for the most part, the fact remains that legal authority is limited by political boundaries. So, if one looks at the evidence and decides, hey, we cannot reasonably sustain continued population growth for these reasons, then political boundaries are as far as policy changes can extend. Outside those lines, it's up to the people living there how to handle their own population trends. Which is not to say we have no role to play in regards to global population growth, just that we have no direct power over growth elswhere.
Yes, the Amerindians of this continent are most gravely exploited by native-born citizens--more accurately, corporate and governmental entities-- not immigrants. Stopping that exploitation is on my list of "things to do." This doesn't mean continued immigration doesn't negatively affect Amerindian peoples, however.
Whatever your Amerindian friends might think, it's always been too late for me to "go back" to Europe. I wasn't born in Europe. Neither were my parents, nor my grandparents, nor (as I recall) my greatgrandparents. Not sure beyond that. I've never even visited Europe. In other words, I'm a native American, however poorly I understand the place of the world where I live. I'm working on it, but understanding a place in this sense is a long-term process--generational, even.
If your intent is to call it as you see it, do us all a favor and address policies rather than making assertions that people are pretending to be something other than they really are. To jog your memory, what you criticized were "anti-immigrant activists who masquerade as population activists." Unless you can produce evidence that any particular individual's or organization's real motivations are different than those they state publicly, you're simply engaging in character assassination. As I think I've demonstrated, it's possible for someone to be both compassionate about the material conditions billions of people live in around the world, and be fully in favor of policies that will help them change these conditions, yet also be in favor of reducing immigration to the U.S. We can't possibly take in everyone whose material lot in life would, in a theoretical sense, be bettered by living here. That's no viable solution to global poverty, hunger, or social injustice.
How could we enable people to live well in their homelands? As I've previously stated, this could be done most effectively by changing U.S. economic, and military policies, which would require changing the U.S. worldview.
The U.S. could stop supporting repressive regimes around the world in order to ensure access to "cheap" resources of various kinds, which would dramatically change the American consumer culture, of course, and I'm all for that. The U.S. could stop forcing so-called "free trade" policies on other countries through multilateral institutions such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and World Trade Organization. The U.S. could selling weapons to repressive regimes. But you probably already know this stuff, Patrick.
The world is sacred and I am sacred as part of it.
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bookerly Posted 11:36 am
01 Oct 2006
Dear John,
You claim that I "what you criticized were "anti-immigrant activists who masquerade as population activists." Unless you can produce evidence that any particular individual's or organization's real motivations are different than those they state publicly, you're simply engaging in character assassination."
Actually, the link to SPLC and it's immigrant watch is ample evidence of the "real" motivations of the anti-immigrant right masquerading as population activists.
Your claim that people come to the US to improve their lives economically is somewhat correct. Some come (graduate students) to get access to the latest technology, and then chose to stay (many of them are begged to stay by high tech companies and universities).
(Interestingly, in the case of China, a growing number are returning to China after completing their studies.)
But your comment that "The majority of immigrants were materially impoverished in their home countries, saw little or no hope of improving their lot because of repressive economic and governmental institutions, and left their homelands in hopes of doing better elsewhere" is off the mark.
You are lumping all immigrants together. This is like lumping anti-immigrant activists and the KKK together (grin) which you would agree is not a fair thing to do (grin) even though they share some common values.
Since we can probably agree that lumping large groups of people together is a bad idea, let's look at the different groups.
First, there are legal immigrants. They generally (very big generally) fall into three categories. Refugees, familiy members and people arriving for work/study.
Refugees tend to be poor. Agreed. Family members tend to vary quite a bit, but are not all coming here to improve their lives financially. People coming for work/study are NOT all living in poverty in their home countries. (A few of my students come from quite well off families, and are interested in living and studying abroad, the same way Americans do).
But NPG would stop all or most of these folks from coming to America.
As to undocumented workers, they are in different categories as well. Historically, a fair number of Mexican workers came back and forth across a loose border to work for a season, then return home. After the tightening of border controls in the last twenty years, they began to come and stay (it being to difficult to go back and forth).
(Congratulations on this "success" by the way, keep undocumented workers full time in America is largely due to the attempts by you and your allies to close the border!! Maybe not quite what you expected, but hey...).
These workers are poor, and many of them remain quite poor, consuming at or near the bottom of the ladder.
As to the Center for Immigration Studies, it is part of the network of John Tanton groups.
http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?si...
Who is he, and why does it matter?
http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?pi...
If you read these articles, you will see why I disregard any so-called "studies" done by them (much as I disregard industry funded studies disputing global warming, who you are and who funds you affects your research). But feel free to provide "objective" studies to back up your points.
How can you call the US the worlds most overpopulated nation? Just on size? How about this. US population density is about 76 people per square mile. Asian population density is 203 people per square mile. Europe is 134 people per square mile.
http://geography.about.com/od/populationgeography/a/popde...
You say "As I think I've demonstrated, it's possible for someone to be both compassionate about the material conditions billions of people live in around the world, and be fully in favor of policies that will help them change these conditions, yet also be in favor of reducing immigration to the U.S."
Ummm, no, not at all. How have you demonstrated that anit-immigration activists are either "compassionate about the material conditions" or "fully in favor of policies that will help them change these conditions"? I don't see it.
In any case, let's look at the root of your argument, which is basically that more Americans means more consumption, more consumption is bad, therefore less Americans is good.
Again, there are two problems. One is that it matters less where people are (America or elsewhere) than it does how much they consume. You are assuming drastically different consumption rates for individuals in America and their home countries.
You need to get out more!!! (grin). There are well off people in various countries, and many of the types of immigrants who consume a lot in America would also do so at home.
And for the poorest, the idea that undocumented worker on the street corner who lives in a room with ten other men and is frequently cheated by his employers, the idea that he is a major contributor to American over-consumption is absurd.
As to the solutions you advocate for world problems, sounds nice. But when you vote for anti-immigrant politicians, you are voting for people who have diametrically opposite positions on those issues, which means you are voting against those positions.
I know of no organization from the peace movement, the anti-globalizations movement, the fair trade movement or any of these organizations who supports your anti-immgrant positions.
The Sierra Club (one of the most conservative of the American MEM organizations) has rejected your arguments several times.
And if you are making progress now, it is with allies like Tom Tancredo, and by playing on xenophobia and racism.
Doesn't that bother you?
patrick
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 1:55 pm
01 Oct 2006
You insist on painting all those who favor reducing immigration with a single, broad brush, and accuse us of "playing on xenophobia and racism," as if we all engage in the same actions and rhetoric and are all pawns of this John Tanton character, who I've never even heard of before.
You misrepresent my statements, ignoring, for example, my qualifying language in passages such as this: "I think it's pretty well-established that most people who immigrate to the United States do so in order to improve their standard of living."
And sometimes it seems you aren't even really paying attention to what I've written, such as when you ask the question "How can you call the US the worlds most overpopulated nation?" I explicitly explained why in my last post, and it doesn't make any sense to me to use population density alone as the determining factor when considering how overpopulated a particular nation or region is in relation to others.
I'm not interested in exploring ideas with people who aren't committed to conversing in a straightforward and honest manner. It's tiresome and time-consuming.
In case anyone else is still reading here, I ask you to ignore what Patrick claims I advocate and stand for and instead pay attention to my own words. If you have comments or questions, please let me know.
The world is sacred and I am sacred as part of it.
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bookerly Posted 6:39 pm
01 Oct 2006
Dear John,
I never accuse you personally, you seem to misread me (as you claim I misread you). Maybe we belong to different cultures (grin)?
However, if you are going to be marching in the anti-immigrant parade (you say you want to reduce immigration, you defend NPG which wants to pretty much eliminate it, you cite CIS which is tied in to Mr. Tanton), you should pay attention to who is marching around you.
Are you responsible for their views? No. Do you automatically share them? No. But if you had honest doubts about global warming, and found yourself in a room full of people who agreed for you and who all worked for Exxon, wouldn't that make you think?
Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. You don't say.
So, density doesn't matter in terms of population? The folks in Monaco are relieved!!! (The world's densest nation).
Sheer numbers is a terrible way to decide who is over-populated. The earth doesn't care about sheer numbers alone. It cares about what those people consume. Sheer numbers suggests that Bill Gates consumption (one man) equals John Kurmanns consumption (one man).
Right?
FWIW, I went through this with the Sierra Club at least twice (grin), and have seen a lot of the anti-immigrant movement folks up close.
Never heard of Mr. Tanton? You have now (if you read the link, and if you really care about this issue, you should).
People can read our posts and decide for themselves what to think.
And of course, you can ignore me. (grin). Which doesn't mean I'll go away.
Claiming I an dishonest and not willing to debate on your terms is disengenuous. Let other people do research and make their own decisions.
For better or worse in this world, we are often judged by the company we keep...
patrick
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 1:15 am
02 Oct 2006
I never advocated closing the borders.
But when you vote for anti-immigrant politicians, you are voting for people who have diametrically opposite positions on those issues, which means you are voting against those positions. [emphasis added]
Where did I endorse any candidates?
And if you are making progress now, it is with allies like Tom Tancredo, and by playing on xenophobia and racism. [emphasis added]
Any other readers out there find any xenophobia
or racism in my posts?
And those 3 examples of Patrick's misrepresentations of my positions come from just 1 of his posts.
Half the reason I bothered to compile this list was to kick the number of comments on this blog up to 100. Hoorah!
The world is sacred and I am sacred as part of it.
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bookerly Posted 6:29 am
02 Oct 2006
Dear John,
If I am wrong, then I am delighted to hear it and apologize!!
Some questions. How will you reduce immigration if borders are kept "open"?
If you wish to reduce immigration, how can you do it if you don't support politicians who want to reduce immigration?
As to the last statement, if you are involved at all in trying to reduce immigration, you should look at your allies.
Again, people are judged by the company they keep.
And there have been many many articles in the MSM and elsewhere linking the anti-immigration movement to racism and xenophobia.
If you personally are neither, that's nice! I apologize and am glad to hear it.
Did you read the SPLC links?
Who are those folks "marching" beside you? Do you care?
patrick
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bookerly Posted 6:39 am
02 Oct 2006
One of John's posts links to this site
http://www.cis.org/articles/2005/back1105.html
It seems worthwhile to address one of the substantive issues. The link is to a "study" which claims that immigrant women have more babies in American than they would in their homelands.
It does this not by asking them but by statistical analysis.
Basically, it compares the birthrate in the population of women who immigrated from a certain country to the birthrate of women who stayed in that country.
There is a very simple basic flaw in this study.
It is comparing apples and oranges.
If one million women immigrate from China and 650 million stay (rough numbers (grin)), then on what basis can we compare the two groups in a meaningful manner? Only by being Chinese?
If this is the case, can we pick any group (not a random group, by the way, a group of people who engage in like behavior is by definition not a random group, but rather a group that is "selected") of Americans and declare that their behavior should match all Americans?
The answer is "no".
Further, comparing two averages in different size groups (650 million to 1 million) is meaningless. If you added the 1 million back to the 650 million, the change in birthrate would be statistically insignificant.
Which means the study has proven nothing.
FWIW,
patrick
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 8:39 am
02 Oct 2006
How to reduce immigration? I offer the following as a sketch, not a full answer (I'm not an expert and it's not a high-priority issue for me in any sense):
Lower legal immigration quotas. Simultaneously work to reduce the "push" factors by changes to U.S. economic, trade, and military policies, as I've previously mentioned. And, at the same time, address the "pull" factors for illegal immigration by cracking down on businesses that are willing to benefit from the willingness of such immigrants to work for low wages in lousy conditions.
The world is sacred and I am sacred as part of it.
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bookerly Posted 9:21 am
02 Oct 2006
Which immigration quotas would you lower? Family? Education? Job? Across the board, or by specific nation?
Would you tell people who marry American citizens they can't come to America? Would you tell an American citizen their parents can't live with them?
What about tourism? 365 days of tourism are the same as 365 days of immigration in terms of "adding to consumption". Worse in some ways, better perhaps in others (grin).
As to illegal immigration, who would work in the fields if not migrants? What sort of program would you put in place for farmworkers?
What would you do to the people who are already here and have been here for many years?
What about mixed families? Those composed of undocumented workers and their children who are citizens?
patrick
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 9:36 am
02 Oct 2006
It doesn't seem to me to be either workable or compassionate to try to deport all those who are already here illegally.
If some folks want to come here to do seasonal farmwork, then return to their homelands during the off-season, it might well make sense to create some kind of system to accomodate this movement. I haven't given the potential consequences much thought, though, so don't take that as an endorsement.
I think you're just being silly with the "365 days of tourism" question.
Is anyone else still reading here?
The world is sacred and I am sacred as part of it.
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bookerly Posted 10:55 am
02 Oct 2006
Don't know is the top answer! ROFLMAO!!
But a few final comments on why this matters(not neccessarily directed at John) (grin).
The Mainstream American Environmental Movement (which seems to be predominant here) is locked into a mode where it has trouble reaching out to non-white folks (which is why there is an environmental justice movement, and see the article in Grist
http://grist.org/news/maindish/2006/09/28/m_carter/index....
for an example).
The Sierra Club fought a time draining nasty battle over the issue (which may still be going on for all I know, I am not currenlty involved with the Club).
http://www.alleghenysc.org/article.html?itemid=2004030611...
http://www.greens.org/s-r/16/16-03.html
It matters because even if John's heart is pure, most of the people on that side of the issue are not.
And when other people look at the environmental movement, do we want them to see Julia Butterfly Hill and Majora Carter or the far right anti-immigrant folks?
Because how they react to us will depend in part on how they perceive us, which depends to a large extent on who they see us surrounded by.
(Note my negative reaction to John, who may indeed be an innocent bystander was largely conditioned by years of struggling against the racists and xenophobes who dominate this issue, my apologies to you for mistaking you for one of them, but guy, we judge people by their allies.)
pace,
patrick
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 12:11 pm
02 Oct 2006
How 'bout you demonstrate that you're sincerely remorseful by finding out where folks actually stand in the future before criticizing them personally and jumping to a bunch of conclusions?
The world is sacred and I am sacred as part of it.
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bookerly Posted 7:01 pm
02 Oct 2006
Dear John,
ROFLMAO!!! I knew it!! I was too polite!!
You and I really are from different planets!!
Frankly, I saw no more point in arguing with someone who doesn't care if "93.4% of those who currently favor reducing immigration levels did turn out to be racist and xenophobic" and who doesn't understand what might be wrong with that as a position.
(Even if you don't understand why it is wrong, I would hope you would understand why it is bad politics.)
patrick
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Tom Warren Posted 1:00 am
03 Oct 2006
"Frankly, I saw no more point in arguing with someone who doesn't care if "93.4% of those who currently favor reducing immigration levels ... blah blah blah."
Thassa lie. You so hunger for someone (anyone) to argue with that you bridge-troll with outright lies and then assign instant made-up positions to them so you can jump into attack mode.
I've just seen you use the word "justice" in some of your blatherings. Justice -- and truth -- demand a much different level of conduct from you, pat. Here on this planet we no longer castigate people with the 'guilt by association' ad hominem; especially when we've projected the association out of some dark corner of our own benighted mind.
Gawd, you really are a loathsome person.
I suggest you now call Kurmann Hitler and we can all invoke Godwin's Law and move on. We've been 'done' with Quinn and Ishmael for a week now.
love,
tom warren
pleasant hill, oregon
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David Roberts Posted 2:35 am
03 Oct 2006
www.grist.org
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caniscandida Posted 2:44 am
03 Oct 2006
I have no idea what "crows" means in the salutation of a letter. Corvids are remarkably intelligent, resourceful birds who deserve a great deal of respect. So ordinarily I would assume "crows" is intended as a compliment. In the context of your extraordinarily critical message, however, I gather that is not the intention.
Patrick is my friend. I have never met him, but all the same, I feel I know him well enough by now, and he is my friend. He has sent words of great wisdom to Gristmill for a long time, marked by a profound sense of justice, and of love for humankind. We do not agree on everything, but that is OK, that is only natural, that is what happens inevitably when people try to use their minds. He is my friend.
"Loathsome" is one of the heaviest indictments in the English language. Patrick most certainly does not deserve it. Quite the contrary. There he is, teaching English to kids in Beijing, respecting his hosts the Chinese people, bicycling all around, trying to keep as well informed as possible on all kinds of subjects: given how far America has fallen in the eyes of the world, I think there is no American that I am prouder of than Patrick, and no American that I am happier to have representing us, after his fashion, in a great foreign capital.
John Fish Kurmann I do not know so well, yet. But I know already that I greatly admire him. He is obviously learned, and thoughtful, and well-spoken. I would be honored if in time I could call him my friend too.
I have not closely followed the conversation between Patrick and JFK. Immigration is surely a very difficult issue, as are many population-related subjects. Frankly, I think Patrick and JFK might have ended this conversation on Daniel Quinn and "Ishmael" and population matters a long time ago; but, whatever. Is Patrick badgering JFK? That could be. Is he charging JFK with sins that JFK is not guilty of? That also could be. But JFK is a big boy, he is clearly very intelligent, he writes very well, he has a public presence and persona, and so we should be confident that he can explain himself and defend himself, if he feels he needs to do so. There is absolutely no need for us others to intrude.
I admire JFK very much, and would like to know him better. I am very grateful for his contributions to Gristmill.
And also, as I may have mentioned before, Patrick is my friend.
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 6:11 am
03 Oct 2006
The world is sacred and I am sacred as part of it.
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Bart Anderson Posted 7:30 am
03 Oct 2006
We gotta keep the big picture in mind. We are always going to be working with people with whom there are differences of opinion.
BTW, there's a balanced piece just posted by enivoronmental writer Erik Curren on population: The population bomb is ticking again.
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bookerly Posted 10:41 am
03 Oct 2006
To understand my feelings on this subject, I should say that when I was in America, I taught English to undocumented workers. So, I came to know many of them personally as real people, as friends.
And I lived in San Francisco for 20 years, surrounded by immigrant communities that made my life immeasurably richer.
Not only did they make my life richer, a multi-cultural immigrant rich community was MY community, my people, my tribe, if you will.
And now I am on the other end of the stick, living as a foreigner in someone else's country.
I have students who wish to study in America, and I am training Chinese teachers who will come to America to teach Chinese for a short period of time.
So, when people attack immigration, they attack me, in a very deep and real level that perhaps they don't understand (or in some cases care about (grin), but both are okay).
Thanks CanisCandida, we do not always agree (sometimes I don't agree with myself), but I also consider you a friend, and always enjoy your posts.
Bart, I appreciate your words, but when I am in America, I mostly work with EJ groups. FWIW.
Frankly, I don't care if Tom or anyone calls me loathsome or dishonest or unfair. But I am not going to continue this debate. As I said, there is no point.
I grew up in the South supporting civil rights. My parents had birthday parties for Lincoln in the 1950's. When I went door to door working for liberal candidates, I was called lots of names sometimes. So, being in the minority politically doesn't cause me personal pain.
For me, this issue is not merely an intellectual argument about numbers, but a living breathing issue.
BTW, I apologize if I am not civil (this is a passionate issue for me), but I do not apologize for really caring about this. This issue affects real people.
If America closes it's doors, frankly America will lose and be the poorer, and maybe never even understand why.
patrick
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