Discuss: Conservation and Eugenics

Great article! The temptation with revisionist history seems always to draw a new arc in the narrative-to defy whatever the convention- rather than to honor the unique complexity of the individual, whose thoughts and even morality were at once a product of their particular time and place, and their evolving perspective on the world. Honoring that complexity opens us to discussing the unfolding story of conservation, human dignity, and identity in a much more authentic way… Time to unpackage our other heroes (Leopold, Carson, even Ed Abbey)

Tremendous article.  Thank you for writing this.  In my own recent research I have come across the horror of the Philippine genocide perpetrated by the U.S. government in the decade after taking the Philippines from Spain in 1899.  Several million people died altogether and the U.S. military was involved in atrocities that are almost beyond belief.  The attitude of President Roosevelt helps explain how such a thing could be done with so little fanfare at the time and recognized, if at all, as a historical footnote today.  I believe that as the United States government asks countries like Sudan to account for its atrocities in Darfur, or Turkey for its 90 year old genocide against the Armenians, we must acknowledge our own crimes, beginning with our extermination and subjugation of Native Americans and African slaves, on down through our unprovoked invasion of Iraq.

This whole article assumes that environmentalism began with white people, and that those who are the most ground breaking are white men, specifically rich white men in government and politics. It is also quite arguable if Pinchot was actually a conservationist, as he tried hard to subvert Muir (just dive into the history of Olympic national park, mt rainier, or any of the big forest areas of the west) He was in the pockets of the timber industry as anyone in natural resources at the time.

So sure, we can argue the roots of conservation are in eugenics, if we continue the narrative that environmentalism is primarily a white and American phenomenon

This is the same frustrating scholarship as Cronon, who stay within the white literary history and thus can come to narrow conclusions about conservation and environment in the North America, at the expense of the environmentalism with the roots of those who were poor, native, or in Canada or Mexico, not to mention south america and the rest of the world (ironically, those are the people that don’t get written about in academia and by environmental historians, those are the people that don’t get added in the national narrative).

it be nice if there were more rigor in these edgy sounding essays, that they looked beyond affirming evidence for their cases. 

So sure there is racism in the environmental movement (something obvious to those of us who aren’t purely white and work for the environment), but to say it is at the base of a movement that spans well beyond white men of political influence is again affirming the problem the author was trying to expose, by yet again keeping the hard, backbreaking work of the silenced and forgotten (who often actually got done the rhetoric of those in politics) subverted to the aspirations of environmental historians lacking the rigor to look beyond whats already obvious. But sounding, some what guilty about it then makes it good scholarship.

Its frustrating to say you’re fighting against racism, but continue a racist history of a movement. It continues to affirm the false notion that environmentalism is a white phenomenon with a primarily white history.

The notion of “all men created equal” was extraordinarily radical for its time, and all the permutations of that statement were not known and so were debated for a long time.  And indeed there is a strong parallel between Nazi death camps and what transpired with Native Americans, the main difference being that the Native Americans were victimized by a hostile invading population, not their own neighbors.
Conservation—as equated with environmentalism—as practiced by white people in the modern era—is and has been perceived as an extravagance and represents a luxury that minorities can’t afford, they have no power over it anyway, so what exactly was the point…

This author seems to imply that the whole environmental movement is so polluted by eugenics, that we should dismantle it and turn it over to those “with the least power”.  This article which pretends to be pro-environment is in fact a slam at modern environmentalism.  Not a shred of evidence is presented that modern environmentalists are promoting anything like what happened in the past among some leaders in the movement.  Yet by innuendo he implies that the present movement is somehow compromised by the actions of these long dead actors.  The author and the native “victims” of the white male environmentalists turn out to be the only ones “pure” enough to save the planet.

A modern environmentalist might well reflect: “With friends like this, who needs enemies.”

Hi,

I believe that Adam is correct when he says that environmentalism should not be equated with rich white men.  Many cultures are bound up and intimately connected with the earth.  However, many cultures are racist, in fact we all have racism in us. Let us not confuse the issues.  Everyone will be affected by the Gulf disaster.

Mike K. is right on.  I couldn’t say it any better than he.

Thanks Rick.  It helps to know that someone out there sees some of what I see. I applaud Orion for publishing the wide variety of material they do. But it is still important for us readers to maintain a critical stance and speak up when we disagree with an article. It is out of forums like this that important understandings can be birthed. God knows we need better ideas to deal with the complex mess we are in.