The debate over labels that may be — perhaps should be — of minor importance in political and social thought has vexed me regularly. The need to define certain positions as belonging to one camp or another seems quite important to most people. Categorizing things makes people feel they have a handle on them. Maybe this is human nature, but it gets in the way, I fear, of understanding the true nature of things.
In particular, I am vexed by the plethora of labels attached to various political positions: pro-America = Right; anti-free-market = Left; pro-personal-liberties = liberal; pro-tough-laws = conservative; pro-protecting-the-environment = Left. The list could go on for paragraphs.
The danger of these labels is that people feel compelled to put themselves into one camp or another. Once this is done, people further feel compelled to fit the belief system of their adopted camp — at least publicly. Thus you have columnists and others defending positions and narrowing their understanding of issues to fit their role.
The biggest casualty of all this is that it reduces the chance of coming to a well reasoned compromise on important issues. But it also does damage at the personal level. People are confused and distressed by what they perceive as inner "conflicts" based on differences they have with their ideological camp. If they were able to accept that their personal set of beliefs was legitimate and potentially consistent, even though it didn't match any of the available ideologies, then they would be at rest. And perhaps, much of the illogical and confrontational dialogue on shouting matches like the McLaughlin Group would subside.
People who hold beliefs or have feelings which are not appropriate for they camp they have joined often suppress them. This not only damages them personally, it also deprives the world of the support and new ideas such opinions, if expressed, might offer. Take the environment. There is little question that there are significant ecological problems in the world. There is little question that the cause of much of it is the human race. (Or at minimum it has the power to make a positive difference now.) I am not into blaming people for their past actions when they didn't know better, so I avoid the popular Leftist strategy of trying to make people feel guilty about this harm. (The Left has also found over the years that guilt is a great way to raise funds from an otherwise politically disengaged public.)
For years, I have been confused by the virtually universal condemnation, or at least antagonism, by the Right towards the issue of environmentalism. In the pages of publications like Reason and even National Review, one finds hostile attacks against the cause. I see the motivation for these attacks primarily coming from two positions: pro-business at any cost; and anti-centralized government.
The pro-business folks are easy to understand and discredit. Their position that "the market works things out and you should leave it alone" is both blatantly self-serving and not borne out by history. As much as history shows that government usually mucks things up, it also shows that the interests of business leaders and the interests of the people and planet are often not the same. More importantly, history shows that business's claims that it can self-regulate and that we should trust it to do so are a joke. Whether it be airplane safety, reforestation, repair of strip-mined land, or prudent farming practices, history shows over and over that profit is often put ahead of the interests of society and future generations.
I agree with libertarians that the EPA, FDA, and other regulatory bodies often behave inappropriately and have a penchant for interfering with our lives. But it is absurd to claim that there are no significant environmental problems — that it's all hype coming from anti-capitalists. Most citizens in this country can see very clearly that there is a problem. All they have to do is look at their local landfill that's beyond capacity or the syringes washing up on beaches. Or they can look further at the erosion of topsoil in our heartland and clearing of rainforests all over the world.
Environmentalists bring much of the attack against the movement on themselves. By focusing on socialistic systems of government regulation and feel-good causes like the baby seal, they miss the opportunity to articulate bigger issues. Or maybe they can't. Many environmentalists do operate from ideology systems with which concepts like stewardship are incompatible. It is possible, then, that the move for environmental protection in this country and elsewhere in the world cannot come from most of those in the environmental movement today. The focus must shift to understanding environmentalism as a positive movement, about affirming life and nature and about stewardship or peaceful coexistence (depending on your theology) rather than as a protest ideology aligned with other protests. One area where groups are emerging that embrace this idea is the religious community. Catholics, through JPIC – Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation — and Quakers through FCUN – Friends Committee on Unity with Nature – express the connection very clearly. Even evangelicals who have in recent years been tightly aligned with pro-business conservatives can find the stewardship argument very compelling.
It's possible, and my hope, that a substantial environmental wing will appear among conservatives. The irony of the similarity in principle between conservatism and conservation is hard to miss. Advocates could focus on this idea of conserving, both of nature directly, and of how it relates to aspects of the old-fashioned simpler small town life conservatives often idealize. Big business city industrialists and religious conservatives are not natural bedfellows at all. It's almost amusing, if it weren't sad, to see these two groups, environmentalists and social conservatives, who consider themselves bitter enemies expressing virtually identical opinions about problems with modernism and consumer culture.
Besides fostering more respect for nature, living an ecologically aware life fosters more respect for the natural order of things. It puts a person in closer contact with their community, their natural surroundings, and ultimately themselves. While this may sound New Agey, it's really pure conservatism.
Conservatives need not attack environmentalism because of the perceived negative effect on corporate profits. They might, instead, acknowledge the many occasions in which they support actions that are not necessarily the most profitable. They expect, if not require, moral behavior on the part of businesses, both in ethical business practices and in expecting businesses not to trade in immoral products. Conservatives more than any other group might recognize the importance of doing things for the sake of the community rather than individual greed.
The real bugaboo for most conservatives is the government role in the process. And it is a sticky problem. But even libertarian conservatives are not anarchists. They recognize the need for laws to protect a society from dangers. It is appropriate to ask then, to what extent do we need to protect nature — which we are at least a part, if not the stewards, of — from dangerous behavior.
The first step, though, is for conservatives simply to move away from their hostile position towards environmentalism — always trying to debunk the latest environmental concern; stop avoiding the issue by pretending the problems don't exist. From there, we can figure out what to do about them. The conservative movement could be a powerful force for positive change if it legitimized the debate about the environmental crisis by joining it.
