It’s no doubt that since the beginning of the new millennium and even before, environmental conservation has been a big issue. It only makes sense that people would hotly contest such a topic. Some argue that it might get a little too overblown sometimes, and others say we need to hear it more. Some, like Edward O. Wilson, just want to see an agreement met. In his 2002 book The Future of Life, Wilson satirizes the bull-headed and uncooperative criticism that the two sides often give each other. In his fictitious discourse, Wilson clearly demonstrates how a stalemate can occur between opposing extremes by using stylistic mirroring, over-the-top generalizations, and grandiose diction. Wilson first parodies the argument people most often associate
with the right side of the aisle. He starts off in the role of someone clearly against the environmentalist movement and begins to describe environmentalists with diminutives such as “enviros” and “wackos.” He uses these disrespectful pseudonyms to express perceived animosity. The satirized right-winger continues, “[They] have a broad and mostly hidden agenda,” and, “want environmental laws and regulatory surveillance.” By expanding the argument ad absurdum, Wilson creates the image of a close minded individual with little to offer in negotiation. These generalizations help to illuminate one cause of unproductive discussions in legislature. Wilson drives his point home with a ridiculous narrative in lines 19 through 24 of a college conservationism student finding a rare spider and taking someone's home away to protect it. While clearly untrue, this story certainly can help one see how peace talks might go no where fast. Wilson’s second satire is as masterful and audacious as the first. When Wilson satires left-wingers, he begins in a similar style, mocking anti-environmentalists and using diminutives like “brown lashers” and “wise-users.” The tone of his second piece is much the same as his first although in the second passage he opts for a more aloof word choice and substitutes the humorous anecdote for overly defensive justification and and bold, brazen accusations. With phrases about “unelected rulers” having, “conception[s] of the public trust [as] a strong military establishment and subsidies for loggers and ranchers,” Wilson makes it clear that there is finger pointing in both directions. In doing so, Wilson demonstrates through his word choice how slander and generalization make for useless debate. Most important to Wilson’s point in the passages are his usages of parallel structure and stylistic mirroring. When satirizing the two points of view, Wilson is careful to structure both in the same way, even going so far as to repeat certain key phrases like, “they...call themselves,” and “mostly hidden agenda.” Furthermore, he continues his mirroring by mimicking tone shifts, from mockery, to accusation, to humor, to defense. Lastly, he juxtaposes the word choice of the opposing parties by picking a specific dialect for each. Northern aloofness for the left and Southern simplicity for the right. This furthers his claim that through stubbornness in ideals, conflicting parties may miss valuable room for compromise and common ground. Wilson’s satire from The Future of Life uses parallelism, stereotypes, and careful word choice to demonstrate how opposing extremes can generate out of proportion battles of pride and easily overlook common ground. He uses the hotly contested debate on climate change as an example because of its political roots and accessibility, but it is applicable to many other scenarios. Examples can be seen in legislature, business, and even family life. Wilson’s pointers about keeping an open mind are useful to everyone of every age in having a less stressed and more peaceful existence.
Every one is scavenging for the next big gadget- the future is a standard that society strives to have in their grasp. However, Joel Achenbach a former humor columnist solves the mystery of the future in his article, “The Future is Now: it’s heading right at us, but we never see it coming” .he presents a sense of urgency describing that the future is not something that society needs to wait for it happens behind closed doors. He argues that the future is a fast pace entity that occurs all around us. Achenbach proves this point by sticking to his humorous style, with the use of witty allusions to Sci-Fi films.
Anthropocentrism has been a central belief upon which modern human society has been constructed. The current state of the world, particularly the aspects that are negative, are reflective of humans continuously acting in ways that are in the interest of our own species. As environmental issues have worsened in recent decades, a great number of environmentalists are turning away from anthropocentric viewpoints, and instead adopting more ecocentric philosophies. Although anthropocentrism seems to be decreasing in popularity due to a widespread shift in understanding the natural world, philosopher William Murdy puts forth the argument that anthropocentrism still has relevancy in the context of modern environmental thought. In the following essay, I will explain Murdy’s interpretation of anthropocentrism and why he believes it to be an acceptable point of
Elliot Sober's main point in this essay is about how could justify the environmentalism theories because they have some difficulties in reasoning their objectives and solutions. He illustrates about this difficulties and then he suggests some ways that can help to reason correctly about environmental concerns. He explains his points about some philosophers theory that try to give reasons about preserving the species and the environment. He tries to clarify about the ignorance argument that this argument suggests we must preserve every endangered species that it can be useful for human. Sober criticizes this opinion because sometimes a valuable species was known not to be valuable previously. Therefore he suggests that we should not because of human preference try to keep a species or keep not. The Slippery Slope Argument, that environmentalists affirm that every extinction is important significantly because it is possible arguing that none of species can be important that much then it will turn to a slippery slope argument. Sober mentions about the fact that If we consider a value for diversity therefore each species have value so we can value diversity without overemphasizing the position of each species separately. The Appeals to What is Natural, that is about what is natural to or what is domesticated or artificial. Sober claims that this distinction is meaningless because we believe that human beings also are part of the nature and what human makes also is part of
Ehrlich, P. R., & Ehrlich, A. H. (1996). Betrayal of science and reason: How anti-environmental rhetoric threatens our future. Washington, D.C: Island Press.
As time passes, our population continues to increase and multiply; yet, on the other hand, our planet’s resources continue to decrease and deplete. As our population flourishes, human beings also increase their demands and clamor for the Earth’s natural products, yet are unable to sacrifice their surplus of the said resources. Garret Hardin’s work highlighted the reality that humans fail to remember that the Earth is finite and its resources are limited. Hardin’s article revealed that people are unable to fathom that we indeed have a moral obligation to our community and our natural habitat — that we are not our planet’s conquerors but its protectors. We fail to acknowledge and accept that we only have one Earth and that we must protect and treasure it at all costs. Despite all our attempts at annihilating the planet, the Earth will still be unrelenting — it will still continue to be present and powerful. Human beings must recognize that we need this planet more than it needs us and if we persist on being egocentric and covetous, in the end it is us who will
In 1959, C. Wright Mills released a book entitled ‘The sociological’. Imagination’. It was in this book that he laid out a set of guidelines of how to carry out social analysis of the data. But for a layman, what does the term ‘sociological imagination’ mean? actually mean.
Charles Wright Mills writes about the relationship between private troubles and public issues in The Sociological Imagination (1959). Within his writing Mills explains the importance of adopting a sociological perspective when attempting to analyze and understand the word we live in. He called this theory the sociological imagination. The sociological imagination can be used as a lens, to examine everyday mundane activities and how they are connected to the larger structure of our societies. Our current milieu is linked with the biographical and historical contexts of our societies and together they makeup our everyday life. This paper will use a sociological imaginative perspective to analyze why I was bullied for my own body hair as a young
Morris K. Udall starts his speech at Valley Forge with a quote from John Gardner. He writes, “…trouble with America was its uncritical lovers and loving critics. What we needed were more critical lovers”. Indeed, Udall shows what it is to be a critical lover and what one can do with harsh yet passionate love for environmentalism.
In 1989, seventy five percent of Americans identified themselves as environmentalists, and the number has continued to grow since then (Walls 1). Environmentalism is now the most popular social movement in the United States, with over five million American families donating regularly to environmental organizations (Walls 1). Environmentalists today focus on what kind of world they hope to see in the future, and largely deal with limiting pollution and changing consumption rates (Kent 1 and 9). Modern environmentalists also have much different issues than those Carson’s America faced. With climate change becoming more threatening each year, protection of the natural world is needed more than ever. Pollution has caused the warmest decade in history, the deterioration of the ozone layer, and species extinction in extreme numbers (Hunter 2). It not only threatens nature, but also human populations, who already suffer from lack of clean water and poisoning from toxic chemicals (Hunter 16). Unlike environmental actions in the 1960’s, which were mostly focused on protection, a massive increase in pollution has caused efforts to be focused on environmental restoration (Hunter 16). Like in the time of Silent Spring, environmentalists are not only concerned with one country. Protecting the environment remains a global issue, and every nation is threatened by the
This earth has so many wonderful things to offer, including what is still unknown. The responsibility to keep this earth safe lands in the hands of mankind. Humanity may not exist if the responsibility is ignored.. In the chapter “For the Love of Life,” published in the non fiction book The Future of Life (2002), naturalist and Pulitzer Prize winning author Edward O. Wilson discusses the effects the nature, including what is still unknown, has on the prosperity of mankind and argues that humanity has an obligation to preserve nature because of its genetic unity. Wilson supports his claim by justifying the reasons for conserving and preserving nature including how technology can never fully replace it, describing habitat preferences as a component of biophilia - which is explains human’s predisposition to love
According to C. Wright Mills’ “The Promise”, he feels that an individual’s life and how they act is based on the society and what is happening around them at that time. Mills states in his essay that the sociological imagination helps us understand each individual’s background, lifestyles, and habits and/or traditions. It also allows us to understand the influence society may have on a person and how “historical” events led to it. Based on what he wrote, to understand this “imagination” we must be able to connect a person’s public or personal issues with the events happening within society during that time. According to this a person may act differently depending on their religious beliefs, whether or not they live within the city or the suburbs, etc. For example Mills argues that if a person’s “values” are not threatened then they would be in a state of “well-being” but, if their values were threatened then they would go into some sort of “crisis”. If Mills means “values” as in a person’s “standards of behavior” then this is happening today in our society with the LGBT equal rights movement. Many people feel that being homosexual is not a “standard behavior” and that it is perhaps a sickness. They feel that men should be with women therefor many have gone into a “crisis” and have begun belittling the gay community or bullying them due to the fact that they feel that this is not how an individual should be. Another example is homelessness; a person can be homeless due to a fire destroying their home, being kicked out, being unable to care for themselves due to being mentally ill, developing a heavy drug habit and losing their home due to trying to support the habit, or perhaps some sort of depression. Looking at it without un...
The environment has been a controversial issue in society since the Industrial Revolution. Human kind is advancing, but the environment is deteriorating. We are now in the 21st century, yet there are still changes that the world is waiting on. Both Yann Arthus-Bertrand in “A Wide Angle View of Fragile Earth” and Elizabeth Kolbert in “The Weight of the World” have an underlying agreement that everyone is to blame for these environmental changes. In order for environmental advancement, we must cooperate with one another because as a nation we are interlinked.
Gore, Al. The Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1992. Print.
After reading the entire essay, one realizes the true destruction humans are causing to the Earth and that something must be done to help the environment. By using a variety of techniques throughout his essay, Wilson emphasizes his point that there is still hope for humanity if humans act now. Humans are the only ones who can save the Earth from extinction, but time is limited. If the majority of humans act like environmentalists then the phrases "the Earth is going to expire by the year 2050" or "the world's a ticking time bomb" will cease to exist.
Most ordinary nature enthusiasts who want to protect endangered species do not take nature seriously. Their picture of a natural environment is usually limited to green or vast remote lands, which welcome wildlife and appear less troubled and false than cities. People who value nature this way are similar to those “90s kids” on the Internet who treat the 1990s as better than any other decade. Their only reason as to why is often because entertainment, particularly television, was superior at the time. Both “90s kids” and typical nature followers suffer as surface dwellers, since they do not ponder about their interest to reasonably argue why it is greater than anything else, or why it is essential for themselves and others.