debitage: part of the core tool and scraper tradition

debitage

22.7.06

Chimaeras and Environmentalism

David Barash thinks that creating human-ape hybrids would be a great way to strike a blow for truth and reason. His main motivation is to disprove creationism -- though how designing a new creature will prove evolution escapes me. More interesting to me was his secondary claim that such hybrids would also promote a stronger environmental ethic:

Moreover, the benefits of such a physical demonstration of human-nonhuman unity would go beyond simply discomfiting the naysayers, beyond merely bolstering a "reality based" as opposed to a bogus "faith based" worldview. I am thinking of the powerful payoff that would come from puncturing the most hurtful myth of all time, that of discontinuity between human beings and other life forms. This myth is at the root of our environmental destruction � and our possible self-destruction.

Four decades ago, historian Lynn White wrote a now-classic article in the journal Science making the point that much of the damaging disconnect derives from the Judeo-Christian proclamation of radical discontinuity between people and the rest of "creation." White argued that the Western world took its marching orders from a literal reading of Genesis: not only to go forth and multiply but also to dominate and, whenever inclined, to destroy the animate world, which, lacking our unique spiritual essence, existed only for human use and abuse. Whereas "we" are special, chips off the old divine block, "they" (all other life forms) are wholly different, made merely of matter. Hence, they don't really matter.

I think Barash is making a confusion between two senses in which there can be "discontinuity" between humans and other life. There can be discontinuity due to a lack of sameness, or discontinuity based on a lack of interdependence. The question of sameness is the territory of animal rights philosophy, while the question of interdependence is addressed in environmental ethics. A "proof" in the case of one type of sameness doesn't necessarily entail anything about the other.

The ability to create a human-animal hybrid speaks to the question of sameness. It would show that humans and apes aren't all that different from each other. (I don't think it would be an especially powerful "proof" -- believers in the existence of souls could easily invoke some sort of "one drop rule" to classify the hybrids, just as creationists dismiss "missing link" fossils as all either obviously ape or obviously human.) So perhaps having a bunch of hybrids running around would motivate people to give more moral consideration to apes.

But our environmental crisis is not, at root, a result of not caring enough about apes. It's not even just about not caring about any individual life form. After all, environmental problems put humans (including even rich white male humans) at risk. Insofar as our environmental crisis has a philosophical basis -- and I think it's as much a result of technology and of social structure as of philosophy -- the problem is that we don't recognize the interdependence of humans and other life forms, as well as nonliving elements of the ecosystem. (Note that the mere mystical recognition that everything is connected is not enough -- we also have to understand how the connections work.)

Environmentalism demands that we see how the fortunes of each member of the ecological community (including humans) are dependent on each other and on the community, and how the actions of each member (especially humans) can affect the community. This has nothing to do with whether one of those species is genetically related to another. An alien species who evolved on a completely different planet, or a group of angels created from scratch by God, could quite justifiably see themselves as "wholly different" from Earth's life forms. But they would, upon settling on the Earth, have just as much need for an environmental ethic as humans do.

If anything, creating human-ape hybrids would reinforce the environmentally damaging ideology of separateness-as-lack-of-interdependence. It would be one more encouragement to see nature, including human biology, as something we can manipulate at will. Human and animal genes (and the lives created with them) become just resources and tools for proving points in ideological disputes.

Stentor Danielson, 06:26, |

19.7.06

Kiosk

In (belated) honor of this blog's fifth birthday, I'm making a long-overdue update to the kiosk. People who point out that "conservation" and "conservative" or "ecology" and "economics" have the same etmological root are now in the kiosk. I agree that one can make a conservative argument for conservation, and that economics and ecology should be integrated. But it doesn't prove those things to point out the origins of the words. It's just a cliched attempt at a "hook."

Stentor Danielson, 22:55, |

Let DC Vote

This is one of the world's comparatively minor injustices, but nevertheless one that it's useful to be reminded of from time to time, since there's no excuse for it: Residents of Washington, DC have no representation in Congress. All they have is a non-voting delegate in the House (though since 1961 they have had three electoral votes for President).

At a bare minimum, DC needs a Representative with status equal to that of the other Reps. The Senate is a bit tougher of a question, since I think the two-Senators-per-state system is wrong (I'd rather change the Senate to nationwide Proportional Representation, in which DC would of course vote). So I'm undecided between giving DC two Senators of its own, or the alternative (and more politically feasible) suggestion of letting it vote in the Maryland Senate elections. Indeed, I would be happy to retrocede DC back into Maryland, just like Arlington long ago returned to Virginia.

There are two basic arguments advanced against giving DC representation: the "vested interest" argument and the "non-favoritism" argument. I don't think either holds water, particularly when matched up against the competing claims of political equality for all citizens.

The "vested interest" argument says that DC residents are all federal employees, so if they were able to vote they'd vote for higher taxes and bigger government to benefit themselves at the expense of people working in the private sector. This argument is wrong at three levels -- principle, sociological, and efficiency. At the level of principle, it fails because the right to have a say in how a community (such as the nation) is run flows from membership in that community, as defined by someone's actual entanglement with the lives and fortunes of others*. It's not contingent upon whether you will vote the right way.

On the sociological level, the vested interest argument fails because it assumes that federal employees are uniquely inclined and able to vote in their self-interest at the expense of others.

But even if we accept the vested interest argument at the level of principle and sociology, it fails at the level of efficiency because it makes an unjustified equation between "federal employee" and "DC resident." If you want to disenfranchise federal employees, then disenfranchise federal employees. While the federal government is the biggest employer in DC, it only provides 27% of the jobs, so there are plenty of people in DC -- from Georgetown professors to taxi drivers -- who do not work for the feds. They shouldn't lose the vote based on their neighbors' jobs. What's more, there are loads of federal employees who don't live in DC. The Washington metro area has expanded well beyond the boundaries of the District. Why should a Commerce Department number-cruncher get representation in Congress just because she happens to live across the border in Montgomery County or Alexandria? And of course there are all the federal employees in regional offices scattered across the country. A Park Ranger at Yellowstone gets two Senators and a Representative, while his colleague at the Smithsonian gets nothing. I won't even go into the millions of Americans who are effectively federal employees because they work for defense contractors, or agribusinesses that benefit from the federal push for ethanol, or are otherwise beneficiaries of pork.

The "non-favoritism" argument refers back to the original purpose of creating the District of Columbia, rather than putting our capital in Philadelphia or New York. Some people simply assert that DC wasn't supposed to be in a state, period. But since there's no reason to accept that as a fundamental axiom, we have to look at the reasons why DC shouldn't be in a state.

I think the real reson DC was created from scratch is to avoid showing favoritism to already-existing states and cities. That's a very worthy goal, especially since the union was so fragile at the time of DC's founding. But giving the current residents of DC the vote wouldn't undermine that goal. The White House isn't going to up and move to Philly if we give Elanor Holmes Norton some real power.

A more updated version of the non-favoritism argument is that if the people of DC had any power, they would meddle in the federal government's business, either accidentally or maliciously impairing its ability to do its job and be fair to all Americans.

But as it stands today, the big problem is just the opposite -- DC has no power to defend itself against the meddling of the federal government. The city can't even cast a single "nay" vote when the legislators from the remainder of the country gang up to overrule DC citizens' democratically-chosen laws. One prominent example is the feds' resistance to a commuter tax. So instead of being able to recoup some money from the rich suburbanites who work in the city and use its services, DC has to jack up the taxes and fees on its own disproportionately poor and minority population. Some reasonable limits on the city's jurisdiction over federal property (with a high burden of proof on the federal government to show it had been harmed) is a much better solution than the disenfranchisement of an entire city.

Empirical evidence is helpful here too. The governments of the UK and France seem to be doing just fine without taking the vote away from the citizens of London and Paris. State governments likewise haven't needed to kick the people of Harrisburg or Albany out of their legislatures. And the federal government has plenty of offices outside of the bounds of DC (including the Pentagon) which haven't been crippled by meddling voters.

*I'm happy to follow this principle to the logical conclusion that immigrants should be able to vote.

Stentor Danielson, 00:02, |

18.7.06

Australia To Be World's Top Horse And Buggy Exporter

I guess you have to give John Howard credit for being honest. The Aussie PM is excited about the prospect of Australia becoming an "energy superpower" by expanding its share of the fossil fuel market. Howard rejects not only the Kyoto Protocol but also any alternative (such as a carbon tax) other than end-of-the-pipe carbon cleanup technology. Burning fossil fuels comes first, because that's what will make Australia rich. Protecting the environment can't be allowed to interfere.

Australia is well placed to be an innovator in clean energy, with its cloudless skies and wide-open spaces ready for solar and wind power. But those kind of innovations won't make money right away for established mining companies, and Howard is clear on whose back he's watching.

Howard repeatedly cites "pragmatism" as a reason to focus on older forms of energy. It's a common rhetorical trick, portraying older energy technologies as known quantities while renewable energy is speculative and risky. The problem is, if we demand that our energy source be clean -- which Howard gives lip service to -- the plausibility of that claim goes out the window. Is it really "pragmatic" to aim for a massive engineering fix that will turn dirty energy technologies into clean ones, but not "pragmatic" to expand the use of already-existing technologies that are intrinsically clean?

Stentor Danielson, 00:50, |

16.7.06

Can *Beta* Males Be (Pro)Feminists?

Over at Pandagon, there's a good discussion of whether "alpha males" -- men who strongly exhibit stereotypically masculine characteristics, like assertiveness, self-control, extroversion, leadership, risk-taking, not-taking-shit-from-anyone -- can be (pro)feminists. The conclusion, with which I agree, seems to be a unanimous "yes." (I will note, in a probably futile attempt to forestall semantic debate, that I realize that the alpha and beta categories are generalized and fuzzy and not mutually exclusive. In any event, we can talk about the alpha-male characteristics without necessarily packaging them under that term.)

What interests me is the implication that whether beta males (unassuming, conciliatory, tolerant, behind-the-scenes, risk-averse) can be (pro)feminist is unproblematic. The issue is raised by, and hence focuses on, alpha males, who are trying to do away with the particular patriarchal expressions of alpha maleness in their lives. Confusion between these two levels -- and hence improper generalization of feminists' criticisms of patriarchal forms of alpha maleness into criticism of alpha maleness tout court -- seems to be the core of the problem. Anti-feminists often make this implication explicit, when they charge that feminism wants to turn all men into beta-males, and cite the inevitability of alpha males as a reason why feminism will never succeed.

Looking at the feminist and (pro)feminist responses to the alpha male question, though, it seems that it's alpha male (pro)feminists whose existence is unproblematic. Indeed, the paradigm case of (pro)feminist action -- boldly calling out another man on his sexist behavior -- is also a classically alpha male act. So perhaps we should be asking whether it's possible for beta males to be (pro)feminists.

I must make clear that there's one jump of logic I'm not willing to make yet. It would be easy enough to end this post by saying "pity the poor beta male, who is left out of (pro)feminism! We must reassure him that he's OK, that he can be (pro)feminist in his own way." (A very beta-male sort of argument, incidentally.) Instead we need to entertain the possibility that a certain degree of alpha maleness is a requirement for being a (pro)feminist, at least in a world where injustice and privilege must be actively fought, and where men have no mitigating circumstances or excuses.

Stentor Danielson, 20:12, |