Date: Sun, 29 Mar 1998 12:28:06 -0500 (EST)
From: Justin Schwartz <jschwart-AT-freenet.columbus.oh.us>
Subject: Re: M-TH: False Populism



Doug is right. James' argument is a cheap and stupid shot. Even taking the
proposition ascribes to deep ecologists "literally," it does not imply
that human life is valueless or that it has so little value that it is OK
to kill people. Moreover, for any political philosophy you might name,
someone will twist it into an excuse for some awful act. If you want to
avoid being taken "literally" in James' specious sense, you would have to
espouse nothing at all, and certainly not Marxism. --jks 

On Sun, 29 Mar 1998, Doug Henwood wrote:

> James Heartfield wrote:
> 
> >Here's a philosophy that says nature is a higher value than human life,
> >and, surprise surprise, someone takes that literally. 'Distraction':
> >something that you have difficulty accounting for.
> 
> That's just the point, James. Deep ecologists, many of whom do value
> "nature" more than human life, don't send bombs. It's a philosophy I don't
> like at all, but it should be engaged as a political philosophy. Treating
> the Unabomber as the last word on deep ecology would be like treating the
> Gulag as the last word on Marxism, the Inquisition as the last word on
> Christianity, or Auschwitz the last word on Nietzsche. It's a devious and
> lazy mode of argument - propaganda, literally.
> 
> Doug
> 
> 
> 
> 
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