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ABBEY...
BERRY...
of
wildness or of wilderness; I said that if we do not come to better ways
of using the parts of the world that we use, we will inevitably destroy
all of it, the wilderness included. To me, this is merely obvious. In
my part of the country, anyhow, we cannot have any considerable
acreage of wilderness merely by preserving old growth woodland. Most of
that is long gone. If we are to have wildernesses – and I hope that we
will have them, large and small – we will have to grow them. We will
have to learn to befriend thickets in honor of what they may become in
200 years. And this will require us to alter profoundly our
understanding of farming and forestry, as arts and as economies.
But
the issues of use and preservation are more closely connected even than
that. Wildernesses cannot be preserved indefnitely by fencing out
their would-be destroyers who, in the meantime, wreck the countryside
elsewhere. It seems to me that an interest in wilderness preservation
implies a need to interest oneself in the best ways of using the land
that must be used – timber management, logging, the manufacture of wood
products, farming, food processing, mining. The respect that preserves
wilderness might have as one of its proper sources, and one of its
surest safeguards, a respectful and skillful kindness towards land in
use.
A
reader who read Mr. Abbey’s review without reading my book [Home
Economics] might also conclude that I advocate overpopulation. Here, I
think, I had better quote myself. On page 149, I wrote: “I would argue
that, at least for us in the United States, the conclusion that ‘there
are too many people’ is premature, not because I know that there are
not too many people, but because I do not think we are prepared to come
to such a conclusion.” (That is a straightforward and reasonable
statement. Mr. Abbey accuses me of arguing from “a hidden premise.” I
think he suspects me of being a Catholic.)
the
essence of the wilderness ideal. It is indeed a moral issue, which is
why we must teach ourselves to transcend the antique Hebraic
superstition that God – or whatever – created the world solely for the
pleasures and appetites of the human animal. Let being be.
One
look at a mountain lion, or a great white shark, or a snail darter, or
a centipede, should suffce to convince even the most obtuse that the
world is infnitely more complex and mysterious than merely human
desires can explain. The continued existence of these beings – animals
and rocks that serve no human purpose – is of course a source of vast
resentment to the majority of humankind. Not only do they compete with
our instinctive urge to humanize everything, they also create annoying
intellectual problems for theologians and technocrats – for all those
who still believe that humans really are the center of the universe,
the primary object of Creation’s solicitude. Vanity, vanity, thy name
is humanism. (Whether Christian or Marxist.)
Certainly
we should make wise use of what we must use. But we do not need to hog
the whole nation, the entire planet, and then going beyond even that
lustful goal, cast covetous eyes and reach out grasping hands toward
the moon and other planets. Enough is enough. It is our greedy,
expansionistic, industrializing culture, not human nature, which makes
monsters of homo sapiens.
Not greed but need, they cry – there are so many of us!
How
true. So long as human numbers continue to grow, there is little hope
that we can save what wilderness remains in America. Even less hope
that we can advance toward a true democratic society of independent
freeholders, as Berry fondly imagines, as Jefferson once dreamed of.
Still less hope that we could regain the relative paradise of an
economy based on hunting, fshing, gathering, with space enough and time
enough for all. The population of America has doubled in my lifetime,
from 120 million to 240 million, plus who knows how many uncounted
aliens hiding in our cities. Unless the population of our country is
gradually reduced, through natural attrition, to some optimum fgure
like 50 million, there is no chance that our democratic ideals can ever
be achieved. In the contemporary world, democracy – meaning not merely
political participation but a fair share in the ownership and control
of wealth for every citizen – remains a fantasy. A fading, receding
dream.
It
is for reasons such as these that I fnd Berry’s position on the
question of population to be inexplicable. There is a hidden premise in
his argument which he is not revealing to us. If he thinks 240 million
is not too many, how about 250 million? 300 million? How many do we
have to accommodate on our fnite land before he will agree that we have
reached the point of diminishing returns?
The
conclusion that there are “too many people” in the US is premature, I
think, because we have not dealt at all with the issue of use. I do
not mean simply the issue of how much to use, but also the issue of how
to use. If we reduced our population to 50 million and still refused to
curb our technological ambitions and our greed, then we would still
have “too many people.”
The
conclusion is premature also because we are not talking about the
problem with the proper respect for human beings and human nature.
“Birth control,” so far, is an extremely crude industrial invasion of
the human body, exactly parallel to industrial invasions of our
forests and farmlands. It has been extremely lucrative to a few at the
cost of damage and diminishment to many. Birth control, divorced from
sexual responsibility, is the internal equivalent of clearcutting or
stripmining, and is sponsored by the same kind of mind.
I
believe that I understand Mr. Abbey’s misanthropy; I think I share his
exasperation and resentment; I too long to preserve the possibility of
solitary quiet in places wild and unbothered. But I don’t think that
misanthropy is a solution, or that it can lead to a solution. Of
course it is hard to love people who are not our friends and relatives,
but imagination informs us that everybody is somebody’s friend or
relative. Of course human history is a sorry spectacle, not the least
bit improved in our time, but the same history informs us that some
humans have been splendid and that many have been decent. For those
reasons, humans have a right to exist that is respectable. I don’t
believe that we can preserve ourselves or our world by belittling
ourselves.
So long as human numbers continue to grow, there is little hope that we can save what wilderness remains in America.
He
cannot dismiss the matter by speculating on the possibility of
genocide, the deliberate extermination of “unemployables” and
“underclasses.” That is a false alternative. The decent, simple, and
perfectly fair means for controlling population size in our country are
easily available: economic incentives: A revision of the tax system so
as to reward single people and childless couples and to penalize those
who breed more than, say, two children per family, combined with a
system of economic rewards for those who voluntarily agree to some form
of reproductive sterilization. We already require a license to drive a
car; how much more sensible to require a license for baby production,
combined with a stiff tax on motherhood. Most people in our lunatic
society are not qualifed to beget and raise children anyhow: look about
you. Of all American freedoms, the privilege to breed is the one most
grossly abused. And the abuse is carried on at public expense, based in
turn on the continuing abuse and pillage of our diminishing natural
resource base.
On
this point, the American public, as always, is far ahead of our
cultural institutions, our so-called leaders, and our deep thinkers.
Most American women are content with no more than two children apiece;
the real cause of our continued population increase is not ignorance
but uncontrolled immigration. If immigration were curtailed, as most of
our citizens would like it to be, we could soon stabilize the national
population and begin a serious reform of our malformed social,
economic, and political institutions. But the powerful do not want
this; the manic ideology of “Growth” is based upon never-ending
population increase; the conservatives love their cheap labor, the
liberals love their cheap cause, and the great techno-industrial
megamachine requires a never-ending supply of its essential raw
material – bodies – in order to justify its expansionist logic.
And
the world continues to shrink. Human life becomes ever more debased –
here and everywhere. Crowding is accepted as the norm, queues become
commonplace, the roar of the traffc grows louder, and the value of the
individual life is steadily cheapened as the total number of human
lives is steadily compounded.
That
is where the philosophy, or rather the religion – it hardly deserves
the name philosophy – this is where the religion of human vanity, of
man as the center of all things, has brought us.
The
conclusion that there are “too many people” in the US is premature, I
think, because we have not dealt at all with the issue of use.
Mr.
Abbey begins his review with an extremely generous compliment to me and
my work. This little rejoinder has by no means carried me beyond my
gratitude for that – or for his work, which is an indispensible source
of delight, instruction, and comfort to me. In spite of the differences
that are the subjects of this exchange, I will continue to think of
myself as his ally and friend.
Wendell
Berry is one of the most highly regarded writers in the US. Along with
this, he shares with Ed Abbey the distinction of being one of the
dwindling number of writers who eschew the computer in favor of the
typewriter.
Editor’s Note: Our thanks to the “collective” at EF! for permission to re-print these 1988 essays.
Here is some contact info for Earth First!
Mr.
Berry asks us to respect the human species. But respect has to be
earned. I respect my friends, I love the members of my family – most of
them – but somehow I cannot generate much respect, love or even
sympathy for the human race as a whole. This mob of fve billion now
swarming over the planet, like ants on an anthill, somehow does not
inspire any emotion but one of visceral repugnance. The fact that I am
a part of this plague gives me no pride.
Indeed,
there are too many of us. Man has become a pest. For the dignity and
decency of all, we must reduce our numbers to a sane, rational, humane
and human level. Otherwise we are no better than rabbits, or fruit
fies, or bacteria in a culture bouillon, and deserve a similar fate,
the natural fate of any animal which outbreeds the carrying capacity
of its range. As individuals we seem capable of common sense, of
reason, of sympathy for others, but as a race, as a species, we have
yet to prove that we can behave any better than tent caterpillars
devouring the tree which supports them.
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