At Public Discourse, Peter Blair reviews Roger Scruton’s intriguing case for a conservative environmentalism:
In the conservative vision, threats to one’s home, environmental or otherwise, are met by public spiritedness, by volunteering efforts united by what Scruton calls “oikophilia,” love of home. Politics then becomes modest, about compromise and enforcing the conditions that allow homeostatic systems to function properly. It also becomes localized, because it is only attachment to local civil associations that can solicit people’s loyalty and inspire them to accept the sacrifices that the common good requires. “Such associations,” he writes, “form the stuff of civil society, and conservatives emphasize them precisely because they are the guarantee that society will renew itself without being led and controlled by the state.”
The liberal vision supports a “salvationist” politics that shuts down risk-taking enterprises and seeks to insure people against the costs of risk-taking by collecting all power into a protective, centralized authority. While conservatives look to local or, at most, national institutions supported byoikophilia to counter threats and stabilize leadership, liberals rely on international regulation and borderless nongovernmental institutions (NGOs). They support organizations and movements structured around causes and campaigns, rather than civil associations that arise spontaneously out of a shared life. . . .
Scruton also defends environmental conservatism with arguments less often heard from American conservatives. Central to his case, for example, is his view that a local, voluntary, patriotic culture can motivate environmental care. Under local stewardship, people don’t defend the environment because they are on a global campaign to save the world. They defend it because they have thick ties to their home, and they want to keep their home safe and beautiful.
January 18th, 2013 | 11:56 am
There’s no rule that conservatives can’t look to international institutions and NGOs.
Scruton has been very influential in my own views on environmentalism. He likens environmental abuse to rape, i.e., the objectification of God’s creation purely to satisfy carnal desires. God’s creations have value in and of themselves apart from their material utility.
This argument about conservative environmentalism is a completely separate point. While I would agree with the wisdom of a conservative bias, he makes categorical statements that don’t necessarily follow.
January 18th, 2013 | 3:39 pm
James Taranto, who writes the Best of the Web blog for the Wall Street Journal, coined “oikophobia” a few years back to describe the motivation of many liberal activists. It’s good to see a discussion of the more positive “oikophilia.” Thank you!
January 20th, 2013 | 5:41 pm
I haven’t read Scruton’s book, so I’m relying on Blair’s summaries, which for Scruton’s sake are hopefully not very reliable. I see no basis for the generalization about conservative and liberal attitudes towards risk, and apparent counter examples abound. But in any case, it’s the nature of environmental damage that those who cause it are not necessarily those who suffer from it. In these cases it makes no sense in talking of polluters assuming the risk of polluting.
As this suggests, there’s a fundamental problem in trying to oppose local to centralized approaches to environmental problems in a fundamental way. Surely no one, conservative or liberal, by now supposes pollution and environmental degradation are typically, never mind necessarily, local problems. Or that they will naturally remain the problem of those who cause them if governments and the like stay out of the way. Pollution is used in textbook to illustrate economic externalities for a reason–it’s precisely the kind of thing that causes problems for all of us but typically gives no one party has any special incentive to take try to mitigate, including those who create it. Nor is it local. Coal plants in Kansas create air pollution that goes to Missouri. Fertilizers, herbicides and insecticides used in wheat fields in Kansas end up in the Gulf of Mexico. Which community is supposed to address this problem out of love of place? As for a local approach to global warming…
Conservative voices in environmental debates are welcomed, but hopefully they will be less naive than Scruton comes across here.
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