Mar
8
The old scout.
Filed Under general, learning, environment, Wendell Berry, activism |
I was forced to finally reflect on my time at the Artists for the Climate event thanks to Frank, whose momentary lapse in perceiving chronology resulted in frantic begging. They’ll appear in this week’s edition of The Swinging Bridge, but you, dear readers, will find them here first.
Also, apologies to Garrison Keillor’s far superior weekly column, from which I borrowed the title of this week’s post.
On Sunday, March 1, hundreds of students, activists, community members, and others interested in issues of sustainability and art gathered in Lisner Auditorium on the campus of George Washington University in Washington, D.C., for Artists for the Climate, a two-hour event bringing together writers, musicians, and other artists committed to activism on behalf of the planet.
As someone sympathetic to the cause of environmentalism—one who is passionate about salving the effects and stemming the causes of global warming, caring for Creation, practicing sustainable living, and investigating alternative fuel sources—I came to the Artists for the Climate event excited to hear from folks like Bill McKibben and Wendell Berry, to be enriched by writers who care passionately about the our world and our future while also inviting others into the cause.
What transpired, instead, was two hours of self-aggrandizing back-patting and uncritical groupthink from a host of award-winning writers, experienced politicians and academics, and acclaimed musicians.
The evening’s proceedings were replete with blatant pro-liberal oratory from all but a few speakers, and self-congratulatory eruptions of applause from the audience. There were buzzwords that sent the crowd into tizzying fits of approbation or rage—“vision” and “coal,” for example—and even a closing chorus meant to inspire unity. The gathering was somewhere between political rally and evangelical church service, a mix of mind-numbing rhetoric and ecological liturgy.
As someone not fully invested in the “environmental movement”—I don’t do rallies or lobbying or anything of that nature—and who prefers to address these very important issues at a grassroots level (through personal and communal efforts like conserving water, consuming locally grown food, and thinking critically about how my decisions to travel or purchase affect the environment), I was thoroughly put off by the whole proceeding.
I understand that, as the culminating event of the PowerShift 2009 Conference—three day seminar which instructs activists across the U.S. and Canada on how to mobilize and lobby on behalf of our planet—Artists for the Climate was meant as a symbolic gathering, a time of emotional and psychological galvanization in preparation for the next day’s protest outside the Congressional power plant. In some ways, I was truly moved by presenters like Terry Tempest Williams, a prolific and inventive writer whose articulate, dignified, and impassioned reading brought tears to my eyes (lines like “Disobedience that is wholly civil will produce love” and “Our power lies in our love of our homelands” were simple, declarative statements that brought home to me the gravity of our work as citizens of this planet), and Kathy Mattea, a self-proclaimed “recovering country music star” whose beautiful, haunting interpretations of Jean Ritchie’s Appalachian ballads were a highlight of the evening. And, without a doubt, Wendell Berry’s brief reading and reflection was a welcome oasis in the midst of a blistering desert.
I’m not objecting to the purpose of an event like Artists for the Climate or even an event like PowerShift: sometimes, it feels good to be empowered and encouraged. What I find disheartening and, frankly, disturbing is the language with which PowerShift executes its agenda. As they write on their website, PowerShift exists to “hold our elected officials accountable for rebuilding our economy and reclaiming our future.” Activists “must use the time we have to redefine what is politically or financially feasible.” And while the group’s desire to “to strengthen the climate and clean energy movement by infusing our nation’s young leaders with new ideas, skills, connections with each other,” is admirable, there’s little mention of dialogue—of examining and challenging our ideas and worldviews, the kind of hard and painful work that helps us to clarify our motivations and our desires.
The “They Rhetoric” that suffused the Artists for the Climate event—“They are responsible for poisoning our rivers” or “They are responsible for raping our national lands”—is dangerous and divisive. It engenders an “us-versus-them” mindset. It draws black and white distinctions when shades of gray are ultimately more valuable. When it moves outside the doors of Lisner Auditorium and into the rhetoric that young environmental activists use on the streets, it creates deeper fissures in the already fragile fabric connecting the believers and the non-believers, the ideologues and the yet-uninformed.
Wendell Berry—the closest thing the contemporary environmental movement has to a patron saint (although he would most likely eschew such a label)—addressed this very issue during his brief ten minutes on the Lisner stage. Tall and broad-shouldered but speaking with a quiet humility that defied his appearance, Berry told the story of a young “witty”—the nickname for a town idiot in his region of Kentucky—who encountered a man digging a hole in the middle of the street. After asking, “Why are you digging that hole?”, the witty was informed that “it’s to bury all the sons of bitches.”
“Who’s going to cover us up?” the witty finally asks.
Though Berry provided no subsequent explanation for his parable, I’d like to think that Berry and I saw the same thing in Lisner Auditorium that night: a crowd of people too wrapped up in shrugging off the blame for our present environmental debacle that they’ve lost the sense of self-awareness and self-criticism necessary for any effective social movement. They’ve lost the recognition that every single person on this earth is complicit in its slow and painful deterioration. They’ve forgotten how to be humble, and in the process have grown insular and unwelcoming.
Comments
2 Comments so far
I agree with you about people pointing fingers and not recognizing for years how they never thought of how they use energy.A lot of stars did not mind people spending money to buy music, use the internet or their large fees for a film.Meanwhile coal miners are laid off, utility bills go up and in WV alot on fixed incomes. I am against Mountaintop removal and water is contaminated, but alot of talk and no green jobs just their countless films and self praise when little local people took on those issues years before Al Gore and the Inconvenient Truth. They are naysayers on clean coal and sequestering of CO2.They only want their type of jobs and not both renewable and fossil.It is never enough. Kathy Mattea sees this and is humble about these things but she is on the AL Gore bandwagon, like A club. I am. A center right person and all of this makes it class warfare. They dont care about the poor and middle class.I think that demonizing a group is wrong because they provide all of us with electricity and jobs.I know the damage to the mountains but they need to let Nuclear and other options too.They do not get it but you do.
Personally I am tired of environmentalism being a “political” issue instead of a persoanl issue. I think that we should take responsibility for our own actions.
By the way, great article!