‘Environmentalism Without Ideology’ and the Dreams of Wiping out Humanity

Abstract

My aim is to discuss the rhetoric of expertise as objective, and ideology[1]and value-free, on the example of environmental policy. The first section introduces examples of the common rhetorical figure of expert, ideology[1]free environmental protection, revealing their presuppositions. The second introduces objects of comparison – the cartoonish proposals of wiping out humanity – with the aim of showing that the two groups of proposals assume an analogous rhetoric. The third section discusses some prominent features of various proposals of ‘population control’, along with the links to the current surge of so-called eco-fascism. The aim is to show that all these phenomena represent a scale of the idea of ideology-free environmentalism. The concluding section discusses the distorted understanding of expertise, ideology, and politics, central to examples given in the previous sections, as leading to deplorable ignorance or callous cynicism, and therefore, in effect, a moral failure.

Moj cilj je da na primeru ekološke politike preispitam retoriku stručnosti kao objektivne, neutralne i lišene ideologije. Prvi odeljak uvodi primere uobičajenih retoričkih figura stručnjaka, i ne-ideološke zaštite životne sredine, ističući pretpostavke koje one podrazumevanju. Drugi odeljak uvodi objekte poređenja – karikaturalne predloge o istrebljivanju čovečanstva – sa ciljem da se pokaže da obe grupe predloga pretpostavljaju zajedničku retoriku. U trećem delu razmatraju se neke istaknute odlike raznih predloga ‘kontrole populacije’, dovodeći ih u vezu sa trenutnim porastom takozvanog eko-fašizma. Cilj je pokazati da svi ovi fenomeni predstavljaju skalu ideja ekološkog aktivizma lišenog ideologije. Završni odeljak raspravlja o iskrivljenom shvatanju stručnosti, ideologije i politike, koji su od ključnog značaja za primere o kojima se prethodno raspravljo, a koji vode ka žalosnom neznanju ili neprikrivenom ciniz mu, i stoga rezultiraju moralnim neuspehom.