218 - In Defense of People: Ecology and the Seduction of Radicalism

In Defense of People:
Ecology and the Seduction of Radicalism
By Richard Neuhaus
New York, The Macmillan Company, 1971. 315 pp. $6.95.

The professed and advertised theme of this book is a polemic against the ecology movement, which the author accuses of putting "the rights of nature' before "the rights of man." Its quarrel with the ecologists is wide-ranging and is set forth with specific references to the ideas of individuals, which it identifies as the villains of the piece. It will force many readers to see these matters in new ways and may initiate a whole new dialogue about the legitimacy of perspectives that seem to have been enjoying a wide support in the middle-American consensus.

Neuhaus contends that ecological programs are valid only if coupled with a concern for the disinherited members of society. He finds much in the ecology movement that is either oblivious to the needs of the poor or even hostile to their aspirations. Conservatism is pictured as easily at home with conservationism. (Chapter 6); the advocates of population control are accused of suggesting techniques that are based on Malthusian assumptions and could have totalitarian consequences (Chapter 7). Neuhaus feels that ecologists often engage in an alarmism that is a contradiction of the spirit of the science in whose name it is promulgated (Chapter 8) and that they would preserve the quality of life for the privileged by cutting off the rights of the poor to be born (Chapter 9).

Neuhaus also argues that the ecology movement seeks to rise above politics, centering attention on but one (and a less pressing) issue in a time of crying needs for economic justice and a more creditable foreign policy. In exploring these matters, be ranges into commentary about issues that are not cited in the advertising of the book. He explores the conditions that engender political

219 - In Defense of People: Ecology and the Seduction of Radicalism

radicalism (Chapter 2), indicates strong reservations about the counter-culture (Chapter 3), and sets forth a whole new way of viewing America's role in these times (Chapter 10). Underlying all these observations is the belief that the poor must be concerned about the political power through which they can overcome their exploitation in America's aristocratically orientated political system (Chapter 2).

The author of this book is committed to political change as the necessary way to new health for American society and sets forth his preference for political achievement over esthetic faddism in vivid prose and striking illustration. He holds that economic and political injustice compounds, may indeed even create, the ecological crisis and that any return to nature that is an escape from political responsibility must be both criticized and resisted. He takes on both the "radical chic" and the "indignant chic." His criticism spares neither professors nor youth. He is only slightly softer on a few preachers-but not the popular ones-and has his harshest comments for the establishment architects of American foreign policy. In many ways the book is as much a critique of American postures and performances in the world of international affairs as it is of the ecology movement. Its concern with the misuse of American power in Vietnam is as overriding as the concern of ecologists with pollution of the environment. The wide spectrum of concerns in the book is summed up in this passage from its concluding chapter:

The great political debate in America today is not about means but about ends. What is America about? What myth illuminates its role in contemporary history? The old Cold Warriors have one answer. The middle-class disciples of Che Guevara have another. The ecology movement a brutal regression to domestic self-interest-represents yet another. The first myth, however much sense it may once have made, is thoroughly repudiated by Indochina. The second, however desirable it may be, is unrelated to the power realities of the present and foreseeable future. The third, however, attractive it may seem, spells disaster to the hungry of the world and the end of any possible self-respect among the American people. These three myths are certain losers. Each withdraws the legitimating moral authority from the democratic processes [and] invites the further erosion of those processes and, consequently, the increased control of the antidemocratic right (p. 296).

Informed about the literature in the field, enriched through personal acquaintance with significant leaders of contemporary religious thought (identified in a "name-dropping" set of notes at the end of the book but not through footnotes on quoted materials), made dynamic through mastery of vivid prose and imaginative invective, and impelled by a vision of what this land could and ought to be, this book will stimulate its readers-sometimes to

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agreement, sometimes to dialogue, and occasionally to disturbed rebuttal.

Edward Leroy Long, Jr.
Oberlin College
Oberlin, Ohio