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July 06, 2005
Religious, part II
Thinking more about Crichton's speech, I guess I would sum up what bothers me as follows.
Crichton suggests people who think of themselves as environmentalists as religious nuts unwilling to discuss their views rationally. He makes a relatively convincing argument, so if you don't examine it critically, you can come away thinking Crichton has proved environmentalists are religious nuts, and therefore can reasonably be ignored. Yet Crichton himself visibly constructs the argument without fully examining the situation, arguing as a lawyer rather than a scientist.
Clearly some part of what motivates people who consider themselves concerned by our impact on our environment could be called aesthetics. Andy wrote about this in his blog.
Another part of what motivates people concerned about our environment may be common sense. If you have lived near a busy intersection as we used to in Strasbourg, have commuted regularly in traffic, or have biked during rush hour, you no doubt sense from time to time that although getting around and hauling stuff in cars and trucks can be handy, it's also noisy, smelly, and perhaps even unhealthy.
A small part of what motivates the environmentally concerned may in fact be understanding of research results. Crichton may not in fact overgeneralize about this in his speech, but his approach works to help the reader overgeneralize. Even inconclusive findings could lead cautious scientists to suggest we take action to prevent potentially catastrophic impact from some aspects of our lifestyles, but the speech doesn't leave you thinking about that as a possibility.
Some part of what motivates environmentalists is also a sort of religious conviction. That helps Crichton's smear stick. It also causes what can be seen as overreaction when someone who feels conviction about wasteful or polluting behavior confronts someone doing the wasting or polluting. If the person wasting or polluting heard Crichton, of course he may already have decided he doesn't have to listen to this religious nut (particularly if Crichton helped him rationalize behavior that he himself half felt was wasteful or polluting).
In the end, because Crichton's suggested remedies seem so weak and hard to implement, because his argument seems to belong in the courtroom rather than the classroom, and because it encourages rationalization of potentially disasterous social behavior, leaving not only the resolution but even the consideration of the problem to experts, I feel an accomplished author like Crichton could do much better.
Posted by Mark at July 6, 2005 04:22 AM