Salus Populi Suprema Lex Esto
President Theodore Roosevelt and John Muir at Yosemite National Park in 1903. Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress
Peter Thiel once said in an interview something to the effect that the only three coherent visions of the future that animate people in the modern world are Islamism, Chinese totalitarianism, and western-style environmentalism. To many readers of this blog, I have to imagine that none of these visions is especially attractive. That is except, perhaps, environmentalism, which has gripped the hearts and minds of many in the western world today. By taking a closer look at why this might be the case, we may be able to sketch out a new forward-looking vision with broad appeal.
The contemporary environmentalist movement is concerned above all with the preservation of life against a perceived threat arising from the excesses of our modern civilization. The environmentalist claims that due to the accumulation of the by-products of overproduction and overconsumption, largely in the form of pollutants and greenhouse gasses, humans have become an existential threat to themselves and to other lifeforms on this planet. Thus, in a rather Hobbesian manner, the environmentalist argues that we ought to restrict ourselves by scaling back our global post-industrial civilization in order to save the human race and the rest of earthly life from catastrophe.
The problem with this vision is its hyper-focus on mere survival above all else. Environmentalism is received by many as an alarmism or apocalypticism that warns of universal destruction if we don’t deny ourselves for the sake of the whole. We are told to stop traveling so much, eat plants and bugs instead of animal products, and, in some cases, have fewer children, because more humans will only serve to threaten our environment further. Ironically, the environmentalist concludes that we must deny the very substance of life – namely energy, vitality, and reproduction – in order to save it. Even if everything the environmentalist claims is true, the vision here presented is certainly unattractive and supremely pessimistic. That being said, the environmentalist typically is concerned with aspects of life impacted by ecological decay other than mere survival, though these aspects often fall by the wayside. The environmentalist does often acknowledge the effect that industrialism and overconsumption have had on day-to-day life in their destruction of natural spaces, the corruption of our food and water supply, and so on. However, this aspect is often underemphasized in favor of the apocalyptic rhetoric surrounding climate change. It is in giving greater focus to those understated points that we may begin to sketch out a new vision.
Hence, there are many insights the environmentalist offers that we must take seriously. It is certainly true that we are poisoning our environment with plastics, pollutants, and pesticides that make their way into our food and water. Many animal and plant species have been threatened and/or destroyed as a result. It is also true, as many environmentalists argue, that our living spaces, diets, and modes of work tend towards unnatural and unhealthy lifestyles for humans. Human health has evidently suffered as a consequence with increased risk over time of cancers, metabolic dysfunction, and endocrine disruption. This is especially evident in men in whom testosterone levels and sperm counts have been steadily declining for several decades. Mental health as well has declined steadily in both men and women over the past half century or so. These trends observed all around the globe indicate serious physical and developmental sickness, which undoubtedly find their origin in the sickness affecting the environment we inhabit.
Instead of focusing so heavily on mere survival, we should instead adopt a vision centered on the flourishing of human life. We should, like Aristotle, adopt a hylomorphic understanding of life and its development. We should understand health as the development of an organism into the fullness of its nature, and we should see the stunting of development as a sign of ill health. Health is not merely the absence of illness, but the presence of wellness. For instance, an oak is healthy when it has the space and resources needed to blossom into a broad tree with winding roots, a thick trunk, and deeply colored leaves. Apart from this, the oak is not in a state of full health. Likewise, the healthy human is one that is physically robust, mentally sound, full of energy, though not distressed, and, consequently, happy. The widespread lack of the aforementioned characteristics in humans today is indicative of sickness. More than ever we are overweight, depressed, anxious, tired, stressed, and, above all, unhappy.
Our environment is poisoned and we are poisoned thereby. Our new environmentalism should, therefore, be oriented toward the purification of our environment and the creation of spaces conducive to the flourishing of human life. We need an eco-patriotism that seeks to care for the environment precisely because the proper development of life is contingent on the environment of which it is a part. Like our former president Theodore Roosevelt, we ought to seek to exorcize pesticides and pollutants from our soil that is so toxic to humans, and actively create and preserve natural spaces in which human and animal life can thrive. In order to promote that thriving, like our former president John F. Kennedy, we ought to prioritize physical education and training for our youth that will lay the groundwork for a life of health and activity going forward. Our new environmentalism, that I have christened eco-patriotism, is not driven by fear of death, but love of what is possible for us when human nature is given full expression.
And so, when the environmentalist decries the damage we have wrought on the natural world and ourselves thereby, we should reply in affirmation, “The health of a people should be the supreme law.” Without health, we are unable to achieve and enjoy the great fruits that civilization offers. The only way to attain that health is an ecologically aware patriotism that understands the environment as an essential component in the development of culture and the life of a civilization.
