The environmentalist movement’s devotion to the pastoral ideal as being restricted to nature and not inclusive of human beings, has led to a very strong aversion to technology (note following post about nuclear power which will generate that aversion in force) summed up in this quote from R. Arnold in our 2006 report.
“The pastoral ideal has been used to define the meaning of America ever since the age of discovery, and it has not yet lost its hold upon the native imagination.
“Since 1964, the rise of environmentalist ideology has pushed the pastoral ideal increasingly toward nature, striving to redefine the meaning of America in fully primitivist terms of the wild.
“Public policy debate over the environment and the meaning of America has been clamorous these thirty years. Its terms were succinctly put by Edith Stein:
“The environmental movement challenges the dominant Western worldview and its three assumptions:
• Unlimited economic growth is possible and beneficial.
• Most serious problems can be solved by technology.
• Environmental and social problems can be mitigated by a market economy with some state intervention.
“Since the 1970s we've heard increasingly about the competing paradigm, wherein:
• Growth must be limited.
• Science and technology must be restrained.
• Nature has finite resources and a delicate balance that humans must observe.”
(R. Arnold, 1996)
