Comments on: I've Deleted "Environmentalism as Spectacle"

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By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 01:51:00 +0000

I was away from a computer for the last several days, so I missed all the excitement.

Good on 'ya, Sharon, for being willing to take down a post when you had second thoughts. I've done this a few times (or revised a post to take out the more snarky language). What happens is that I'll wake up in the middle of the night thinking, I REALLY didn't mean to say that as strongly as I did.

To me, these are matters of diplomacy and consideration - not of principle. So many conflicts get started not because of anything important, but because of hurt pride.

I think we are in the phase of peak oil / sustainability, where potential fissures are appearing. This is familiar territory to anyone who has been involved in political movements. I wonder if this time we'll be able to overcome the tendencies for in-fighting and sectarianism?

As a previous comment pointed out, we have so much more in common with each other... and yet it's easy for terrible squabbles to break out between people who agree on 98% of the issues.

Especially online, when we all go too far too quickly.

Caroline Casey, the "Visionary Activist," has a wonderful spiel on "how to be a good ally."

The way that you (Sharon) deal with this problem sets an example for others. So I applaud that you're grappling with these tough problems.

Bart
Energy Bulletin

By: jewishfarmer

jewishfarmer — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 18:14:00 +0000

Thank you all for the kind words, and I appreciate the advice. Colin and have had some discussion in private, and I think I made the right choice in taking the piece off. I want to be absolutely clear that while I may not approve of Colin's taking donations, I've always approved of the basic project. The majority of people in the world are urbanites. The worst polluters on earth are rich people. I think Colin's project matters, even if I don't agree with some of the things he does. And I'm not saying that because of seconding guessing - this is first guessing. Even in the deleted post, I wanted to be clear about what I do think is good in this project.

BTW, Colin graciously put my link back. I'm certainly not immune to getting mad, and I don't begrudge him for doing the same.

Enough on this subject.

Sharon

By: Susan Och

Susan Och — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 17:00:00 +0000

I would have loved to read it.

By: deliberately

deliberately — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 10:57:00 +0000

OK, I have been wrong in defending Colin. I've sat back since his experiment started and, despite several areas where he has failed to adequately respond to challenges and criticism from his public, given him the benefit of the doubt. I thought the larger discussion was more important than the person or his personal quirks.

That's now changed. Given the condescending way he has handled the challenges he received for requesting donations, I can't abide him any longer. There are too many good places to learn and expand on the internet to waste my time with his self-serving stunt.

Sharon, don't second-guess yourself next time. While you can be passionate about your positions, I haven't yet encountered a time when you aren't fundamentally on the right side of the argument. If your gut tells you to push back, push back. And it's sad that we've lost the post in it's original form, because now it seems others might need to read it as well.

Thanks.

By: Deb G

Deb G — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 15:09:00 +0000

I want to add my request to Brian M.’s that you write about this again later. I didn’t read your post, but I think you have much of value to say in what I’ve read on your blog. I think there have been some important issues raised by NIM’s request for donations (especially regarding what is a sustainable income/lifestyle). I also think the media element of environmentalism has to be looked at if being green is going to be more than just a fad. I do respect your decision to take your post down if you weren’t comfortable with it, sometimes the how and when of what is said is just as important as the message.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 12:59:00 +0000

Your post was so thoughtful and careful! I wanted to say some of those things in comments on other peoples post, but didn’t feel I needed to because you had already said them. Celebrity does weird things to professions and vocations that are not used to them. Tony Bourdain has written thoughtfully, (if venomously) about the differences between being a chef, and a celebrity-chef. Over time he’s toned the venom down and become humbler, but much of the original message remains, there are differences and we need to think about them. Have there been celebrity-farmers in the past? Is Pollan’s shining the spotlight on Joel Salatin turning him into America’s first celebrity-farmer? What does that matter how do we think about it? We need to reflect on this stuff. Academia hit the celebrity-academic problem decades ago (we call ‘em “Big Names”), and we’ve been grappling with it, and honestly it is still a huge problem in Academia, and there is a lot of in-fighting to be the next “Big Name.” Are enviromentalists and lifestyle activists going to start in-fighting over who will be the next environmentalist-celebrity, The next Nader or Gore or Petrini?
I worried that the slowly ratcheting emotional tones of some of the comments was going to lead to a rift between folk who should be working together. But the content needs to be thought about, and the post itself was balanced and restrained. If you question your own motives, I totally respect that. Give it a while to calm down and try to approach the subject again. It might help if you could think of another example or two of Environmentalism as Spectacle, besides NIM; Terre Madre jumps to mind, as does the watermark stunt from New York. The issue will not go away, and honestly future incidents could be far uglier if we can’t wrap our thinking around the issues. Thank you
-Brian M.