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October 31, 2007, 12:32 pm
Climate Change and the ‘Politics of Fear’
By Sewell Chan
Is the environmental movement, like the war on terror, premised on a “politics of fear”? In other words, does it try to unify people by scaring them with threats to their basic survival?
That was the provocative thesis advanced by Alex Gourevitch, a doctoral candidate in political theory at Columbia University, at a panel discussion on Tuesday evening at the New York Public Library. He was confronted by vigorous dissent from his fellow panelists and from some members of the audience.
The panel discussion was organized by n+1, a political and literary journal published twice a year, begun in 2004. A. O. Scott, a film critic for The Times, wrote in 2005 that the journal “is explicitly and without embarrassment devoted to the idea that thought can advance.”
(The journal has attracted a following on Ivy League campuses and has also become a bit of an obsession for the blog Gawker.)
Introducing the panel, Paul Holdengräber, who directs public programs at the main branch of the library system, described n+1 as “at times vituperative and never pusillanimous, shrewd, smart and terribly opinionated and giving the opinion of being sure of itself.”
Benjamin Kunkel, a novelist and co-editor of n+1, who moderated the panel, said that Mr. Gourevitch’s “great polemical essay” would be a centerpiece of the journal’s next issue.
Mr. Gourevitch explained his thesis:
Let’s say it: Environmentalism is a politics of fear. It is not a progressive politics. When I say it is a politics of fear, I don’t mean that it just deploys hysterical rhetoric or that it exaggerates threats, which I think it does. I mean it in a much deeper sense.
Mr. Gourevitch did not portray himself as a skeptic of climate change, but he argued, “What the science cannot tell you is what our political and social response should be.” Science cannot determine whether humans should focus on mitigation or adaptation, he said.
Mr. Gourevitch quoted Al Gore as describing the climate change not only as the most urgent issue of our time, but also as a unique opportunity for current generations to affect the course of history. Mr. Gourevitch summarized this approach as “the thrill of being forced by circumstances to put aside the pettiness and conflict that so often stifle the human need for transcendence.”
He added:
Environmentalism is not just some politics. It’s a political project, a full-bodied ideology, and one that presents itself in terms of progress and aspiration. But when you look at what this ideology is built on, it’s built on the idea that a collective threat that makes security the basic principle of politics and makes the struggle for survival the basic and central aim of our social and political life. This, to me, is not a progressive politics at all.
Most provocatively, Mr. Gourevitch compared the environmental movement to the war on terror, which he said relies on a unity based on fear. He continued:
What is it that moves us? It’s not actually ideals. We’re not stirred to action by ideals. We’re compelled by the force of circumstances. It’s the sheer spur of necessity that drives us forward. What’s more, this ostensible politics is really an antipolitics, because the idea is that we should put to one side the conflicts of interest and ideals that are the real cut and thrust of politics.
The other panelists responded to Mr. Gourevitch’s arguments. Chad Harbach, the managing editor of n+1, sympathized with some elements of the argument, but disagreed with others. He cited the Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman, who has often argued that the development of new energy sources, and vast investments in research and technology, have the potential to create wealth and prosperity.
“I would characterize this as the opposite of a politics of fear,” Mr. Harbach said, saying that Mr. Friedman’s arguments actually assuage fears even if they provide a “false security.” Mr. Harbach warned that America’s greatest fear is really not climatic catastrophe but rather a future without cheap fuel and constant economic expansion.
Mark Greif, a co-editor of n+1, who recently received his Ph.D. in American studies from Yale, spoke next. He said he agreed with Mr. Gourevitch that “the politics of global warming produces the possibility of left-wing fantasies of a state of emergency in which we wouldn’t have to go through normal politics in order to get things done.”
Mr. Greif said he had indulged in these same fantasies.
But he argued that even if aspects of the environmental movement mirrored some of the tactics of the war on terror, “given the goals and present constitution of the U.S. left, I would insist this is no bad thing.” He added that the American left “retains goals of liberation and safeguards against violence which the right simply does not.”
Mr. Greif also said that it was unlikely that the environmental movement would be experienced in a top-down, government-driven way, like the war on terror. More likely, he said, Americans will come to see care for the planet in the same way they view dieting, nonsmoking, exercise and medical remedies — as means of self-improvement. (Such an approach, he conceded, might very well not be enough “to forestall ecological disaster.”)
Meghan Falvey, a graduate student in sociology at New York University, expressed sympathy with Mr. Gourevitch’s goal of reminding people that American political debates had shifted away from discussion about social conflicts and inequality toward neoliberalism, a movement that represents “the ascendancy of markets over governments.”
Over the next hour or so, the panelists debated, with Mr. Kunkel calling on various members of the audience to chime in with their thoughts and observations. It felt a little like a coffee house conversation with graduate students, but the audience seemed to enjoy it.
Some highlights:
Mr. Harbach: “The scariest thing about global warming is how much more scared the experts are than any of us.” Mr. Gourevitch pointed out that wealthy and poor communities experience natural disasters differently. Bangladesh and the Netherlands both have low-lying coastal areas, but the former is at much greater risk of devastation by rising sea levels, he said. Mr. Greif, a Massachusetts native, admitted he feared that Plymouth Rock would someday be covered by water, forcing visitors who wished to see it to go out in motorboats with glass bottoms — which would further pollute the environment. Later, Mr. Greif admitted that “panel discussions like this” breed a sense of futility. “What am I going to do?” he said. “I’ll recycle some more. I’ll try to take cloth bags to the supermarket.” Returning to loftier themes, Mr. Gourevitch called for “an actual politics of transcendence that’s really about freedom requires engaging with ideas and contesting with ideas and trying to think about how a political movement would develop that would challenge the limits of our social organization.”
Climate Change and the ‘Politics of Fear’
By Sewell Chan
Is the environmental movement, like the war on terror, premised on a “politics of fear”? In other words, does it try to unify people by scaring them with threats to their basic survival?
That was the provocative thesis advanced by Alex Gourevitch, a doctoral candidate in political theory at Columbia University, at a panel discussion on Tuesday evening at the New York Public Library. He was confronted by vigorous dissent from his fellow panelists and from some members of the audience.
The panel discussion was organized by n+1, a political and literary journal published twice a year, begun in 2004. A. O. Scott, a film critic for The Times, wrote in 2005 that the journal “is explicitly and without embarrassment devoted to the idea that thought can advance.”
(The journal has attracted a following on Ivy League campuses and has also become a bit of an obsession for the blog Gawker.)
Introducing the panel, Paul Holdengräber, who directs public programs at the main branch of the library system, described n+1 as “at times vituperative and never pusillanimous, shrewd, smart and terribly opinionated and giving the opinion of being sure of itself.”
Benjamin Kunkel, a novelist and co-editor of n+1, who moderated the panel, said that Mr. Gourevitch’s “great polemical essay” would be a centerpiece of the journal’s next issue.
Mr. Gourevitch explained his thesis:
Let’s say it: Environmentalism is a politics of fear. It is not a progressive politics. When I say it is a politics of fear, I don’t mean that it just deploys hysterical rhetoric or that it exaggerates threats, which I think it does. I mean it in a much deeper sense.
Mr. Gourevitch did not portray himself as a skeptic of climate change, but he argued, “What the science cannot tell you is what our political and social response should be.” Science cannot determine whether humans should focus on mitigation or adaptation, he said.
Mr. Gourevitch quoted Al Gore as describing the climate change not only as the most urgent issue of our time, but also as a unique opportunity for current generations to affect the course of history. Mr. Gourevitch summarized this approach as “the thrill of being forced by circumstances to put aside the pettiness and conflict that so often stifle the human need for transcendence.”
He added:
Environmentalism is not just some politics. It’s a political project, a full-bodied ideology, and one that presents itself in terms of progress and aspiration. But when you look at what this ideology is built on, it’s built on the idea that a collective threat that makes security the basic principle of politics and makes the struggle for survival the basic and central aim of our social and political life. This, to me, is not a progressive politics at all.
Most provocatively, Mr. Gourevitch compared the environmental movement to the war on terror, which he said relies on a unity based on fear. He continued:
What is it that moves us? It’s not actually ideals. We’re not stirred to action by ideals. We’re compelled by the force of circumstances. It’s the sheer spur of necessity that drives us forward. What’s more, this ostensible politics is really an antipolitics, because the idea is that we should put to one side the conflicts of interest and ideals that are the real cut and thrust of politics.
The other panelists responded to Mr. Gourevitch’s arguments. Chad Harbach, the managing editor of n+1, sympathized with some elements of the argument, but disagreed with others. He cited the Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman, who has often argued that the development of new energy sources, and vast investments in research and technology, have the potential to create wealth and prosperity.
“I would characterize this as the opposite of a politics of fear,” Mr. Harbach said, saying that Mr. Friedman’s arguments actually assuage fears even if they provide a “false security.” Mr. Harbach warned that America’s greatest fear is really not climatic catastrophe but rather a future without cheap fuel and constant economic expansion.
Mark Greif, a co-editor of n+1, who recently received his Ph.D. in American studies from Yale, spoke next. He said he agreed with Mr. Gourevitch that “the politics of global warming produces the possibility of left-wing fantasies of a state of emergency in which we wouldn’t have to go through normal politics in order to get things done.”
Mr. Greif said he had indulged in these same fantasies.
But he argued that even if aspects of the environmental movement mirrored some of the tactics of the war on terror, “given the goals and present constitution of the U.S. left, I would insist this is no bad thing.” He added that the American left “retains goals of liberation and safeguards against violence which the right simply does not.”
Mr. Greif also said that it was unlikely that the environmental movement would be experienced in a top-down, government-driven way, like the war on terror. More likely, he said, Americans will come to see care for the planet in the same way they view dieting, nonsmoking, exercise and medical remedies — as means of self-improvement. (Such an approach, he conceded, might very well not be enough “to forestall ecological disaster.”)
Meghan Falvey, a graduate student in sociology at New York University, expressed sympathy with Mr. Gourevitch’s goal of reminding people that American political debates had shifted away from discussion about social conflicts and inequality toward neoliberalism, a movement that represents “the ascendancy of markets over governments.”
Over the next hour or so, the panelists debated, with Mr. Kunkel calling on various members of the audience to chime in with their thoughts and observations. It felt a little like a coffee house conversation with graduate students, but the audience seemed to enjoy it.
Some highlights:
Mr. Harbach: “The scariest thing about global warming is how much more scared the experts are than any of us.” Mr. Gourevitch pointed out that wealthy and poor communities experience natural disasters differently. Bangladesh and the Netherlands both have low-lying coastal areas, but the former is at much greater risk of devastation by rising sea levels, he said. Mr. Greif, a Massachusetts native, admitted he feared that Plymouth Rock would someday be covered by water, forcing visitors who wished to see it to go out in motorboats with glass bottoms — which would further pollute the environment. Later, Mr. Greif admitted that “panel discussions like this” breed a sense of futility. “What am I going to do?” he said. “I’ll recycle some more. I’ll try to take cloth bags to the supermarket.” Returning to loftier themes, Mr. Gourevitch called for “an actual politics of transcendence that’s really about freedom requires engaging with ideas and contesting with ideas and trying to think about how a political movement would develop that would challenge the limits of our social organization.”
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