[CTTL] Contemnori literally did not know before now that the tragedy of the commons guy was a malthusian and a white nationalist
i thought he was a like, vaguely shitty conservative but no!
anyways im glad my professor had us interrogate this dude and his premises but pissed this was just casually accepted in every env. science class i've taken until now
Doc Edward Morbius ⭕@cuttlefish Having some familiarity with Hardin's work:
His views don't fit neatly into any political camp, and party platforms themselves shifted markedly over his life. (I don't know what party he registered or voted with.)
His views and causes earned criticism from both left and right. He was an ecologist, and favoured environmental conservation, immigration limits, abortion, and eugenics, while criticising creationism, a platform which crosses (and offends across) party lines.
His own views progressed with time. There isn't any criticism based on nationalism of which I'm aware a least during the 1960s--1970s, and probablly not for some time later. His more strident views came later in life, largely in the 1990s and 2000s. I am less familiar with those.
I'm not aware of significant contemporaneous criticism of him on racial grounds during his lifetime and particularly not through the 1960s--1980s. This includes hearing him in debate with Frances Moore Lappe, author of Diet for a Small Planet and arguably a post-scarcty advocate.
What Hardin fundamentally believed in was that the Earth has limits, and that neither population nor human consumption (or effluvia) can grow without bounds. This is a taking away of the candy bowl which is deeply unpopular on both the ideological right (believing in unlimited private wealth) and ideological left (believing in unlimited social wealth). It's also an understanding which forces very hard choices.
Hardin was noted for taking on taboo topics (he titled one of his books after this). Venturing into hard questions and difficult domains risks being wrong and offending.
SPLC's case against Hardin is, by their own standards, fairly weak and circumstantual, leaning very heavily on both innuendo and association with others whose own views largely chrystalised later. I respect SPLC but question their accuracy here. At least some of their argument is revisionist.
https://www.splcenter.org/20090131/nativist-lobby-three-faces-intolerance
https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/garrett-hardin
I don't dismiss concerns entirely, and there's much to be concerned and highly conscious of. But casting a moralising net over the entire question of limits and planetary boundaries is also highly problematic. As someone who's familiar with that discussion and its history over the past 200+ years, including Malthus, claims of race and class favouritism have long been raised against those who've pointed to the simple existence of limits.
The Nativist Lobby: Three Faces of Intolerance
This report describes how the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) and NumbersUSA were founded and funded by John Tanton, a retired Michigan ophthalmologist who operates a racist publishing company and has written that to maintain American culture, "a European-American majority" is required.
@dredmorbius who are you
@dredmorbius im sorry if that was rude, but having just read his paper where he implied people are having too many children because they are on welfare, and seeing his views on immigration i have seen more than enough! Have you read Ibin Dechamp's critique of malthusianism from an anti-colonial prospective? I think it might tell you a lot about this.
@cuttlefish As I wrote above, it's a very difficult problem.
Contexts have also changed. People were pretty wildly freaked out about population and resource consumption in the 1950s & 1960s, which saw peak growth rates of all time. Crisis was averted in large part because birth rates fell (demographic transition in advanced countries, birth control and family planning elsewhere, Chine's OCPF policy. All of which were (and some still are) hugely controversial.
And the Green Revolution eased the food question. Might want to read Norman Borlaug's Nobel acceptance speech for that:
There can be no permanent progress in the battle against hunger until the agencies that fight for increased food production and those that fight for population control unite in a common effort. Fighting alone, they may win temporary skirmishes, but united they can win a decisive and lasting victory to provide food and other amenities of a progressive civilization for the benefit of all mankind.
We've seen what famine and plague can do to human populations. Ireland still has not recovered to its 1850 population peak, over 170 years after the Great Famine. Plagues have wiped out 25--90% of historical populations, and there's a strong argument that they co-evolve with populations (see Kyle Harper's excellent Fate of Rome).
"Ibin Dechamp" gives no search results. Spelling?
@dredmorbius
Please considering Dechamping on my nuts before defending racists in my mentions
Please considering Dechamping on my nuts before defending racists in my mentions
@cuttlefish Again, Hardin said a lot. Much I agree with, some I don't. The questions he asks are among the most heavily loaded. Thinking and understanding has evolved.
Others concerned with population have been exceedingly intent on following a moral and equitable approach, see for example Paul and Anne Ehrlich, especially in their more recent works (1990s to present). One With Nineveh
Again, Hardin's basic observation is that Earth's carrying capacity is limited. If you reject that premise, on what basis? And if you accept it, what are the implications and consequences?