Ecology, Politics, and "Love of the Home" | William L. Patenaude | Catholic World Report
A review of Roger Scruton’s Green Philosophy: How to Think Seriously About the Planet
Nuance is often lacking in discussions about global environmental crises, which makes Roger Scruton’s Green Philosophy: How to Think Seriously About the Planet (Oxford University Press) a gift for those distraught by the doomsday scenarios or outright denial voiced by many today about life on Earth. Scruton’s examinations of agriculture, climate change, widespread plastic pollution, and much more offer sound, challenging food for thought—even if the necessary ingredients to achieve his proposals are left largely unstated, as people of faith will notice.
Scruton is an English writer and philosopher. He labels himself as conservative but his writings and observations can defy the commonly accepted meaning of that label. In How to Think Seriously About the Planet one finds solutions that would, and do, delight liberal ecological crusaders. This is but one example of Scruton’s willingness to seek answers along any path that will do.
In just over 400 pages, the book connects topics that should be connected when discussing ecology: politics, philosophy, aesthetics, economics, sociology, the natural sciences, history, and current events. What is hardly mentioned, however—and when it is, only with the lightest of touches—is faith, especially the Christian faith that Scruton has adopted and that formed the foundational narrative of much of the Western world that he examines. Perhaps Scruton assumes that his audience will be largely secular and so wishes to avoid any terminology—like sin, grace, or God—that may interfere with, or be diminished by, his political message.
Nevertheless, love and sacrifice play big roles in this book. The central proposal for thinking seriously about the planet is “old-fashioned oikophilia”—the love of the home. It is this love, Scruton argues, that provides the best means to counter human-induced ecological crises. Any changes in human practices that are meant for the good of the environment (and, thus, for people) must root themselves in our “individualist” instinct for communities to tend to their own. The opposing “egalitarian” reflex—to solve problems through the actions of strangers within centralized governments, international agencies, or non-government organizations, of which no one political authority is in control—will too often fail and in many cases already has.
Scruton writes that “[t]he conservative understanding of political action that I propose is formulated in terms of trusteeship rather than enterprise, of conversation rather than command, of friendship rather than the pursuit of some common cause. Those ideas lend themselves readily to the environmental project, and it always surprises me that so few environmentalists seem to see this. It is as obvious to a conservative that our reckless pursuit of individual gratification jeopardizes the social order as that it jeopardizes the planet. It is obvious too that the wisest policies are those that strive to protect and keep in place the customs and institutions that place a brake on our appetites, renew the sources of social contentment, and forbid us to pass on the costs of what we do to those who did not incur them.”
It is hard not to hear a dialogue with Christian ethics in Scruton’s definition of political action. Indeed, much of what Pope Benedict XVI has said about ecology and human consumption aligns with Scruton, when stripped of political adjectives. But Scruton’s musings about conservative political philosophies do not journey into faith, even if this is where the entire project seems headed.
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