Ok, I'm just going to jump right in here, so put on your scuba gear quickly. (I don't know what I mean by that.)
In Ecospeak, Killingsworth and Palmer argue that the terminology we use to talk about environmental issues eventually becomes too familiar, resulting in a flattening or hardening of meaning. Things get oversimplified, and terms/phrases/titles that carry heavy connotations eventually become tagged with some sort of stereotype or stripped-down version of what it use to mean. They cite the abortion controversy as suffering from this oversimplification; anymore the pro-life camp seems to exist solely to contradict the pro-choice stance and vice versa. The environmental language that has suffered this "strippage" is what Killingsworth and Palmer call ecospeak. So, it's got me thinking: How do we navigate the crowded room of ecospeak?
Oftentimes, environmental debates where each side has invested interest go nowhere, kind of like this:
Speaking to my moccasins in French would be productive. And if you're wondering what the GM guy had to say about this...
(PHEW! Thank GAIA I didn't wear my jacket with leather elbows today.)
I find it so striking that these videos (and the more general conversation they represent) depict the way ecospeak is used by various camps to display their severe distrust of other stances. Killingsworth and Palmer's diagrams (11,14) attempt to depict these relationships, but when I think about these debates being argued by real humans with real interests/values, it's evident that diagramming relationships is impossible. At first I was thinking of ecospeak in terms of Orwell's "Newspeak" in 1984, which Killingsworth and Palmer actually allude to; I thought of ecospeak as a voiceless, white-washed language that doesn't hold any real meaning. Environmentalist, for example, represents nothing more than a tree-hugger with a protest sign. But it's easy to forget about the emotions that charge such vocabulary usage. The GM guy was furious at the mere existence of *academic* environmentalists. (He really took a stab at us, didn't he? Especially at the "fuzzy haired" professor...) The environmentalist was appalled with the developmentalist (the GM guy). I guess what I'm saying is this: We use ecospeak to control our audiences or opponents by pegging them with a single identity (12), but how do we get around doing this when we're so emotionally attached to our cause and everyone seems to be playing their roles so nicely?
Another character in this soap-opera of environmental rhetoric is the public. Killingsworth and Palmer, and a few others who we read, note that ultimately the public's voice carries environmental issues to the government, where change can apparently occur. K&P suggest that it's our legislative demand and voting power that act as catalysts, but does anyone else think that
is idealizing the role of the public? For me it's always difficult to distinguish who determines public interest and values: the public, the government, or commercialism, or someone/thing else? With this in mind I found Cooper's take on the activist group Nature Conservancy interesting. Their characterization of themselves presents their mission as peaceful and free from the messy hands of the government, but as we know it's just not so simple.
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I find that attempting to break out of proscribed positions in public discourse is a good way to get attacked by both sides. I've tried a few times and was amazed how both sides jump all over anyone who tries to complicate things. That, however, was always in the context of talking to people with dogmatic faith in their positions. Those people aren't going to be persuaded, so why do we direct our rhetoric to them? It is much easier to take more complex positions and use less canned rhetoric when we target an audience that will listen with an open mind, but might have beliefs that sympathize with other views.
ReplyDeleteAs the son of a die-hard conservative small business owner, I sympathize with the GM guy. As an academic environmentalist (bald, not fuzzy-haired) who is a bit more "liberal" than my roots, I understand the passion of the activist. I would like to say to jwick, no! We can complicate things. People can be convinced by intelligent rhetoric and brought out of their dogma. However, I have yet to get my hard-working intelligent father to recycle. RECYCLING! Pretty simple right? How does one produce intellectual fungability? Perhaps jwhick is right in that we must continue on the best we know how, carefully creating comprehensive but focused perspectives in our discourse and allowing the stream of that discourse to flow into the oil slick of mainstream thought. Maybe that will clean things up a little at a time?
ReplyDeleteThe middle is a way.
P.S. Great job finding those videos.
ReplyDeleteWhat you say at the end about K and P discussing public power is something I truly believe in, that I must believe in. I think that if we don't believe what we support with our dollars and what we say to the government doesn't matter than we're bound to be steered to places we don't want to go. However, with the world so vast and so many people with conflicting perspectives on preservation, I agree it is hard to reconcile with.
ReplyDeleteI also liked what you had to say about ecospeak. The video you reference is a great example; it is representative of the above conundrum I described.
Maybe we should add a chapter to eco-composition about not making snap judgments in public eco-discourse, processing each perspective carefully. Maybe then there wouldn't be so many jump to conclusions wackos out there.
"...diagramming relationships is impossible," but "We can complicate things." It stakes out the struggle I've always have towards the study of rhetoric in praxis.The video clips are quite representative, I think, of a popular view of eco-speak. In contrast with this, Carson definitely offers us some hope in the sphere. However, I wonder if this split between commerce and academia will ever change, or we should rather try to release our capabilities in our own territories.
ReplyDelete