Download The Landscape of Reform: Civic Pragmatism and Environmental by Ben A. Minteer PDF

By Ben A. Minteer

Within the panorama of Reform Ben Minteer bargains a clean and provocative interpreting of the highbrow foundations of yankee environmentalism, targeting the paintings and legacy of 4 very important conservation and making plans thinkers within the first half the 20 th century: Liberty Hyde Bailey, a forgotten determine within the innovative conservation flow; city and local making plans theorist Lewis Mumford; Benton MacKaye, the forester and conservationist who proposed the Appalachian path within the Twenties; and Aldo Leopold, writer of the environmentalist vintage A Sand County Almanac. Minteer argues that those writers blazed an important "third manner" in environmental ethics and perform, a extra pragmatic strategy that gives a counterpoint to the anthropocentrism-versus-ecocentrism—use-versus-preservation—narrative that has lengthy ruled discussions of the improvement of yank environmental notion. Minteer indicates that the environmentalism of Bailey, Mumford, MacKaye, and Leopold was once additionally a part of a bigger ethical and political application, person who incorporated efforts to revitalize democratic citizenship, preserve local tradition and neighborhood id, and reclaim a broader realizing of the general public curiosity that went past economics and materialism. Their environmental idea used to be an try and critique and whilst reform American society and political tradition. Minteer explores the paintings of those 4 environmental reformers and considers present-day manifestations of an environmental 3rd means: traditional platforms Agriculture, an alternative choice to chemical and energy-intensive business agriculture; and New Urbanism, an try and strive against the unwanted effects of suburban sprawl. via rediscovering the pragmatic roots of yankee environmentalism, writes Minteer, we will aid lead to a brand new, civic-minded environmentalism at the present time.

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36 Chapter 2 Dewey was obviously very impressed with the nature-study efforts under way at a number of schools throughout the country. While he was greatly interested in the pedagogical aspects of the movement and its ability to open the young student’s mind to science and the methods of intelligent inquiry, I think it’s also the case that Dewey recognized and appreciated the potential of nature study to cultivate an emotional, aesthetic, and even ethical attachment to the natural world among schoolchildren.

Despite the muscular language, it is clear from the context of this discussion that Bailey is not prescribing the conquest or subjugation of the earth as much as he is attempting to generate interest in and appreciation for what he took to be the noble work of farming life, which he feared was increasingly being viewed as little more than drudgery best left behind as rural citizens flocked to the cities. ”79 Even when he chose to use this kind of grand Rooseveltian language, then, Bailey should not be seen as promoting the route of nature by civilization.

As we will see, in Bailey’s case this concern also manifested itself in the promotion of nature study for schoolchildren and an argument for its significance in creating an environmental ethic among country dwellers, especially farmers. 14 One group, commonly referred to as the “urban agrarians,” included the more socially oriented thinkers such as Bailey, who were interested in revitalizing and marshaling the perceived moral resources of the agrarian life—virtues such as simplicity, honesty, and authenticity—against the vices of the modern industrial city, which was viewed as overly complex, hopelessly corrupt, and artificial.

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