I would like to introduce here an entirely new argument in what has now become a stylized debate: the wilderness should be preserved for political reasons. We may need it someday not only as a refuge from excessive industrialism but also as a refuge from authoritarian government, from political oppression. Grand Canyon, Big Bend, Yellowstone and the High Sierras may be required to function as bases for guerrilla warfare against tyranny What reason have we Americans to think that our own society will necessarily escape the world-wide drift toward the totalitarian organization of men and institutions?This may seem, at the moment, like a fantastic thesis. Yet history demonstrates that personal liberty is a rare and precious thing, that all societies trend toward the absolute until attack from without or collapse from within breaks up the social machine and makes freedom and innovation again possible. Technology adds a new dimension to the process by providing modern despots with instruments far more efficient than any available to their classical counterparts. Surely it is no accident that the most thorough of tyrannies appeared in Europe’s most thoroughly scientific and industrialized nation. If we allow our own country to become as densely populated, overdeveloped and technically unified as modern Germany we may face a similar fate.The value of wilderness, on the other hand, as a base for resistance to centralized domination is demonstrated by recent history. In Budapest and Santo Domingo, for example, popular revolts were easily and quickly crushed because an urbanized environment gives the advantage to the power with the technological equipment. But in Cuba, Algeria and Vietnam the revolutionaries, operating in mountain, desert and jungle hinterlands with the active or tacit support of a thinly dispersed population, have been able to overcome or at least fight to a draw official establishment forces equipped with all of the terrible weapons of twentieth century militarism. Rural insurrections can then be suppressed only by bombing and burning villages and countryside so thoroughly that the mass of the population is forced to take refuge in the cities; there the people are then policed and if necessary starved into submission. The city, which should be the symbol and center of civilization, can also be made to function as a concentration camp. This is one of the significant discoveries of contemporary political science.How does this theory apply to the present and future of the famous United States of North America? Suppose we were planning to impose a dictatorial regime upon the American people – the following preparations would be essential:1. Concentrate the populace in megalopolitan masses so that they can be kept under close surveillance and where, in case of trouble, they can be bombed, burned, gassed or machine-gunned with a minimum of expense and waste.2. Mechanize agriculture to the highest degree of refinement, thus forcing most of the scattered farm and ranching population into the cities. Such a policy is desirable because farmers, woodsmen, cowboys, Indians, fishermen and other relatively self-sufficient types are difficult to manage unless displaced from their natural environment.3. Restrict the possession of firearms to the police and the regular military organizations.4. Encourage or at least fail to discourage population growth. Large masses of people are more easily manipulated and dominated than scattered individuals.5. Continue military conscription. Nothing excels military training for creating in young men an attitude of prompt, cheerful obedience to officially constituted authority.6. Divert attention from deep conflicts within the society by engaging in foreign wars; make support of these wars a test of loyalty, thereby exposing and isolating potential opposition to the new order.7. Overlay the nation with a finely reticulated network of communications, airlines and interstate autobahns.8. Raze the wilderness. Dam the rivers, flood the canyons, drain the swamps, log the forests, strip-mine the hills, bulldoze the mountains, irrigate the deserts and improve the national parks into national parking lots.Idle speculations, feeble and hopeless protest. It was all foreseen nearly half a century ago by the most cold-eyed and clear-eyed of our national poets, on California’s shore, at the end of the open road. Shine, perishing republic.
Obviously military conscription, a major issue in 1968, is now a relic that would be difficult to re-introduce to American society (although, given that 77% of the American youth are unfit for duty due to reasons of health, criminal records, failed education, or drugs, the government may entertain the idea if they ever get into a serious conflict e.g. over Taiwan). Likewise the continuing foreign wars have involved too few a number of Americans to distract us from our deep conflicts, which the government has chosen to fan instead. Only perhaps one or two percent of us went to Iraq; far more than that have been exposed to 'anti-racist' education designed to encourage such identities and grievances.
Point one, though, is the active policy of much of the ruling faction of the Democratic party; as is point 2; as is point 3. Point seven is a matter of keen bipartisan agreement, one of the few things they don't fight about. Point eight has vocal opponents among Democrats, although they mostly win only symbolic victories; and the Republican party seems strongly in favor of it (albeit in the name of "energy" and "progress" and "wealth generation," rather than "razing the wilderness").
I think it's an interesting argument, and worth discussion. If you agree, feel free to join me in discussing it.
Points 1 and 2 are the basic tenants of the infamous Agenda 21, whereby the population would be forced to move in to urban areas, giving up POVs for public transportation. And the national parks and other rural areas would be restricted to the general public. For us, we're talking basically the whole Appalachian mountain chain from Maine to North Alabama would be closed off to the general public.
ReplyDeleteI think he totally missed it on 4 - population. By the end of the 60s the fear of overpopulation was spreading and continues today in a sort of anti-humanist movement on the Left.
ReplyDeleteOn conscription, I think this is actually a goal for the elitists on the Left. The military was the last federal holdout against Progressive ideology and it was imperative to them to conquer it. In addition, in the end, everything must be reduced to the lowest common denominator, which carried to its logical end in the military requires conscription for those at the bottom and elitist leadership at the top. They need a compliant military more than a competent military.
Overpopulation continued to be plausible for a long time though; this was from 1968. We just recently fell below replacement (2020, aided by the pandemic).
ReplyDeleteWell, it was about the arguments rather than real concerns. He claimed one thing would happen, but my admittedly limited knowledge suggests that statists started warning of overpopulation and proposing limits to population growth in the 60s. This was one reason birth control, and probably abortion, were seen as necessary by the elitists in the 60s and 70s. And still are, I believe.
ReplyDeleteSo, I'm not saying he was right or wrong about population, but rather what statists would do to prepare for dictatorship.
Though again, I don't know a whole lot about that in the mid-to-late 20th century. I'm just going on my own perceptions over the years.
All that said, I think concerns about overpopulation haven't been plausible since the mid-20th century, at the latest, due to the incredible advances in agriculture in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Starvation since then has happened because of government corruption and stupidity, not because there isn't enough food to support the population. Of course, I'm talking about the Malthusian concept of overpopulation. How exactly one defines overpopulation if the primary concern is preservation of people-less wilderness is another matter entirely.
I do think that population control was a major concern from about the time that Freud's theories became current among the elite. This is explored in the BBC's excellent documentary "The Century of the Self." You began to see panicky secret programs and experiments as the governments of the world internalized the idea that people are basically irrational, governed by dark and secret motives, and prone to descent into madness.
ReplyDeleteEspecially of course eugenics had been current even before that among the Wise who were initiated into science; we saw that in the early part of the 20th century.
Sounds fascinating. I'll have to check that out.
ReplyDeletePopulation control in one form or another was a concern for Western elites since Malthus's "Essay on the Principle of Population" (1798). And, it indeed resulted in a concern for overpopulation in the early 19th century. I wasn't being terribly rigorous earlier.
However, a lot of that concern as the 19th century wore on and going through WWII seemed more about getting the right kind of population. Eugenics was not so much about lowering the overall population, but rather lowering the population of undesirables and increasing the population of desirables, however those terms were defined. The most extreme example here is probably Nazi Germany's paying Aryan women to have more children while at the same time exterminating Jews.
I'm still hazy on all this, though; I've just been reading a lot this last semester about it.
I'll look for that BBC documentary.
"It was all foreseen nearly half a century ago by the most cold-eyed and clear-eyed of our national poets, on California’s shore, at the end of the open road."
ReplyDeleteDo you know which poet he was talking about?
About 1, urbanization is an interesting phenomenon. I don't know much about it other than it seemed to start happening spontaneously in England with the industrial revolution. I know the privatization of what had been common pastures open to anyone made it harder for poorer farmers, so that's probably part of it. Anyone know more?
ReplyDeleteWith 1 and 2, did he present any evidence that government or some other agent was actively pursuing these objectives? These things can happen quite naturally in a capitalist or free market system.
3 is actually where I think we see it the most; this is clearly a goal of the Left and it makes the most sense to me that those pushing it are doing so as part of creating a dependent people.
I notice he doesn't mention the welfare state at all, even though this is well after its establishment. Surely, making as many people as possible dependent upon government handouts is a much more direct way to engender dependency than any of the points he mentions except 5 or 6.