Letters to the Editor
manniwood
Published Letters: 21 Editor's Choice: 8
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The deaths that *are* news.
[Read the article: Starving season]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm so glad Salon reports on the deaths that are newsworthy. I remember when I still used to read physical newspapers, accidents and murders made page 1, while mass starvation or genocide was usually buried in the international news in a different section.
I know I'm being politically incorrect in saying that some deaths bear more (news) significance than others; but, then again, that's the value judgement that editors have to make every day when deciding what goes on page 1 above the fold, and what gets relegated to page B6.
Salon, I appreciate your values.
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masculinity "hinges on sustaining an underlying sense of male inadequacy"
[Read the article: Feminism vs. femininity]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The article quite rightly points out that femininity "hinges on sustaining an underlying sense of female inadequacy", but one could equally say the opposite:
Masculinity "hinges on sustaining an underlying sense of male inadequacy".
There are all sorts of masculine stereotypes men fail to live up to as well (carved six pack, Bradd Pitt good looks, naturally athletic and well-coordinated, and, let's not forget, wealthy and powerful).
On the one hand, these simplistic ideals that neither sex can live up to perhaps make us strive to better ourselves. I go to the gym for others, absolutely... which also makes going to the gym very much for me. And when I see the benefits to my health and happiness, I'm glad I'm not secure in my perfectness, sitting at home getting fat (and unhealthy) on the couch, in the name of not buying into a male stereotype.
We all struggle with who we might be able to be, versus who we really can be given our actual circumstances, versues who we ought to be, versus who we want to be, etc.
Any normal person tries to find a balance between these forces (unsatisfactorily, up until death), and though women and feminists certainly have their unique blend of wondering who should they be, and for whom, *nobody* gets a free pass. Women are not unique in having these sorts of struggles in the first place; their struggle just comes in a different flavour than men's.
When women (would it were now!) reach parity with men in terms of holding power in society, the struggle won't magically disappear.
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Started great, but then...
[Read the article: Stop your sobbing]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Nordhaus and Shellenberger made good points up until they mentioned how rational the Easter Islanders and Greenland Norse were to (in the case of the Norse) starve to death "given their values, their cultures, and belief systems". This is incorrect. Example: if a decision is made based upon the belief that creationism is true, the subsequent decision may be internally consistent with belief in creationism, but the decision has the potential to be as irrational as creationism itself. You can't have a good/rational outcome when your decisions are based on false premises.
It sort of goes downhill from there with phrases like "environmentalists almost uniformly consider...". Fill in the word "environmentalists" with "feminists" or "conservatives" or maybe some racial group for a really politically incorrect kick.
Essentially, Nordhaus and Shellenberger go on to paint all environmentalists with the same negative brush, and blithely state "We can overcome ecological crisis" with no examination of how having access to nuclear weapons and novel new toxins make our crisis perhaps somewhat different that that faced by the clear-cutting Easter Islanders.
Nordhaus and Shellenberger discuss environmentalists who want to save the planet as an end in itself, and give no mention of the environmentalists who want to save the planet simply to save ourselves. There is no discussion of whether tree-hugger Julia Butterfly Hill is grouped together with a minority or majority of environmentalists.
The most disappointing thing is that while Bennett's "The Enchantment of Modern Life" was mentioned (kudos!), McDonough and Braungart's Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things was not. Cradle to Cradle is the best book I know of that discusses how humans can continue to be humans (imagine a book that admits to the joy of purchasing something new and throwing something old away!) by laying out how manufacturing of the future needs to work.
I understand that Nordhaus and Shellenberger would not want to mention more rational and hopeful works such as Cradle to Cradle or Sundance Channel's The Green, which reveal the popularity positive, hopeful, constructive environmentalism.
But answering the shrillness of one aspect of environmentalism (Al Gore et. al. are not 100% shrill, after all) with their own shrillness undercuts their important points mightily.