A wilderness preservationist cannot be a leftist Part I

In memory of Ted Kaczynski deceased June 10th 2023

A road near me, photo taken today

To start with with an observation, and that is I used the words “wilderness preservationist” and not “environmentalist” quite deliberately and this is because an environmentalist can be a leftist. Why is this the case? Let’s start with defining what I mean by left and right and right. The right wing or reactionary wold view is about about localism, hierarchy and differentiation among people, and religious and moral constraints on action. The left is about universalism, equality, a secular humanist world view and a utilitarian hedonistic view of correct behavior.

Let’s use a hypothetical plan about constructing an airport in a rural area where there is currently an oak grove and a 19th century church as a concrete example to focus these differences. For the leftist there is nothing a-prori wrong with bulldozing a 19^th century church that is surrounded by a grove of 200 year old oak trees to construct the airport. In the rational secular world view of the left wing person the trees and the church have no intrinsic value, in fact in the left wing world view the words “intrinsic value,” have no meaning as they signify meaning that exists beyond the merely contingent and utilitarian. For the leftist the airport is fine as long as the workers who build and maintain it and fly the planes have a just return on their labor. But you object, surely it is well known many on the left object to airport construction? This is true on the surface, but because the leftist environmentalist worldview is secular humanist and utilitarian, they are always open to bargaining as long as the end result benefits the “greater good” in a material fashion. If the airport commission makes a counter offer of making the airport 25 percent smaller and make a non binding commitment to transition to solar electric turboprops over a 20 year period most “environmentalists” will sign off on this, consider that they have won, furl up their banners and go back to their home which is not in the local community. At the end of the of the day the actual oak trees meant nothing to them, talk of the church that is getting bulldozed. It is all about implementing a universal grand plan, not any particulars on the ground. What of any Earth Firsters! there who refuse to bargain, well despite the fact they may self identify as “anarcho-communists,” or whatever, they are secret reactionaries, more on that later in part II of the essay next week.

Now let’s contrast this to how a local reactionary person might view the construction of the airport. To him the airport is an appalling affront on decency and the sacred. This doesn’t have anything to do with utilitarian or universal values, it is deeply personal and particular. He played in that oak grove as a child and attended the church, it is not an abstract issue at all, it is concrete and personal. He doesn’t care about reducing “carbon footprints,” and the idea of eating the bugs and living in a pod is correctly horrifying to him. He is not an “environmentalist,” from this it does not follow that he will allow an assault on his local community with devastating consequences for him as an individual and for the people he knows directly in his community. Whether he consciously views the oak grove as a “sacred grove,” or not, it functions that way in his life and effects his psyche on a deep pre-conscious level that is worth fighting hard for.

We see this kind of local and deeply embedded in the landscape activism for wilderness preservation in the movement led by Lakota Sioux Native Americans at the long standing camp to stop the Standing Rock pipeline project.

https://standingrock.org/

This website site says “we stand together for tribal sovereignty,” can you imagine some deracinated leftist environmentalist soy jack saying that in a heartfelt fashion? It is a deeply reactionary and localist sentiment, good!

While some words may be mouthed about “global climate change” (at least by the white woke “activist allies”), the deep motivation for this camp is the pipeline is seen as an attack on their home and their homeland. If your home and sacred places are being attacked you aren’t going anywhere, and you aren’t going to negotiate. To the Standing Rock Sioux this is not about some bloodless and abstract current year “issue” it is about the way they live their lives that is on the line. It is their local culture that has deep meaning to them as individuals and as members of the community that is going to be carelessly destroyed. So this is the key difference between an “environmentalist” and a wilderness preservationist is whether the issue is personal to you, or part of a broader plan of social engineering.

John Muir was a preservationist, his “activism” was around areas in Yosemite he had hiked in all his life. It was personal for him, and he was devastated as a man when he lost the Hetch Hetchy valley.

https://www.foundsf.org/index.php?title=The_Hetch_Hetchy_Story,_Part_I:_John_Muir,_Preservationists_vs._Conservationists

Muir was not a universalist, he was a unique individual and did not care if the areas he passionately advocated for were accessible to all people or not. In fact I am confident in saying he would have vastly preferred the areas not be accessible to today’s sedentary obese VR Guinea Pig bug men riding mobility scooters on paved “trails.” However he politically self identified at the time, this marks him out as very different from modern leftists whose primary values are things like universalism, “equity,” and “equal access.”

And what of these modern left environmentalists? Are they anything other than useful idiots of the technocratic system? Ted Kaczynski (God rest his soul) in his insightful essay “The System’s Neatest Trick,” lays out how the supposed rebels on the left in fact serve the system he hated, and I hate so much.

“So, in a nutshell, the System's neatest trick is this:

1. For the sake of its own efficiency and security, the System needs to bring about deep and radical social changes to match the changed conditions resulting from technological progress.

2. The frustration of life under the circumstances imposed by the System leads to rebellious impulses.

3. Rebellious impulses are co-opted by the System in the service of the social changes it requires; activists "rebel" against the old and outmoded values that are no longer of use to the System and in favor of the new values that the System needs us to accept.

4. In this way rebellious impulses, which otherwise might have been dangerous to the System, are given an outlet that is not only harmless to the System, but useful to it.

5. Much of the public resentment resulting from the imposition of social changes is drawn away from the System and its institutions and is directed instead at the radicals who spearhead the social changes.”

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/ted-kaczynski-the-system-s-neatest-trick#toc2

So the Extinction Rebellion “environmental activist” though he may superficially resemble the wilderness preservationist is an altogether different animal and in fact a useful servant of deracinated transnational capital and “The Great Reset.” If you listen to what they have to say it is never about saving some local and particular area, but instead about a grand abstract social engineering scheme. This social engineering scheme does not in fact oppose the consoomer alienation of corporatism and in fact makes consoomerism seem edgy and cool. Your new “Apple Vision” ™ headset is fine by them as long as it is juiced by solar electricity and you use it to view current year friendly LGBTQA2S + material. You can see how this fits the schema Uncle Ted laid out above to a T.

Now lets compare this to a wilderness preservationist. They want to STOP some boondoggle that will destroy a wilderness area that is near and dear to their heart. They are in a literal sense saboteurs, and are doing their best to throw their best sabot directly into the gears of the system. They are a genuine threat to “progress” based on deep meaningful spiritual/religious moral outrage and this can be clearly seen in the way the corporate media covers wilderness preservationists as “eco-terrorists,” while they heap praise upon the useful idiots of “Extinction Rebellion.”

In Part II of this essay next week I will cover how the distinction between the preservationist v.s the environmentalist has played out over the history of the ecology and preservation movement from John Muir through Extinction Rebellion, and how the group at the midpoint of this progression Earth First! was ripped apart by the invasion of the politically correct (what we now call woke) and my own personal part in that battle 20 years ago in a campaign to save old growth Redwoods in northern California.

Thanks for reading. See you next week with part II.