In My Green Manifesto, nature writer David Gessner shared of paddling down the Charles River with environmentalist Dan Driscoll as Driscoll spoke of the need for hypocrites in the green movement:
“We nature lovers are hypocrites of course,” Dan says. “We are all hypocrites. None of us are consistent. The problem is that we let that fact stop us. We worry that if we fight for nature, people will say ‘But you drive a car’ or ‘You fly a lot’ or ‘You’re a consumer, too.’ And that stops us in our tracks. It’s almost as if admitting that we are hypocrites gets people off the hook…We need hypocrites who aren’t afraid of admitting it but will still fight for the environment. We don’t need some sort of pure movement run by pure people. We need hypocrites!”
Gessner promotes a sloppy environmentalism — “An army of flawed and sloppy hypocrites” — one that lacks the drama of saints and villains and instead fits the contradictory nature of humankind.
Hypocrite has several meanings, including a person whose behavior opposes their stated beliefs (Driscoll & Gessner’s notion), or someone who carries a false appearance of being virtuous. Yet it is the original meaning given by the Greeks — a deficiency in a person’s ability to decide — that is the kind of hypocrite I believe would benefit from sloppy environmentalism. This latter concept of hypocrite describes many of us as we try to care for nature while fulfilling other responsibilities, desires, and needs. We need a sloppy environmentalism, because frankly, given the demands taxing our green choices, sloppy may be the best many of us can do.
Around the time the Industrial Revolution got underway the Enlightenment’s model of rational minds also gained momentum. Choosing green means dismantling both. These centuries-old models of society and mind secured modernity’s privileged position and expansion around the planet. One made it easy to mass produce goods and the other supported a global marketplace of supposedly rationally minded citizens. Now they are largely obstacles to protecting the environment and creating conditions of true equality.
The Industrial Revolution and Enlightenment rationality both disregard the larger ecosystems in which they are meant to function. Many industries today, following the practices originating with the Industrial Revolution, prefer to envision their products as end results of a closed system, with little regard for the environmental contaminants resulting from production. Similarly, depicting humans as foremost rational beings, and giving preeminence to human’s cognitive capacities, ignores the larger “ecosystem” of the human organism and how emotions, the imagination, the body, and our relationships are equal contributors to mental states and behavior. The failure to honor interconnectedness fragments societies and minds and contributes to dissociating awareness of what happens outside the “system” of one’s concern or focus, which makes it difficult to be other than a hypocrite when attempting to live a green life.
Even mundane attempts at straddling multiple social worlds — and their conflicting responsibilities — lead to choices that can sideline the desire to go green. For example, it’s not uncommon to buy a quick cup of coffee in a disposable cup when prioritizing getting to work on time or kids to school before the bell rings. This doesn’t mean a failure to care about the environment. Rather, “systems” of work or school, and having to make choices about which commitments take precedent, can undermine the desire to make green choices. Sure, forgoing coffee is an option and so is getting up early to brew your own. Yet the reality is choosing green is a commitment always vying with other commitments and exigencies.
The prevalence of addictions, compulsive habits, and other psychological defenses also tests the belief that rational choice will get us to a greener world. Gessner shared the following about the legendary environmentalist Edward Abbey:
“I think of Ed Abbey fighting for the West while throwing empty beer cans out the window of his truck.”
Substance use and addictions keep even the most ardent environmentalists, at times, a bit sloppy.
If we judge a person’s commitment to the environment in terms of actions alone, we risk missing what drives the failure to consistently take steps that conserve and protect the planet: ever-shifting emotional landscapes that are common of fractured minds living in fractured societies. Consider sociologist Simon Gottschalk’s picture of the emotional life of the typical person navigating a globalized society:
“…rapidly shifting intensities which oscillate between complete indifference and passionate involvement, between intense idealization and devaluation, between terror and chronic boredom.”
Not everyone rides an emotional rollercoaster, although many of us brace against significant emotional shifts in a typical day, often by just changing from the context of family needs to the expectations of work. Furthermore, too much stress and anxiety can lead to emotional numbness and the need for escape from the burden of commitments, which can derail even the most heartfelt desire to live green. There is also a more encompassing influence on our emotions: a shifting sociopolitical landscape in which what constitutes “doing the right thing” often feels in flux.
Rational thought is more ideology than reality. Most choices are not rational but involve a mixture of judgment, emotion, reverie, and our commitments to others. Our emotions pull us toward something, thereby determining what we value; our thoughts tell us why. If emotionally we can’t get behind a decision — and stay behind it — then it’s unlikely we will consistently act in concert with our commitments, regardless of our intentions.
The worldview that gave us rational thinking as the nature of the civilized mind, and environmental degradation as the inevitable consequence of progress, also produced Manifest Destiny as the heroic acquisition of land and thus control over resources. Although this is an old ideology, it’s difficult to deny that the push to prove one’s worth through material attainment still holds sway, which is often about emotions, such as pride and the avoidance of shame. The hypocrite — as the one who is having a hard time deciding what to do — isn’t just choosing between what products to purchase and how to invest time and resources. There’s also a lot of emotional work that must be done around what counts as evidence of leading a successful life, which is often about feeling valued and respected.
At least in the United States, where heroism is pursued and shame avoided, we need a green movement that supports rather than disgraces many of us hypocrites as we make choices not just about our actions but also about who we might become, and how we might judge our worth, in a green society. For it is the hypocrite’s approach to environmentalism that supports exploring the contradictions challenging our green choices. By identifying how and when we fail to choose green, we might begin to dismantle the beliefs, emotions, and behaviors tied to old ideologies that keep us from creating integrated lives and communities and the joy of living in accordance with the needs of the natural world.
References
Gessner, David. 2011. My Green Manifesto: Down the Charles River in Pursuit of a New Environmentalism. Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions
Gottschalk, Simon. 2000. “Escape from Insanity: ‘Mental Disorder’ in the Postmodern Moment.” In Pathology and the Postmodern: Mental illness as Discourse and Experience. Edited by Dwight Fee, pp. 18-48. London: Sage Publications.
Originally published 2011/12/05
Revised 2022/03/31
© Laura K Kerr, PhD. All rights reserved (applies to writing and photography).
