Posted on 11/04/2013 9:54:01 AM PST by Olympiad Fisherman
Schopenhauer, who preceded Nietzsche, helped convert Goethe’s Romanticism into a tougher minded environmental existentialism, which Nietzsche emphasized even more with his “will to power” earth based superman values rooted in on biology and instinct rather than heavenly Judeo-Christian values. Schopenhauer is often considered the father of environmental ethics, and one of the original animal right gurus. He was an extremely anti-Semitic, and was drumroll ... the Fuhrer’s favorite philosopher. Nietzsche was number 2 on the Fuhrer’s list.
This is a depressing but fascinating lecture that not enough people think about or even bother to consider.
This guy has put things together is a way that is interesting and understandable. Lots of other people talk about bits and pieces but don’t get things well connected.
Difficult philosophical concepts are discussed that are readily grasped so that the listener does not lose his way.
If they "hold Christianity in complete contempt" would they really bother offering St. Francis of Assisi as a positive example they'd want Christians to follow? I suggest environmentalists are a more diverse group and plenty of those who are recommending St. Francis as a positive model are Christians themselves. Others who have "complete contempt" for Christianity may not bother with proposing examples for Christians.
It sounds like you're thinking in monolithic terms, good Christianity endeavoring to obey God and dominate and subdue the earth, and bad pagan environmentalists who despise Christians and their God and worship the earth. Most people probably don't fit in either category, but somewhere in between. In practical terms, "dominion" can't simply mean "Earth is yours. Take it. Rape it. It's yours." A wise ruler -- if that's what mankind is supposed to be -- is one who knows how to work with the ruled, rather than one who simply exploits them.
The anti-Christian sentiments of the environmental movement is far deeper than you understand (and by this I am not talking about classic conservationist values like Pinchot/Roosevelt which many enviros laugh at today). I have read many books and articles on this subject, with the most notorious being Lynn White Jr.’s infamous thesis, “The Historical Roots of our Ecological Crisis” published in Science magazine back in the 1960’s - http://www.uvm.edu/~gflomenh/ENV-NGO-PA395/articles/Lynn-White.pdf. He blames much of western Christianity in particular because of the Genesis mandate to subdue and fill the earth that undergirds much of medieval science and the birth of the Industrial Revolution where man is presumed to be above nature made in God’s image. This humanistic arrogance, undergirded by Christian theology, is at the heart of the alleged ecological disaster of the 20th century. Lynn White Jr. essentially borrowed from Thoreau’s hostility toward Puritanism back in the 1800’s that turned the wilderness of New England into towns, churches, farms, and pastures full of superficial life. Worse, across the pond, the early German greens were blaming the Jews for the same ecological degradation taking place on the German landscape thanks to Jewish international finances. Environmentalism is a rebellious reactionary movement that is dangerous at its roots, but the problem is, most folks do not know what these roots are.
Notice what Dr. Cal Beisner (on Amazon) says of Musser’s book entitled “Nazi Oaks” which is at the basis for his presentation. Beisner is a strong Christian, but is also a serious academic, “Nazi Oaks is a tour de force, patiently accurately unearthing the explicitly anti-Biblical worldview and philosophical roots of modern environmentalism in the renewal of pagan nature worship inherent in German Romanticism a la Goethe and Wagner, racism a la Haeckel, Existentialism a la Heidegger, and Nihilism a la Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. If, as the Bible says, good fruit cannot come from a bad tree, and bad company corrupts good morals, then it’s time for Christian—indeed for all—environmentalists to take a sober look at the roots and branches of the tree on which they perch. Rev. Musser’s book shows both historically and philosophically how and why ecologism bore fruit in Nazi totalitarianism, racism, and the Holocaust, why those dangers remain inherent in modern environmentalism, and why ecologism’s worldview remains incompatible with Judeo-Christian morals. It also shows how and why ecologism led then, as it does now, to the corruption of science and its enslavement to political ideology. Those who read Nazi Oaks will be surprised, and shocked, to see how even many of their heroes were nourished by the sap of that tree, and how heavily European and North American environmentalism today remain tied to and ideologically predetermined by the anti-Christian roots from which it sprang. Thoroughly documented and insightfully argued, this book shows all the earmarks of having been written by someone who has become complete master of the ideas and the history he explains.”
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