Magical Re-Enchantment: Part 6
"One Huge Pantheistic Feast"
By Carl Teichrib
On May 20th I published Part 5 in my series on Re-Enchantment, an adaptation from my book Game of Gods. Much has happened between then and now, but the timing is right to continue the series (which, of course, will be interrupted with interspersed articles). Moreover, this article parallels with my earlier report on Earth Day, which can be found by following the link below.
The First National Environmental Teach-In, April 22, 1970, became a “defining moment in the modern environmental movement.”1 Arguably, it could also be said that this was the date when the West — culturally en masse — intentionally steered down the road of Re-enchantment.
Styled after the anti-Vietnam war demonstrations on American campuses, this Teach-In, initiated by Senator Gaylord Nelson, was meant to create a revolutionary ethic.2 Young people across the country were questioning and rejecting what were considered to be traditional, American values. Nelson believed the Teach-In would empower this wandering generation with a new sense of purpose. As a politician, the Senator also understood that if young people identified as environmental citizens, then the federal government could take vital first steps toward a system of far-reaching regulations. He envisioned a National Land Use Policy, a National Policy on Air and Water, an Ocean Policy, a Policy for Resource Management, and a National Policy on Population. Nelson was aware that these initiatives would interfere with American livelihoods, more-or-less saying as much in a Look article published the day before the Teach-In.3 But so what? The future of the planet was at stake, or so everyone was told.
On that day, the 22nd of April, approximately 20 million Americans participated in rallies, marches, and demonstrations: “the event included local beach cleanups, tree plantings, horseback rides down interstate highways, parades of gas-masked marchers in urban centers, open-air campus teach-ins on ecology, and a thousand other innovations on a theme.”4 Leading environmentalist, Barry Commoner, described it as an “enthusiastic outburst,” and it was impetus for the US Environmental Protection Agency to begin its work.5
“On Earth Day,” explained Nelson the following month, “it was estimated that 2,000 college campuses, 2,000 community groups and 10,000 elementary and secondary schools were holding events.”6 An entire generation was awakening to the idea of being Earth citizens.
To facilitate this Green Revolution — aligning itself with the Religious Revolution and Cultural Revolution already in motion — Friends of the Earth published The Environmental Handbook, a resource prepared ahead of time for the Teach-In. Thousands of students across the country, and beyond, receive copies; my high school in rural Manitoba used it as a textbook. The Handbook offered a radical vision, as displayed in its opening pages with Gary Snyder’s “Smokey the Bear Sutra,”
With a halo of smoke and flame behind, the forest fires of the kali-yuga, fires caused by the stupidity of those who think things can be gained and lost whereas in truth all is contained vast and free in the Blue Sky and Green Earth of One Mind;
Round-bellied to show his kind nature and that the great earth has food enough for everyone who loves and trusts her;
Trampling underfoot wasteful freeways and needless suburbs; smashing the worms of capitalism and totalitarianism…
Wrathful but Calm, Austere but Comic, Smokey the Bear will Illuminate those who would help him; but for those who would hinder or slander him, HE WILL PUT THEM OUT…
And he will protect those who love woods and rivers, Gods and animals…
Now those who recite this Sutra… Will enter the age of harmony of man and nature…
AND IN THE END WILL WIN HIGHEST PERFECT ENLIGHTENMENT.7
Lynne White Jr’s famous essay, “The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis,” first published by Science magazine in 1967, was printed near the front of the Handbook. Christianity was responsible for our ecological woes; therefore a new religious mindset was crucial if the planet was to survive,
Christianity, in absolute contrast to ancient paganism and Asia’s religions… not only established a dualism of man and nature but also insisted that it is God’s will that man exploit nature for his proper ends.
At the level of the common people this worked out in an interesting way. In antiquity every tree, every spring, every stream, every hill had its own genius loci, its guardian spirit. These spirits were accessible to men… Before one cut a tree, mined a mountain, or dammed a brook, it was important to placate the spirit in charge of that particular situation, and to keep it placated. By destroying pagan animism, Christianity made it possible to exploit nature in a mood of indifference to the feelings of natural objects.8
What we do about ecology depends on our ideas of the man-nature relationship. More science and more technology are not going to get us out of our present ecological crisis until we find a new religion, or rethink our old one…9
No new set of basic values has been accepted in our society to displace those of Christianity. Hence we shall continue to have a worsening ecologic crisis until we reject the Christian axiom that nature has no reason for existence save to serve man.10
Both our present science and our present technology are so tinctured with orthodox Christian arrogance toward nature that no solution for our ecologic crisis can be expected from them alone. Since the roots of our trouble are so largely religious, the remedy must also be essentially religious, whether we call it that or not.11
The Handbook stressed, “nothing short of total transformation will do much good.”12
A reduced and optimal human population was envisioned, employing “sophisticated and unobtrusive technology” in harmony with an environment “left natural.” Humanity itself would be “unified by a type of world tribal council.”13
Obviously, this eco-techno-utopianism would require a new spiritual reference. To that end, a list of acceptable worldviews was presented: social and religious forces that are ecologically and culturally enlightened. This list, including one scientific field of study — which I assume was inserted because of its Darwinian approach — along with three ethnicities, probably named for their historic beliefs, offered agreeable patterns for the students to adopt and emulate,
Let these be encouraged: Gnostics, hip Marxists, Teilhard de Chardin Catholics, Druids, Taoist, Biologists, Witches, Yogins, Bhikkus, Quakers, Sufis, Tibetans, Zens, Shamans, Bushmen, American Indians, Polynesians, Anarchists, Alchemists… the list is long. All primitive cultures, all communal and ashram movements. Since it doesn’t seem practical or even desirable to think that direct bloody force will achieve much, it would be best to consider this a continuing ‘revolution of consciousness’ which will be won not by guns buy by seizing the key images, myths, archetypes, eschatologies [sic], and ectasies [sic] so that life won’t seem worth living unless one’s on the transforming energy’s side.14
Sex education and family planning, too, would be an integral part of the revolution. With 3.7 billion people alive in 1970, the threat of overpopulation was itself becoming a growth industry. René Dubos articulated that the increasing world population was exacerbating the ecological crisis.15 Population alarmist, Paul Ehrlich, painted an apocalyptic scenario of global catastrophes and extinctions. By 1979, he explained, all major ocean life would vanish.16
In his chapter on eco-survivability and the necessity for new educational priorities, journalist John Fischer wrote: “It has long since become glaringly evident that unless the earth’s cancerous growth of population can be halted, all other problems — poverty, war, racial strife, uninhabitable cities, and the rest — are beyond solution.”17
“No technical solution can rescue us from the misery of overpopulation,” declared the ecologist-philosopher, Garrett Hardin. “Freedom to breed will bring ruin to all.”18
Suggested solutions were presented,
Legalize voluntary abortions and sterilization and provide these serves free… Remove all restrictions on the provision of birth control information and devices; provide these services free to all, including minors… Make sex education available to all appropriate levels, stressing birth control practices and the need to stabilize the population… Offer annual bonuses for couples remaining childless and eliminate tax deductions for more than two children.19
Marriage, too, must be re-imagined,
“Explore other social structures and marriage forms, such as group marriage and polyandrous marriage… Share the pleasure of raising children widely… We must hope that no one woman would give birth to more than one child.”20
The ideologically charged saying, “it takes a village to raise a child” obviously needs a qualifier: It takes a village to conceive a child.
It could be said that the Religious Revolution, Cultural Revolution, and Green Revolution — a social ménage à trois — birthed the modern Sexual Revolution.
Not ironically, we were and are repeating, in our own way, the causal relationship found in Romans 1. Refusing to acknowledge God, to glorify Him and give thanks, we claim ourselves to be wise and believe the Lie. Theologian Peter Jones, founder of TruthXChange, explains it thus: “The truth consists in the worship and service of the Creator, the lie consists in the worship and service of the creation.”21
A truth choice is before us; either there is a God who is separate from nature and who is the creator of the universe, or the universe created itself. Either God is the utterly unique Other, or everything is One and creation is Divine. When we choose Oneness over the Other, we partake in a truth exchange. Dr. Jones breaks this down,
1. We make a thought exchange (vs.23);
2. We make a worship exchange (vs.25);
3. We make a sexual exchange (vs.26).22
A shift in sexual mores is inevitable. Biblical norms and values — two genders and heterosexual marriage — are traditional patterns reflective of the higher truth claim being rejected. Boundary dissolving beliefs and practices, instead, are exalted as a reflection of the exchange we are now participating in. One road is narrow and restrictive while the opposite road is broad and holistic. Moreover, as transcendent values are replaced with cultural dictates and personal whims, general morality itself becomes debased as indicated in the last part of Romans 1.
It should be no surprise, then, that the Green Revolution undermines the Genesis foundation of the Judeo-Christian worldview. The Genesis mandate to “be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it,”23 can no long be acceptable in the green world order. Humanity’s positional value cannot be admitted, and the family unit must not be recognized as a primary institution.
The Green Gospel demands a total transformation.
One day before the April 22 Teach-In, Look magazine ran a series of articles on Earth Day. Senator Gaylord Nelson wrote, “We must evolve a philosophy emphasizing our interdependence with nature.”24
René Dubos said, “To some overcrowded populations, the bomb may one day no longer seem a threat, but a release.”25
Cultural anthropologist, Margret Mead, called for a “a new religious system with science at its very core.”26
In the immediate wake of that first Earth Day’s excitement, French social historian, Jean-Francois Revel, succinctly expressed what happened: “‘Earth Day’ in America was one huge pantheistic feast.”27
Revel understood that a revolution was in motion.
While North America celebrated Earth Day, a different experiment in re-enchantment was unfolding in Scotland: Pan was prancing in a garden.
Endnotes:
Bill Christofferson, The Man From Clear Lake: Earth Day Founder Senator Gaylord Nelson (The University of Wisconsin Press, 2004), p.175.
Ibid., p.7.
Senator Gaylord Nelson, Look, April 21, 1970, p.33.
David Helvarg, The War Against the Greens: The “Wise Use” Movement, the New Right, and Anti-Environmental Violence (Sierra Club Books, 1994), p.59.
Barry Commoner, Making Peace With The Planet (The New Press, 1975/1992), p.20 for “outburst,” p.181 for “Environmental Protection Agency.”
“Earth Day – 1970,” The Gaylord Nelson Newsletter, May 1970. A digital version can be accessed here: www.nelsonearthday.net/images/nelson_newsletter_may70.jpg
“The Meaning of Ecology: Five Views – Smokey the Bear Sutra,” The Environmental Handbook: Prepared for the Fist National Teach-In, April 22, 1970 (Ballantine Books/Friends of the Earth, edited by Garrett de Bell), pp.2-3, capitals in original.
Lynn White Jr., “The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis,” The Environmental Handbook: Prepared for the Fist National Teach-In, April 22, 1970 (Ballantine Books/Friends of the Earth, edited by Garrett de Bell), pp.20-21.
Ibid., p.24.
Ibid., p.25.
Ibid., p.26.
“Four Changes,” The Environmental Handbook, p.330.
Ibid., 330.
Ibid., 331.
René Dubos, “The Limits of Adaptability,” The Environmental Handbook, p.29.
Paul R. Ehrlich, “Eco-Catastrophe!” The Environmental Handbook, p.174.
John Fischer, “Survival U: Prospects for a Really Relevant University,” The Environmental Handbook, p.139.
Garrett Hardin, “The Tragedy of the Commons,” The Environmental Handbook, p.49.
Keith Murray, “Suggestions Toward an Ecological Platform,” The Environmental Handbook, p.318.
“Four Changes,” The Environmental Handbook, p.324.
Peter Jones, One or Two: Seeing a World of Difference (Main Entry Editions, 2010), p.92, italics in original.
Ibid., p.97, italics in original.
Genesis 1:28.
Senator Gaylord Nelson, Look, April 21, 1970, p.33.
René Dubos, Look, April 21, 1970, p.34.
Margaret Mead, Look, April 21, 1970, p.37.
Jean-Francois Revel, Without Marx or Jesus: The New American Revolution Has Begun (Doubleday and Company, 1971, originally published in French, 1970), p.213.
"Christianity, in absolute contrast to ancient paganism and Asia’s religions… not only established a dualism of man and nature but also insisted that it is God’s will that man exploit nature for his proper ends."
Well, I don't know about Christianity, but change that last part slightly and it might just come close to the truth...
"It is God’s will that man exploit nature for His [God's] proper ends."
As in Genesis 1:27-28 (NASB) - "So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.'”
Seen as pre-fall stewardship, this passage can become a command about humans building out Eden to fill the whole earth, working with God. But that's not what they did. And God had planned for that possibility.