Quote:
Originally Posted by Boreas
Okay, let's use the tree and the bat. It's a fairly useful metaphor for my point.
An environmentalist, who I'm sure would be a Left Winger in your eyes, sees the tree and the bat. He sees that the tree qua tree has a value intrinsically and even that it has a "right" to exist - or rather that trees collectively do - simply because as part of creation (Creation?) they have innate and intrinsic value.
He also sees that a tree can have extrinsic value as a source of raw material for baseball bats. That being said, I believe that if the environmentalist were to learn that the production of baseball bats was going to spell the end of trees he would start to rethink this whole baseball bat thing because he would place a priority on intrinsicity.
Now, let's consider an industrialist, whom I would consider a Right Winger, and his regard for trees. I believe he sees them only as future baseball bats with a value determined solely by their value as a raw material. They have no value in any other sense. If he were faced with the end of trees he'd begin calculating how many bats or years of production he could get out of the raw material before they were gone. That way he could begin planning his next venture. Or he might just plow ahead, not thinking about the future until he made his last bat.
We see this mentality at work all the time. In its most basic form we see it in cattle ranching in the Amazon Basin or charcoal production in Madagascar. Both practices are spelling the end of the native forests in these places.
By the way, I'm only half serious about this. It's fun to try to make the case, though, and far preferable to trying to decide whether this poor guy in Maryland was a Right Winger or a Left Winger.
John
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LET'S JUST CUT TO THE QUICK, RIGHT WING NUTS ARE JUST PRIMAL AND CAN'T SEE PAST THEIR IMMEDIATE NEED. tHE LEFT IS MORE CEREBRAL, FURTHER ALONG ON THE EVOLUTIONARY SCALE.
09-01-2010, 08:50 PM
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