In his new book, The Barbaric Heart:Faith, Money and the Crisis of Nature, author Curtis White proposes a unique, philosophical theory about mainstream environmentalism suggesting that spiritual beauty and the arts will guide us to the solutions we seek.
It’s a challenging read, heavy on itellectualism but his argument is one we haven’t heard before now. With that in mind, we’ve asked White to contribute a guest post as an introduction to this new approach to environmentalism:
One of the most unfortunate aspects of the environmental movement is how much it has lost touch with its own sources. The first meaningful response to industrialization and the ills it brought came not from scientists but from slightly crazed poets, philosophers and artists of Romanticism like Goethe, Blake, Wordsworth, and Wagner. It was poets and artists who first denounced a world ordered by the logic of money at the cost not only of a greatly diminished world of nature but of the human relation to that world as well.
Currently, environmentalism seems mostly competent to speak of nature as a “system” that works or doesn’t work. Thus, the notorious emphasis in the global warming debate on 350ppm of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Find a technical solution to that number and, as far as science is concerned, the problem is solved. Environmental scientists seem not to know how to ask “what kind of world produced the problem?” and “what kind of world is content with such solutions?”
The arts, meanwhile, have been reduced to the role of slightly embarrassing cheerleaders for the more important work of science. The arts are merely decorative and decorous. They are not asked to think, nor even suspected of being capable of thought.
For example, at the Eco-City International conference of 2008, the opening day was introduced by a Native American playing a flute. The rest of the day was scientists, technologists, urban planners, and politicians. The dais was not made available to the arts and humanities.
And yet environmentalism desperately needs the thinking of the arts as well as the best thinking of religion and philosophy. As leading climatologist Stephen Schneider has conceded, science can provide “risk assessment” but it can’t provide “values.” In other words, it can tell you that the polar bear is threatened, but it can’t tell you why you should care.
As Walt Whitman put it, science can be baffled and humbled with “one spear of grass.” What humbles science is the understanding that our truest relation to nature is not provided by knowledge of ecological systems but by a reverence before the miracle of Being and a desire for the beautiful. The beautiful not just as something “over there,” a mountain vista, but as an intimate and whole relationship between the natural and human worlds which ought to be, after all, one world.
What environmentalism ought to be developing is a common language of care based not on data and assumptions about the desirability of sustainable economic self-interest but on the best thinking of religion, philosophy and the arts. Even science has a role to play here for the sheer astonishment its discoveries can provide about the history of the earth, the complexity of life, and the gorgeous vastness of the cosmos. Environmentalism’s current emphasis on green economies and sustainability (so skillfully corrupted and made hypocritical by corporations) remains committed to the idea of humans as homo economicus. We ought to be asking the movement to become homo humanus. Humans as the spiritual animal.
To read more of Curtis White’s work, take a look at his recent article in Orion Magazine “Capitalism and the Crisis of Nature”. He is also the author of The Middle Mind: Why Americans Don’t Think for Themselves, browse inside that book here.
According to Carmel McConnell, author of The Happiness Plan: yes, happiness is possible. McConnell shows readers how to reinvigorate their spirits by changing their approach and attitude towards life. The book is designed as an interactive self-discovery guide equipped with illustrations and open-ended questions to help the reader re-prioritize happiness on their agenda.
One of our favorite books here at GBiBT is Paulo Coelho’s THE ALCHEMIST, the international bestseller about a shepherd boy who learns how to live his dreams. Within the shepard’s journey, we find countless pieces of wisdom and inspiration that propel us forward whenever we need reassurance.
It’s time to make things happen by creating magic in our every day lives
Who doesn’t love an expertly curated list to help inform your next book shopping trip? Newsweek has compiled a 
