12 ideas
| 23429 | The environment needs localised politics, with its care for the land [Dobson] |
| Full Idea: More localised politics helps to generate the disposition of care for the land which is a core feature of environmental politics. | |
| From: Andrew Dobson (Environmental Politics: very short intro [2016], 4) | |
| A reaction: I currently live in a time when localised politics is hugely devalued, because centralisation and privatisation are cheaper. It seems obvious that many human needs require a commitment to a particular locality. |
| 23424 | An ideology judges things now, and offers an ideal, with a strategy for reaching it [Dobson] |
| Full Idea: An ideology generally has three components: a judgement (usually critical) of how things are, a picture of the ideology's ideal society, and a strategy for progressing towards the ideal. | |
| From: Andrew Dobson (Environmental Politics: very short intro [2016], 2) | |
| A reaction: Conservatives tend to think we are already living in the ideal, and they reject most ideologies for being 'idealistic' (which presumably means delusional). I'm a fan of ideals, but combined with cool judgement. |
| 23426 | Ecologism is often non-liberal, by claiming to know other people's best interests [Dobson] |
| Full Idea: Liberals say that their preferences are their interests, and resist the idea that anyone could know their interests better than they can. …To this degree, ecologism might be regarded as 'non-liberal'. | |
| From: Andrew Dobson (Environmental Politics: very short intro [2016], 2) | |
| A reaction: There are lots of other cases where liberal citizens may not realise their best interests, such as in the control of traffic, or of drugs. |
| 23427 | Socialism can be productive and centralised, or less productive and decentralised [Dobson] |
| Full Idea: Marx and his heirs promote a productivist socialism, but utopian socialists such as William Morris offer a less productivist and more decentralised form of socialism. | |
| From: Andrew Dobson (Environmental Politics: very short intro [2016], 2) | |
| A reaction: Modern history teaches us to be very cautious about the centralised version. Presumably you could be decentralised but still value production highly, even if it is a bit less efficient. |
| 23428 | Difference feminists say women differ fundamentally from men [Dobson] |
| Full Idea: Difference feminists argue that men and women are fundamentally different. | |
| From: Andrew Dobson (Environmental Politics: very short intro [2016], 2) | |
| A reaction: You can be significantly different without being 'fundamentally' different. Personally I don't see a huge difference, even though history may have greatly exaggerated and dramatised what differences there are. |
| 23422 | For the environment, affluence and technology matter as much as population size [Dobson] |
| Full Idea: Although bare population figures are important for environmental impact, the level of affluence and the technology are also crucial factors. | |
| From: Andrew Dobson (Environmental Politics: very short intro [2016], 2) | |
| A reaction: It is worth noting that the technology can also have a good impact, though affluence is nearly always bad. |
| 23425 | Ecologism says growth must be reduced, and efficiency is not enough [Dobson] |
| Full Idea: A central belief of the ideology of ecologism is that aggregate growth must be reduced, and that this is very unlikely to be achieved by efficiency gains alone. | |
| From: Andrew Dobson (Environmental Politics: very short intro [2016], 2) | |
| A reaction: He argues that efficiency gains invariably lead to increased production. Trickle down economics needs huge growth to deliver a good life for the poorest sector. Ecologism has to be fairly egalitarian about wealth. |
| 23430 | A million years is a proper unit of political time [Dobson] |
| Full Idea: We must acknowledge that a million years is a proper unit of political time. | |
| From: Andrew Dobson (Environmental Politics: very short intro [2016], 5) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Colin Tudge] Such thinking is almost impossible, but owners of large aristocratic estates seem to have thought in centuries, because they were confident of continuity. The more we identify with all of humanity, the more this is possible. |
| 23423 | We currently value the present fourteen times more highly than the future [Dobson] |
| Full Idea: At current rates we seem to value present concerns as fourteen times more valuable than future concerns. | |
| From: Andrew Dobson (Environmental Politics: very short intro [2016], 2) | |
| A reaction: A sobering figure, which sounds about right. This directly influences how much we spend on future concerns. One thought is that future generations may be much more affluent than us! |
| 1748 | Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless [Archelaus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless. | |
| From: report of Archelaus (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.Ar.3 |
| 5989 | Archelaus said life began in a primeval slime [Archelaus, by Schofield] |
| Full Idea: Archelaus wrote that life on Earth began in a primeval slime. | |
| From: report of Archelaus (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Malcolm Schofield - Archelaus | |
| A reaction: This sounds like a fairly clearcut assertion of the production of life by evolution. Darwin's contribution was to propose the mechanism for achieving it. We should honour the name of Archelaus for this idea. |
| 7482 | Resurrection developed in Judaism as a response to martyrdoms, in about 160 BCE [Anon (Dan), by Watson] |
| Full Idea: The idea of resurrection in Judaism seems to have first developed around 160 BCE, during the time of religious martyrdom, and as a response to it (the martyrs were surely not dying forever?). It is first mentioned in the book of Daniel. | |
| From: report of Anon (Dan) (27: Book of Daniel [c.165 BCE], Ch.7) by Peter Watson - Ideas | |
| A reaction: Idea 7473 suggests that Zoroaster beat them to it by 800 years. |