Notes for Chapter 1, Cox
Notes for Chapters 2, Cox
P37
William Bradford / Plymouth – “wilderness” – How do you define it?
P38
Diverse meanings of wilderness? How about the definition of a ‘wetland’?
P39
What does Cox mean or say a “rhetorical perspective” offers?
What does Cox mean by “antagonism” as opposed to its more everyday meaning?
“to denote the recognition of the limit of an idea, a widely shared viewpoint, or ideology that allows an opposing idea or belief system to be voiced. . . . A limit is recognized when questioning or criticism reveals a prevailing view to be inadequate or unresponsive to new demands. Recognizing the limit creates an opening for alternative voices and ideas to redefine what is appropriate or just . . . .”
- Looking ahead – “The Hearing” – chapter from Hayduke Lives! (E. Abbey)
Page 40
Cox cites 4 major ‘antagonisms’ in the history of U.S. environmentalism
- Preservation and conservation of nature versus exploitation of it
- Human health versus business and manufacturing activity
- Environmental justice versus a vision of nature as a place apart from the places where people live, work, learn, and play
- Protection of the global commons and communities versus economic globalization
P41
Romanticism – the sublime?
** Who was John Muir? You should know – I asked you to find out.
P42
Muir – Yosemite Valley / Hetch-Hetchy Valley
Preservationism vs. Conservationism
P43
** Who was Gifford Pinchot? You should know – I asked you to find out.
Utilitarianism // conservation
Public Interest? – “a symbolic marker of legitimacy for actions taken in the name of the nation’s people or the common good.”
♫♫♫ Tension between aesthetic and practical values – a good place to look for issues to explore for your small group presentations and for your term papers – e.g., Wind power – Cape Wind project
P44
- The Trouble with Wilderness?????????
Direct action (e.g., tree spiking, ecotage) – The Monkey Wrench Gang (Abbey)
P45
Public Health & the Human Environment
Rachel Carson / Silent Spring (1962)
P46
♫♫♫ The Cuyahoga River?
National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA, 1970)
P47
Love Canal, Niagara Falls, NY / Times Beach, Missouri / Superfund (1980)
P48
Environmental Justice
“. . . by the 1980s new activists from minority and low-income communities had begun to challenge the view of nature as ‘a place apart’ from the environments where people lived and worked . . .”
- See map of Great Lakes – Remedial Action Plans (RAPs)
P49
Environmental racism? (Bullard book?)
Environmental justice – “referred to the basic right of all people to be free of poisons and other hazards.”
- Recall EPA decision re: water pollutant? Handout #1
“Many people criticized decision-making processes that failed to provide meaningful participation ‘for those most burdened by environmental decisions’ . . . .”
P50
“. . . the democratic inclusion of peoples and communities in the decisions affecting their lives, a vision that is still largely unrealized.”
Global Environmentalism
P51
What / how does Cox define ‘globalization’? Is that a bad thing? Is his ‘stance’ revealed in the way he defines it?
P52
♫♫♫ Herndl & Brown – no objective environment separate from the words we use to represent it?
- Have you seen that concept/thought before?
P53
Isocrates / Aristotle
- Recall chapter 1 – environmental communication – “the pragmatic and constitutive vehicle for our understanding of the environment as well as our relations to the natural world.”
PP54-56
Grand Canyon / Sierra Club campaign
- Anti-dam? Harborside project?
♫♫♫♫♫♫ Burke’s “terministic screens”
Reflection / selection / deflection
P57
Deborah Stone – “‘Problems . . . are not given, out there in the world waiting for smart analysts to come along and define them correctly. They are created in the minds of citizens by other citizens, leaders, organizations, and government agencies.’”
P58
Discourse? “. . . an overall pattern of speaking, writing, or other symbolic action that results from multiple sources. It functions to ‘circulate a coherent set of meanings about an important topic’”
Dominant Social Paradigm (DSP)
♫♫♫ Does the description at the bottom of the page seem ‘on target’?
P59
Insurgent discourses? Examples?
New Environmental Paradigm (NEP)
♫♫♫ What’s the problem with that?
P60
Symbolic Legitimacy Boundaries
“Legitimacy is generally defined as the right to exercise authority.” – “the recognition of legitimacy depends upon a specifically rhetorical process”?
- What’s common sense got to do with this?
P61
“Symbolic legitimacy boundaries define a particular policy, idea, or institution as reasonable, appropriate, or acceptable.” – EXAMPLE?
P62
Visual Rhetorics
P63
Art, photographs (James Frost chapter on Ansel Adams; Greg Wickliff’s chapter on the American West, 1860-1890)
PP64-65
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge – pictures
“Photographs may be powerful, rhetorical statements, and . . . they can constitute a context for understanding and judgment.”