Dysfunctional Civilization
By Sara McPeak
November 1998
"Dysfunctional Civilization" is the title of a chapter in Al Gore's book
Earth In the Balance, offering his take on the environmental
crisis our civilization is facing. According to Gore, this term,
"dysfunctional civilization," is a metaphor comparing civilization at
large to a dysfunctional family. His pseudo-psychological idea is that
there is a global denial about the concerns of our environmental crisis
and because civilization is in denial, it's by default dysfunctional.
Gore begins this very questionable discussion by explaining the value of
his metaphor:
"A metaphor can be a valuable aid to understanding, and several
metaphors have helped me understand what is wrong with the way we relate
to the earth. One that has proved especially illuminating comes out of
a relatively new theory about ailing families; ... what has come to be
called the dysfunctional family."
His metaphor deems that civilization today is dysfunctional because it's
unable to admit any sense of loss connected with environmental
deterioration of natural resources and unable to admit any sense of
guilt in contributing to that deterioration: "Just as the members of a
dysfunctional family emotionally anesthetize themselves against the pain
they would otherwise feel," Gore explains, "our dysfunctional
civilization has developed a numbness that prevents us from feeling the
pain of our alienation from our world... we internalize the pain of our
lost sense of connection to the natural world, we consume the earth and
its resources as a way to distract ourselves from the pain, and we
search insatiably for artificial substitutes to replace the experience
of communion with the world that has been taken from us."
In saying this, Gore presents all of civilization in the view of
utilitarian liberalism -- mankind as weak, unable to cope and ripe for
guidance and supervision in yet another area, environmentalism. Let's
allow James L. Huffman , professor of law at Lewis and Clark College of
Law, to be the first to refute this ridiculous Algor(e)ithm, quoting
from Huffman's essay "Comments
on Earth In the Balance".
"The extremism of Earth in the Balance is no doubt magnified by
Gore's persistent reliance on misplaced metaphors and absurd analogies.
As Gore writes, '[t]he metaphor is irresistible" (p. 213), but as
employed by Gore, the metaphor undercuts the persuasiveness of many of
his central arguments.'" *
For myself, I want to be considered as part of a functional
civilization. After all, I consider myself part of a functional
family. I was raised in Iowa in the early forties and in those days,
instead of referring to dysfunctional families we used less highfalutin
terms such as poor, hungry, frightened and miserable. We even knew
beggars who had no families and came to our back door to get a handout.
But my parents made it perfectly clear to me that, in order for our
family to function properly, they would accept no blame if I were to
veer down the wrong path; whether it be a moral or a legal infraction, I
would take the blame and pay the consequence.
And I did. My friends and I jumped the fence and swam in the local pool
after hours only to be detected by the local cops, who chased us up
Hospital Hill. In our race up the hill I held neck and neck with the
track star Frankie -- probably because I was tall and my stride was much
longer than his -- anyway the adrenaline flowed and we escaped. Our
buddies did not give our names, but when I returned home the first thing
out of my mouth was an admission of guilt. In a functional family each
member clearly understands the meaning of responsibility.
On the other hand, in a dysfunctional family, according to what I have
read, psychological maladies supposedly mask blame and guilt creating
confusion and unhappiness. Instead of being strong competent members of
society, dysfunctional family members are said to be weak and unable to
cope. The result is their requirement of help from society and less
stringent regulations on their behavior patterns as fault lies with the
family situation rather than any one individual within that family.
It follows, then, that the opposite of Mr. Gore's dysfunctional
civilization is a "functional civilization" where each member must
clearly understand the meaning of responsibility. And if each member
does not, then the system we have in place will remind him or her of
that responsibility through a peer determination of wrongdoing and
appropriate punishment. A dysfunctional civilization would exonerate
wrongdoers and create chaos. A dysfunctional civilization carries
exoneratism to an impossible extreme as in nazism, fascism, communism
and totalatarianism. We strongly take issue with being named as a
dysfunctional civilization -- in fact, this metaphor is our November
Algor(e)ithm.
So what is Gore's motivation in describing civilization today as
dysfunctional? The answer lies in the fact that his book promotes the
forming of a global governmental organization. He calls this
organization the Global Marshall Plan, its purpose being to "halt the
destruction of the environment and to preserve and nurture our
ecological system." Gore is sure the Global Marshall Plan is necessary
because our dysfunctional civilization cannot tackle the environmental
problems without government intervention and supervision. We need only
to look at the track record of big government intervention in welfare to
see that Gore's idea is on a collision course with disaster.
To implement the Global Marshall Plan, Gore suggests that civilization
needs a "central organizing principle" to be established globally to
pull all people into a concerted effort to save the environment. In
defending his idea of a "central organizing principle," Gore makes an
astoundingly incorrect assertion about the part played by the free world
in eradicating communism. He asserts there was, "a conscious shared
decision by men and women in the nations of the 'free world' to make the
defeat of the communist system the central organizing principle of not
only their governments' policies but of society itself." He goes on to
say, "virtually every policy and program was analyzed and either
supported or rejected primarily according to whether it served our basic
organizing principle." As I could never refute this cockeyed notion of
Gore in terms quite so precise and elegant, again I defer to James
Huffman:
"To suggest that communism collapsed because of a concerted, multidecade
effort by everyone in the free world is to overestimate both communism
and the free world. By definition, the free world would not be party to
such uniformity of purpose. The principle contribution of the free world
was for its citizens to go about the business of improving their lot,
while communism rotted from within."
Of course, the larger issue here is the question of big government
intervention as the solution to the environmental crisis. Did it never
occur to Gore that a free-market solution, based on supply and demand
and adaptive economic and cultural solutions would be a much more
plausible solution?
Today's civilization is very definitely concerned about protecting our
environment, understanding that it exists as a global problem and that
all civilization must aid in a technological answer to such problems as
global warming, ozone depletion and chemical waste. There is unending
rhetoric, some understandably frightening, on a daily basis reaching the
ears of our functional society and we need only listen and pursue the
answer to this problem with vim and vigor, relying on common sense and
good judgment (not big government) to find the answer. An example of the
type of informative journalism upon which we should rely is Gordon
Durnil's illuminating, completely factual and well-written book, The
Making Of A Conservative Environmentalist, in which Durnil writes:
"I personally expect very little from government. I am a firm believer
in limited government. But the limits should be set based upon what a
knowing people will accept, on what the people want. Those limits should
not be expanded or reduced simply because of the limited abilities and
concerns of many of the people we now have leading our governments, as
so often now seems to be the case. Groucho Marx once said that 'politics
is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it
incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies.' I don't know for sure
when Groucho said that humorous line, or even if he intended it to be
humorous. Today his words seem to be truer than ever before."
* Note: Huffman's comments on Gore's book are found with several other
essays in the book, Environmental
Gore: A Constructive Response To Earth In The Balance, published by
Pacific Research Institute for
Public Policy. There is a strong concern noted by all these essayists
that Gore's "apocalyptic environmentalism" is more worrisome than
beneficial and his statements are more incorrect than correct.
This article copyright © 1998 by Sara McPeak, and may
not be reproduced in any form without the express written consent of its
author. All rights reserved.
Algor(e)ithms!