!! spellx done
205     The Creed of Ecology
        The Washington Post  April 18, 1970

     Christianity is the most anthropocentric religion the world has
seen," according UCLA historian, Professor Lynn White Jr., a landmark
paper that appeared in Science magazine just three years ago.  Before
condemning "The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis" as Communist
propaganda, one should also read that Professor White classified Marx-
ism; like Islam, as "a Judeo - Christian heresy." The central
principle of his analysis concerns the relationship of man to nature.
Is it "God's will that man exploit nature for his proper ends?" -- as
we are taught by the Bible, the U.S. Constitution, and the dialectical
materialists alike? Or does our scientific knowledge of man as a stage
in the evolutionary process lead us to a new appreciation of man's
place, not over, but in nature?

     The "Ecology" movement has been derided as having the flavor of a
religious revival, besides having misappropriated the name of a
science that is still looking for the tools it needs to make effective
generalizations.  What we should understand is that it has all the
requisites of an authentic religion, including a multiplicity of
prophets. We live today in a vacuum of faith, and there are many more
dangerous ways (remember Nazism) by which it might be filled.  The
love of earth can be at once the most primitive and the most 
sophisticated of religions, and it deserves the same respect as the 
other credos by which men shape their lives.  As with other religions, 
its slogans may also require creative reinterpretation before they are
either criticized or routinely applied to daily life.

     In the time of St. Francis of Assisi, this theology responded
primarily to spiritual needs; today it is reinforced by the most 
materialistic of concerns -- how man can survive to enjoy the abundance 
of his creations.

     At the very least, the image of nature is deeply rooted in every
man's axioms of beauty.  When we speak of the esthetic values of the
environment, we use a treacherous expression -- esthetics covers too
much, and is likely to confuse us with controversies about the merits
of one as against another style of painting or architecture.  It is
simple observation, however, that no one we deem sane is likely to
deny the beauty of the unspoiled (natural!) landscape.  We may quarrel
about the beauty or ugliness of a building, a utility pole, or a city;
we differ only in the degree of our commitment about these esthetic
value of the forests and the shorelines.

     It is still possible, nevertheless, for a public utility to
invade a public park for a right-of-way for a transmission line, and
insist that this does no damage, it is merely a visual blemish.  This
was the position taken by the Pacific Gas and Electric Company in
support of a proposed line into Briones Park, one of the East Bay's
badly needed breathing spaces.  They were supported by a 4-to-1 vote
of the State Public Utilities Commission, in a reaffirmation of a
legal tradition which, as held by a New Jersey court, regards 
"aesthetic considerations as a matter of luxury and indulgence rather 
than of necessity."

     This point of view is not only venal; it is an objectively false
description of human values and behavior.  Is it a luxury for the
plastic surgeon to repair the scars on a burned woman's face -- if
neither she nor others could bear the sight? What do we know 
altogether about the world we inhabit, except through our senses, and 
especially our visual?

     Up to a point, we can tolerate ugliness, mainly by avoiding it.
But the present legal system is encouraging the spread of pockmarks on
the landscape to the point where we are already troubled to find a
sufficiency of the natural scenes that are the common denominator of
the human understanding of beauty.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------