I don't see many eco-feminist topics much on this site, so maybe this will even make the front page. My idea is concerning a cultural link between patriarchy and an ecological concept called the keystone species. For those who aren't as involved in the ecology field (I'm a bio/e-science major and botanist by training) a keystone species is one in which if removed from an environment it would cause upheavals in the food web of the system and cause die off's of other species down the line, basically the ecosystem would fall apart. It's termed from the keystone in architecture of the center stone in an arch.
The problem is not only is the referred idea garbage, you remove any piece from an arch the whole thing will collapse, but the keystone species is questionable. For any given area let's say there are fifty species. If any one of them is removed the entire system will change and adjust, not necessarily in predictable ways. This is added to the fact that no set definition for keystone species exists. There's no percent threshold of environmental change that would occur if species x were no longer present, thereby defining species x as a keystone.
What might you ask does this have to do with feminism or patriarchy? The current patriarchy culture defines the male as the keystone to society. This group of people is more important than other groups, and if removed all the normality of society would fall apart and civilization could end. That poem by Kipling, what was its name?
So why is this a problem in ecology, placing added value in other beings is good.
Let's go back to the ecosystem with fifty species. Let's say keystone species do exist, and there are four in this area. Well if I configure my hotel to fit on the land in this way, only non-keystone species will be adversely affected. So the keystones stay in place, environmental harm be damned. Can't build a better shampoo from Otay Mesa Mint.
If my social program is configured so only non-keystone peoples and cultures are adversely affected, I mean what did the Apache ever invent that's important, then the harm it causes is irrelevant correct?
My definition of feminism in a broad sense is increasing the concept that all groups of people have inherit value and something to contribute.
My definition of environmentalism is one who views all of nature having inherit value contributing to the whole.
Seems to fit to me.
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My definition of environmentalism is one who views all of nature having inherent value contributing to the whole.
I have to object here; there are lots of things that exist in nature that have negative value. The malaria parasite, for example.
For humans maybe, however the vast number of microbes and parasites that exist in the world keep populations, human and animal in check when they grow too large. Not that that makes the human suffering that malaria causes any less important.
Inherent value is a universal value, not one relative to humans. Relative to humans malaria is negative but the OP is arguing that nature has a value independent of us.
The word "value" implies subjectivity. The word "inherent" implies objectivity. If we're trying to talk in a very careful way, nothing has inherent value, because that phrase is explicitly contradictory.
If there is no one to value something, it doesn't have value. That's what value is. Life can't be inherently valuable, because if it disappeared, no one would care. If there were someone to miss it, they would be life, and then we wouldn't have that problem.
Wow, great post!
There's a lot of consciousness-type parallels between cultural studies and environmentalism.
In an ecology class I took a student asked "what's the ethical obligation for preserving biodiversity?" and the teacher said "Well the common response is that we may unwittingly destroy a miracle species that could cure a human disease, but I think that definition is lacking. Biodiversity is a good in and of itself and independent to human needs."
Similarly, it's unjust to value one culture or group of people strictly in relation to their usefulness to a dominant culture. This is the paradigm which feminism, anti-racism and other social movements seek to undo.
I get what you're getting at, but I need some details filled in to truly get it as it applies to society in the now.
Are you suggesting that there is an idea through out our culture that we consider some other cultures completely expendable in an outright, unabashed fashion? Or, through the idea of humanity's logic and theory is a reflection of cultural values in general, that there's an unconscious belief in such thing?
It may be that it's getting late for me, but I'm missing a part of the connection. Though, I like where you're going and find it interesting because I'd never thought of the two disparate areas so closely before.
I see many problems with several things you're saying, but I'll just go with the obvious one.
The theory of a keystone species is not supposed to be normative. It doesn't make "right" or "wrong" judgments. It just tries to describe probably results in various circumstances. You're trying to argue with a scientific study of probability on the basis of your feel-good theory of why life is inherently valuable that really has nothing to do with anything.
You're trying to make a scientific theory into something it's not in order to relate it to a social problem that no one is even arguing against. Moreover, even if we accepted the analogy, the social problem would be the one validating the ethics of the environmental one, since that's the one that's in question in the first place.
I guess I should make one reply post instead of replying piece-meal. There are aspects of nature that are not great for people directly, but as Salad noted nature has value for itself, and things that can be harmful directly, can benefit indirectly, such as moderating population size.
As for the tree falling in the forest with no-one to hear it argument, you're holding to tightly to only humans caring. So what if the next island in the Hawaiian chain won't form for several million years. Niche renewal is important to earth systems as a whole, humans aren't the only part and will eventually go extinct. I guess it's part of a persons experience that guides the way one views how and why the world operates, which I am not capable of explaining in regards to mine. At least not in a posting format.
As for Gular's comment I think the former question is what I would agree with, and the point I am trying to make. My group, whatever it my be, is better than others for reason x
This species is better than others for reason x
X=Contributes more to the whole in this case.
I am saying the myth is that this group or species contributes more, and that if this myth pervades then groups/species seen as less able to contribute, will be easier to attack, more palatable to exploit.
I'm not arguing why life is inherently valuable. I'm arguing that setting up x as better than y and z and etc... for whatever reason can harm the whole. Whether it be ethnicities in a country, or species in an ecosystem, as the keystone species concept does.