In the upper class, sensitivity to the environment is as indispensable as believing in democracy and opposing plastic surgery. However, since everyone from ted turner to George ·W·H· Bush claims to love Mother Earth, how can we choose among the many contradictory proposals and regulations put forward by members and voters in the name of the environment? Obviously, not everything under the banner of environmental protection is worth doing. How can we separate the best choice and unify different interests in the same reasonable policy?
There is a simple way. First of all, we should distinguish between what is environmental luxury and what is environmental necessity. Luxury means nothing.
Something that gives people a good impression at the expense of mankind. Necessity is what you must have no matter how much it costs. This principle of distinction can be called the highest principle of rational environment theory. It stipulates that taking countermeasures against ecological changes that directly threaten human health and safety is a necessity for environmental protection, while others are luxuries.
For example, protecting the atmosphere-preventing ozone depletion and controlling the greenhouse effect-is a necessary condition for environmental protection. Recently, scientists reported that the extent of ozone layer destruction is far more serious than previously thought. Ozone depletion is not only related to skin cancer and eye diseases, but also damages marine ecology. Marine ecology is the starting point of the food chain, and human beings are at the top of the food chain.
The thermal effect caused by the greenhouse effect is very devastating: glaciers melt, coastlines are flooded, the climate is destroyed, the plains dry up, and finally food disappears. Food in the Midwest of the United States feeds the whole world. With the change of global climate, are we ready to see Iowa in New Mexico become a desert climate and Siberia become a mild climate in Iowa?
Ozone depletion and greenhouse effect are disasters of human beings, which need urgent response, because they directly threaten human beings and the consequences are irreversible. Rational environmentalism-the only environmental protection proposition that can arouse public opinion-first publicly stated that it naturally serves mankind. Rational environmentalism is a completely human-centered idea. It calls on human beings to protect nature, but this is on the premise that human self-survival is guaranteed.
Of course, this human-centered proposition is incompatible with the prevailing environmentalism, which has been addicted to the earth.
A blatant worship of the ball. Some people even claim that the earth is a living organism. This kind of environmentalism likes to see itself as sacred, but it's just emotional. For example, on the question of whether nature is friendly or not, the current environmentalism takes a highly selective and one-sided view, which is incompatible with the reality that nature causes disasters. My worship of nature stopped when tornadoes ravaged Kansas and torrential rains hit Bangladesh, destroying entire villages and leaving millions of people homeless.
Non-emotional environmentalism is based on protet Gora's motto "Man is the measure of everything". In the process of establishing human authority, this principle will help us sort out all kinds of complex environmental disputes. Take the current heated debate about whether to exploit oil in a corner of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as an example. The environmentalists' union mobilized people against a legislative action, which is currently trying to legalize such exploitation through the US Congress. They preach that the United States should protect and save energy, not develop it. This is actually a wrong either-or proposition. The United States does need to impose high energy taxes to reduce energy consumption, but it also needs to produce more energy. Government estimates show that one of the five major oil fields in the United States is almost 50% likely to be buried under the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It seems unreasonable that we have not found a safe way to exploit the oil under the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
America has just gone through a war, partly to get oil. Dependence on energy costs America not only money, but also life. It is a very strange feeling to give up the oil that can be obtained by peaceful means just because it may destroy the breeding grounds of reindeer.
I like reindeer as much as anyone else. I would be very sad if their mating patterns were disrupted. However, you can't have your cake and eat it. Whether it is to protect reindeer or to reduce people's dependence on oil in order to avoid people dying in the war, I always choose humans over reindeer in the face of this deadlock.
I have the same attitude towards spotted owls in Oregon. I don't hate owls at all. If the owl can be protected at a small cost, I will agree that it should be protected-after all, biodiversity is very necessary for the ecosystem. However, we must remember that maintaining biodiversity does not mean preserving every species. Sometimes, for more fundamental interests, we have to sacrifice some good things in life. If 30,000 lumberjack families lose their livelihood to protect spotted owls, I will choose lumberjack families (including their saws and chopping wood) instead of owls.
It is important that we distinguish between what is fundamental to environmental protection and what is not. Nature is our guardian, not our master. We should respect nature, and we can also develop and use it. However, if human beings have to choose between their own welfare and natural welfare, it is natural to make concessions.
Only when the fate of human beings is inseparable from the fate of nature should human beings give in. When the integrity of human habitat (such as the atmosphere or the basic geological conditions that maintain the core of the earth) is threatened, human beings must immediately adjust their behavior. When human beings are less threatened and do not need to adjust their behavior, it is appropriate to balance economic and relative health factors in order to make appropriate adjustments. However, in either case, the principle is the same: protect the environment, because this is our human environment.
Emotional environmentalists will say that this idea of saving nature is completely wrong. That's true. Rational and clear environmentalism is to protect the environment for human beings, not for nature.
Once at dinner in Monterey Peninsula, California, my mother said to me privately, "Sister-in-law should be polite."
Guest, but too pretentious! Why pay attention to form? In the end, she still wants everything.
My mother acts like an "alien", that is, a foreigner, because she is impatient with old taboos and manners. To prove her point just now, she reached across the table and handed the last scallop in the garlic seafood platter, together with sirloin steak and cucumber salad, to my elderly aunt from Beijing.
"Take it! Take it! " My mother scolded in Chinese. Expect her to do this, just like the moon's profit and loss cycle.
"Yes, I'm full," my sister-in-law muttered quietly, but her eyes glanced at scallops.
Hey! "My mother sighed and said," Nobody wants to eat it, but it's broken! "
Sister-in-law sighed and took the scallops away from the plate, as if she had done my mother a big favor and saved us the trouble of wrapping the leftovers in tin foil.
My mother turned to look at her brother, an experienced China official. This is his first visit to America. She said: "In the United States, a China person may starve to death. If you don't break the old etiquette and say you want to eat, they won't invite you again. "
My uncle nodded and said that he fully understood that Americans treat people quickly because they have no time to be polite.
I read an article in new york Times magazine describing the changes in China, a small cultural settlement in new york. The author mentioned in the article that China's language and culture are intertwined, which makes Chinese very euphemistic and polite. China people are
At the beginning of the article, it is written that they are so "cautious and modest" that they have no words to express "yes" and "no"
I wonder why people always make up such rumors. They described us as a group of dolls sold in Chinatown tourist shops. The dolls kept shaking their heads up and down, as if they were satisfied with everything and totally agreed.
Children born in immigrant families know the special difficulties brought by bilingual life. For example, when my parents talk to me, they all use Chinese and English, while when I talk to them, I only use English.
Amy!' They will blame me like this.
"What's the matter?" I'll ask back.
"Don't ask us questions when we call you", they will scold us in Chinese. "How rude!"
16 "What do you mean?"
"What do you mean?
"ah! Didn't we just tell you not to ask questions? "
Looking back on my growing process carefully, I found that the Chinese I came into contact with since childhood was not a particularly cautious language, and there was no phenomenon of carefully checking what I said out of courtesy. When my parents make a series of demands on me, they always state everything clearly: "Of course, you will become a famous aviation engineer," they will encourage me to say, "By the way, you will also be a piano player in concerts in your spare time."
It seems that tougher things always pour out in Chinese: "You can't do that! You must not miss a grain when you wash rice. "
Since I have been listening to Chinese and English at the same time, I always doubt any comparison between them, because I notice that each of them has another difficulty. English speakers will think Chinese is extremely difficult to learn, because Chinese can express different words with very subtle tone changes. On the other hand, English is often regarded as lacking in consistency, because English has too many irregular usages.
In my opinion, what is more dangerous is that people tend to understand the differences between different languages and behaviors through translation. If a bystander listens to my mother speak English, she may come to the conclusion that she has no idea about the time difference between the past and the future, or she is male and female because she always says "she" when referring to my husband. If one is really thinking about this phenomenon, he may also conclude that all China people can only get into the subject in a euphemistic way. In fact, I like to embellish and beat around the bush, which is just my mother's personal speaking style.
I'm worried that the mainstream society will treat China people with narrow vision and prejudice. I am worried that this seemingly harmless prejudice will actually lead to people's intolerance towards China people, which will be part of the reason why there are so few senior management positions or major judicial and government departments in China. I am worried about the power of language, that is, a person who says something many times, whether malicious or not, will become a fact.
Could this be the reason why my parents' friends in China are willing to accept those simple generalizations about China people?
"Why are you complaining?" One of them asked me. "If people think we are modest and polite, let them think so. Americans don't like this kind of praise? "
I'm sure everyone will take this description as a compliment at the beginning. But after a while, this kind of words will make people angry, as if all they hear are filtered out by subtle social differences, such as "nice to meet you and hear many people praise you."
These words do not express any new ideas, nor do they convey any concern.
"So how do Chinese express' yes' and' no'?" Friends may ask carefully.
At this point, I agree with the article in new york Times Magazine to some extent. In Chinese, no word is used to mean "yes" or "no", but this is not because of caution. If there is a difference, I would say that the corresponding expression of "yes" or "no" in Chinese usually depends on the specific content asked.
If you ask a China person if he or she has eaten, he or she will say "Yes" (I have eaten) or "No" (I have never eaten).
If you ask, "Have you stopped hitting your wife?" He will directly answer the assumption that he has reached a conclusion or denied: he has stopped, hasn't called, and has no wife.
Is there anything clearer than this?
When I was a little boy, I lived in a remote area of Virginia. At that time, the men I knew worked from the first cock crow in the morning until sunset. They are ordinary farmers, shepherds, people who make ends meet, or welders, steelworkers or carpenters; They make cabinets, dig ditches, dig coal, or drive trucks, which makes their upper arms muscular. They train horses, fill furnaces, make tires, stand on assembly lines and weld parts for refrigerators, or lubricate car engines. At night or on weekends, they also work hard, farming on a small piece of land, repairing broken cars, repairing broken shutters and leaking windows. In their spare time, they will get drunk with beer in cheap copper cups in local beer workshops or pubs near racetracks.
People I know suffer from all kinds of visible and invisible distortions and pains. Carrying heavy objects has brought spinal diseases and terrible pain to many of them. Some people have broken ribs and lost their fingers. Constantly working on the conveyor belt has caused some of them to get ulcers. Their ankles and knees are sore from standing on the concrete floor for many years. Some people suffer partial vision loss because the welding flame damages their visual senses. Sometimes, watching them makes me afraid to grow up. Among the people around us, father always looks older than mother. Men age earlier and suffer from long-term continuous work. Only women live to be old.
And soldiers are also men's jobs. As far as I know, they are almost useless, but when the war begins, many of them will die in front of the battlefield or foreign outposts out of patriotic enthusiasm. This is the role of soldiers-they are like tools, like wrenches, hammers or screws.
These are not the only destinations for men. I learned this from several male teachers, reading books and watching TV. However, men on TV-news commentators, lawyers, doctors, tax collectors and bosses who give orders-seem to me like portraits in ancient paintings, far away and unreal. I can't imagine that I will be one of these sophisticated people when I grow up, just as I can't imagine that I can be a king with supreme power.
A scholarship made me go to college, which is an extremely rare honor in my social circle. Not only that, it also allows me to walk through the famous university halls built for the children of rich families. It is here that I met a woman for the first time in my life and told me that men are guilty because they take all the joys and privileges on earth for themselves. I'm confused. Let them explain. What privilege? What happiness? I think of the hard and painful life of most men in my hometown. People can say what they stole from their wives and daughters. Is it five days a week, twelve months a year, squeezed into the narrow space of textile mills for thirty or forty years, or struggling to dig out the last bit of coal from the rock-hard soil under the coal mine? The right to die in battle? Have the right to repair every crack on the roof and every broken fence on the fence? The right to collect money for a wealthy consortium in a distant city? The right to feel scared and ashamed when you are fired or the coal mine closes?
In such a strange world full of rich people, I understand the deep grievances of women very slowly. This is because I was jealous of them when I was a child. Before I went to college, the people I knew who were interested in art, music or literature and the only people who seemed to enjoy a little freedom were mothers and daughters. Besides, they don't have to go to war. Compared with the narrow and closed days suffered by fathers, the relatively light work undertaken by mothers is more extensive. They use shopping vouchers, visit their neighbors and run errands at school or church. I seem to see their life through a telescope, full of twinkling stars and faint light, but I missed the real details of their life years. There is no doubt that if I look at their lives more rationally, I won't be so jealous of them. But at that time, I really couldn't see what kind of prison a house could be, because the house was brighter and more decent than any factory in my opinion. I didn't realize how often women are bullied by men, because such a thing has never been mentioned. Even then, I could see how difficult it was for a mother to be busy meeting the needs of her young children all day. However, as a boy, if I have to choose between taking care of babies and taking care of machines, I think I will choose to take care of babies.
Therefore, when the women in the school shouted and condemned me and my gender, saying that we occupied the joy of the world, I was confused. They demanded liberation from the bondage of gender discrimination. I think other boys (girls) will be as confused as me, as long as they grow up in poor rural areas, near docks or factories-anywhere that makes the fate of men and women equally pale and harsh.
When the women I met in college thought of men's happiness and privileges, they had never met the men I once knew. The daughters of these privileged classes, * * and Party members are eager to inherit the power of their parents and their aristocratic status above the world. They are eager to have a say in their future. I long for it. The difference between me and these daughters is that when they look at me, they think that I am destined to be like their father from birth because of my gender.
People, this is also the enemy of their desires. But I know better than them that I am not the enemy of their desires, whether in fact or emotionally. I am an ally of their resistance movement. If I knew how to tell them this, or how to be a mediator in the middle, would they believe me? Can they understand?
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