Machan's Musings - The Menace of Imperialism
by Tibor R. Machan
You’d think history would have taught us that empires are a menace. In their name more murderous killing has taken place than for any other purpose.
Yet in some ways, imperialism remains a part of the contemporary age. It may not amount to the sort of vast military missions with which it is so prominently associated (although, sadly, much of that continues today). Another type of imperialism tempts many who otherwise would never consider themselves followers of that tradition.
Take, for example, all those folks who believe that their pet projects must gain state support so as to be spread around the world and preserved in granite, so that everyone will acknowledge their importance in the history of a country, the world, or even a city or county. Historical preservationists insist that we pay taxes to maintain various monuments or buildings at public expense—they are imperialists. They want to subjugate everyone to their own ideas about what is important; they refuse to acknowledge that importance is a matter of individual and special concern, and very, very rarely one of universal significance. Few, if any, human concerns are really proper concerns for all of us, and even those few that are ought to gain support via the civilized method of persuasion, not the barbaric one of coercion.
Environmentalism is one prominent movement that utterly fails to grasp this point. By embracing the false doctrine that "the wilds" are of greater significance than all other concerns, they have fallen into the trap of imperialism. They have convinced themselves that what isn’t of "the wilds" isn’t natural and, therefore, should not be accorded respect or a place in the world. So, for example, all housing developments are treated as evil and unnatural ... never mind that they are the nesting places for human beings who are as much a part of nature as, say, the beaver or the swallow. But, while the beaver and the swallow are deemed precious and thus deserving of protection by the coercive powers of government, human beings are treated by environmentalists as some kind of fungus or virus. Why? Not one good reason has ever been offered. None. It turns out to be nothing more than the personal preference of environmentalists, a malicious imperialism that they lord over everyone.
Of course the environmentalists aren’t alone, but they're the only ones who have managed to assume a tone of moral superiority, by producing reams of literature that promote the myth that only the wilds qualify as Nature—or "Gaia"—and, since human beings have left the wilds more successfully than any other critter on the globe, they have no moral standing.
Sadly, such an insidious attitude is treated with sympathy and understanding, even by those who do not quite agree, mainly for reasons of impracticality. These reluctant allies seem to think the environmentalists really do aim for a true ideal, but alas, one that cannot be achieved in the measure they demand.
But the environmentalists haven’t grasped an ideal, not in the slightest. They have, instead, perpetrated a grand ruse—namely, that their imperialistic mission is a holy crusade.
Yes, some of the wilds are and will always be of importance to most people, just as are decent housing, transportation, science, education, art, commerce, and even athletics. But it is whatever matters to us that ought to determine the measure of environmental concern, not what matters to other living things in the world. And even that proper measure must be promulgated in a civilized, non-coercive fashion, which is to say, via the private, non-governmental sector, and without the meddling of the most imperialistically tempted institution in human history: government.
Let us leave behind the imperialist temptation once and for all. Let us not assume that our pet projects must be everyone’s or that our pet peeves must be shared by all. Human beings are a highly diverse lot and no one’s best need be everyone’s best, nor one's worst everyone’s worst. Imposing these notions on everyone is nothing more than that menace, imperialism, which history shows to be such a malicious force.
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