A Conversation with Forest Ecologist Marvin Roberson

 Read the article ...

The Tsuga’s View - Part 6

A Long-Term Look At Environmental, Political, and Social Issues, From The Perspective Of Michigan’s Oldest (and Most Optimistic) Tree Species

By Marvin Roberson

I was recently talking with a friend of mine about this column, and she challenged my assertion that things are getting better in terms of implementation of progressive values. She acknowledged that in many of the examples I’ve given, things are improving long-term.  However, she noted that even if the overall progress is positive, I had to admit that there is regression sometimes.

She noted that “We’re moving in the right direction long term” is of little comfort to those who experience the actual effects of regressive policies. In the current political environment, people are being discriminated against, and rights are being devalued, solely based on color, religion, and gender. Telling folks who are experiencing this bigotry that “It’s OK because things are getting better long term” is not much help.

She’s got a point. There is no question that regardless of long-term outlooks for progressive policies, people get hurt during the “backlash” periods. And this is happening right now. No question about it. People are getting hurt.

However, I’m not claiming that everyone, all the time, in every issue, will experience the benefits of progress. I’m claiming that the overall trend is towards Progressivism, even as there are periods of setbacks.

It is rare that any issue gets set back far enough to erase all progress. In other words, even during periods of setback, the worst of it is not as bad as the worst was in previous times.

Below is a graphic illustration of my point (thanks to volunteer Sarah Tresedder for another wonderful graphic):

 

In this graphic, the black, line is the graph of actual progress (according to me). The red line is the average.

Note that the average goes up, as I’ve described. However, also look at the peaks and valleys. The high points of each peak get higher each time, as do the low points. In other words, even during setbacks, not all progress is lost. And after the setback, we reach more progressive heights over time.

This is illustrated by my friend herself. She is a highly talented professional, and the CEO of a non-profit. There are setbacks in women’s rights happening right now. No question. However, even during this period, she is still experiencing the progress made during previous periods.

A century ago, she would not have been allowed to vote, much less run a non-profit and supervise a number of male employees. And even during the pushback we’re experiencing right now, no one is suggesting rolling back the 19th Amendment. No one is suggesting outlawing her right to run a company.

So progress that has been achieved is almost never rolled all the way back (I say “almost never” because I never us superlatives...I’ll wait a minute while you think about that assertion).

In addition, it is almost never the case that progress in all areas is rolled back significantly all at once. Partly that’s because each type of progress (gender equity, environmental issues, etc.) has its own constituency and its own enemies.

So almost never is there a monolithic “roll back everything” movement (no matter how much it might feel that way). And the moving target of various constituencies makes that almost impossible, even if it were to come to pass.

To recap: Things are moving in the Progressive direction over time. Everyone experiences at least some of this progress, even during the regressive periods. Even the regressive episodes move in the Progressive direction, over time.

Next time - I grew up in the 1960s and 1970s. Consequently, television has been a bigger part of my life that I like to admit. However, TV provides a lens into how our society looks at issues of concern to Progressives. I’ll talk about that.

The Tsuga’s View - Part 5

A Long-Term Look At Environmental, Political, and Social Issues, From The Perspective Of Michigan’s Oldest (and Most Optimistic) Tree Species

By Marvin Roberson

OK. He’s here. President Trump. And it’s bad. Really bad. Worse than any of us expected. Things are going to get worse. Good policies are going to be dismantled. People are going to be discriminated against, they are going to be hurt, and they are going to die. No two ways about it.

I’ve had folks point this out to me, and claim that it contradicts my claim that from the Tsuga’s View, things are getting better overall. I stand by that analysis, even in the face of all of the above.

Remember - the Tsuga’s View is the long view - not a reaction to the immediate events of the day, no matter how disheartening or damaging. And the fact is, while progressive ideals lost the election, we won the vote.

Consider - 3 million more people voted for Clinton than Trump. More people voted for Democratic Senate candidates than voted for Republicans. While the Democrats did not take the Senate, as we had hoped, they gained, not lost, seats. And in fact, Trump won Florida by less votes than the number of people who wrote in “Mickey Mouse”, or other nonsense votes.

The way I have described this situation, is that the Conservative tide is going out, even if we get knocked down by some of the remaining waves.

As I said in an earlier edition of the Tsuga’s View, the fact that the Right has progress to attack means that there has been progress. After eight years of excoriating Obamacare, the Right is discovering that American citizens, even the ones that voted Republican, actually don’t want it repealed.

Look - in the long run, we’ve made huge progress. We will continue to do so. When we get knocked down by the remaining incoming waves, we’re not drowning - we’re claiming the beach left by the receding Conservative tide.

Buck up - it’s awful now, but it’s been awful before (think McCarthy, Nixon, etc). And in the long run, the Tsuga’s View is that we have, and will continue, to prevail.

In the next installment of “The Tsuga’s View”, I explain why sitting in front of a television for much of my youth reflects progress.

The Tsuga’s View - Part 4

A Long-Term Look At Environmental, Political, and Social Issues, From The Perspective Of Michigan’s Oldest (and Most Optimistic) Tree Species

Installment 4

By Marvin Roberson

The photo which accompanies this column is at the end of my neighbor’s driveway. Look at it, and think closely about what it tells us about my neighbor. It says that not only is he a Trump supporter, but that he is pleased by Trump’s angry, combative attitude (“Give ‘em Hell, Donald”). It says that he’s not only not a Clinton supporter, but that he’s a virulent sexist (note the “bayatch” reference).

But one of the things it points out to me is how strongly held his views are and how important it is to him to broadcast them publicly. He didn’t just go down to Republican headquarters and say “Give me the biggest Trump banner you’ve got”. No, he went to a professional sign painter, and paid money to have his personal brand of anger, bigotry, and sexism memorialized for all to see. He is indicating not just support of Trump, but a desire to make sure that all can see that what it is he finds so attractive about Trump are these odious attitudes.

We see this kind of this everywhere, and since Trump’s win they have only increased. Attacks on those of differing races, religions, gender identities, and national origin are on the rise. A clear sense among some that “white anger” is justified and should be expressed. A strong sense that  white privilege is under attack, and needs to be protected.

Many of us are astounded. As I said in my first installment of the Tsuga’s View, what I found most disturbing about the election was not that Trump will be president, with all that brings and means (although I’m pretty disturbed by that). No, what I found truly horrifying was that No one in the electorate could have failed to see that Trump expressed bigoted, racist, repugnant views. And yet 50 million people though that either that was not a problem, or more likely, approved of it.

During the election, a friend and I had a continuing series of conversations about this phenomenon, what it meant, and whether or not it was a good thing (before you start throwing things, remember that the Tsuga’s View is the long one, and give me a bit to explain). What our differences came down to was the question of causality, and which direction the causal arrow points.

My friend was convinced that Trump was the cause of a significant portion of this, and therefore felt that it was terrible. I feel that the causal arrow runs in the other direction, and is therefore a good thing, even though it’s also terrifying.

Here’s what I mean - I don’t think Trump took millions of otherwise reasonable, rational people, and turned them into rabid bigots. I think that we had millions of rabid bigots in this country already. They didn’t feel able to speak or act on those disgusting attitudes. However, with the rise of Trump, they felt empowered, as though it was now OK, they had been given permission to be publicly racist, sexist, homophobic, you name it.

And, in the long run, that’s a good thing. No, it’s not a good thing that millions of Americans hold those horrifyingly hostile views towards others. But if they do hold those views (and it certainly appears that they do), it is good that we now all know it. Because I don’t think most of us realized the depth, and extent, of bigotry in this country. It has been simmering under the surface, but now it’s broken through and we can all see it. And we have to be able to see it to address it - invisible bigotry is unaddressed bigotry.

I have friends (we’ll call them T and C) who live in a beautiful house in a wonderful location in northern Michigan. C is very sensitive to toxins and other problems in her immediate environment. A number of years ago, she began having some respiratory issues in their home. The problems seemed to be coming from the floor in the living room.

Now, they had a number of options. They could have just ignored it, since it wasn’t really all that bad. They could have put down new carpet, or refinished the wood, and hoped that replacing the surface would be enough. Or, they could pull up the floorboards, inspect the subfloor and joists to determine the extent of the problem, and conceivably put themselves on the hook for time consuming, expensive, and life-disrupting repairs to solve a deep-seated problem.

They pulled up the floorboards. They discovered black mold all through the subfloor, joists, and parts of the walls and basement. This required ripping out and replacing large amounts of material in the house, some of it structural. It costs a mint. They had to live elsewhere while the work was done.

However, if they had done nothing, and lived with it, the mold would have spread and gotten worse. If they had gone with a surface treatment, the result would have been the same as doing nothing, although it might have taken longer to manifest. Only by pulling up the floor and exposing the true extent of the problem could it actually be fixed.

I see the Trump candidacy as helping pull up the floorboards in this country, exposing the moldy, rotten attitudes which many of our fellow citizens hold. My neighbor’s sign is a view of that black mold. But it’s also a wake-up call that more needs fixing than we probably realized.

In previous columns, I’ve expressed the views that overall, we’re moving in the direction of Progressive victory, and that we’ll continue to do so. We elected an African-American President.  We almost elected a woman. And keep in mind, that while a bigot won the election, a woman won the vote. Hilary got over 2.5 million ore votes than Trump.

However, I’ve also expressed the admonition that this doesn’t mean we can get complacent or rest on this progress. We can’t.

But now that we’ve exposed the extent of the problem, we can get to work on it with a vigor that I think many of us didn’t realize was needed.

A friend has taken issue with my description of the current political situation as analogous to Hemlock Control (see installment #1 for a description of Hemlock Control). He thinks that it’s more akin to a crown fire which results in the death of the Hemlock grove, and a replacement with something else. I think Hemlocks (Progressive ideals, in this metaphor) are far more resilient than he gives them credit for, and that while we’re seeng a big fire coming, it’s far too early to predict the demise of the Hemlock grove

And That’s The Tsuga’s View

In the next installment of “The Tsuga’s View”, I explain why we almost all of the current attacks on the environment are, by the very way they are presented, in fact progress.

The Tsuga’s View - Part 3

A Long-Term Look At Environmental, Political, and Social Issues, From The Perspective Of Michigan’s Oldest (and Most Optimistic) Tree Species

Installment 3

By Marvin Roberson

I’m a huge Gloria Steinem fan. She is one of the smartest, most insightful, most thought-provoking people I’ve ever read, heard speak, or met (I say “met” just to burnish my credibility - 15 years ago, I paid to sit in an auditorium with hundreds of other people to hear her speak - after, I waited in line to have her sign my book, while I gushed like a fanboy - I don’t think she has me on speed dial).

However, lately, I think she is misreading the strength of our social fabric in a way that my 16-year-old niece Molly is not, and I think Molly is right.

Molly

The past couple years, and especially during this election, Ms. Steinem has been admonishing us to remember how hard-fought the gains were in civil rights, women’s rights, reproductive rights, etc. She has expressed concern that many young people today take those gains for granted, without recognizing that they are relatively recent gains. She has also been cautioning us to consider this progress. as fragile and possibly temporary.

I think she’s right about almost all of that. However, I think that the fundamental foundations of that progress are fairly secure, and I think that the very fact of the manner in which the younger generation takes it for granted is both an indicator of this, and a measure of how secure it is.

Let’s take an example from Molly. She is a Junior in High School, at the same school where her mother (my sister) and I went, our mother went, and her mother and father (our grandparents) went. We’ll follow a couple examples through the time our family attended this school.

This fall, a young man with Autism was elected to the Homecoming Court. Some folks made a big deal about this. Molly was outraged about that, expressing the opinion that it was not relevant and no one’s business, he was just a student like anyone else.

Think about that in the context of my family’s attendance at that school. During my grandparents’ tenure, this young man would have been hidden at home or sent away to a “home” (as in fact my eldest uncle was). During my Mom’s time, he would have likely been in “Special Ed” classes, possibly not even in the same building as the rest of the students. When my sister and I were there, he probably would have been beginning to be “Mainstreamed”, where he had some Special Ed classes, but possibly some regular classes, and he would have had “opportunities” to interact with the “regular” students.

And today, not only is he eligible, but in fact elected, to the Homecoming Court. And not in the “aren’t we tolerant for electing him” sense that would have been the case a decade ago. No, his classmates don’t think that it’s terrific that he’s “overcoming his autism” to accomplish this. They think it simply isn’t relevant, and is no one’s business, it’s just part of who he is.

This is progress that was hard won, and fought bitterly. “Mainstreaming” was very controversial when I was in high school. Parents expressed concern over the safety of their children interacting with “those kids”. My family actually went to court to help establish the first group home for developmentally disabled adults in our county (for the uncle who was sent away as described above).

But it’s not fragile. And it’s not going away, exactly because of the fact that Molly takes it for granted, not in spite of that fact. That doesn’t mean folks with disabilities won’t experience intolerance - recall Trump’s horrific mocking of a disabled reporter. It doesn’t mean that some, or many, individuals won’t experience serious discrimination, and the resulting isolation, rejection, and pain that comes with it.

And we need to fight against all of that. But remember, we’re taking the long view here. And in the long term, the student Molly voted for in the Homecoming Court isn’t being sent away to a “Home” for “people like him”. He’s part of the fabric of our society, and he’s here to stay.

Let’s follow another example through my family’s history at that same school. My grandfather graduated from that school. My grandmother stopped in 6th grade, because that’s as far as girls were allowed to go. My mother graduated at the top of her class. However, she was told not to apply for law school at UM, and had to forsake her dream for something “more suited to a woman”.

My sister, however, has more degrees than you can shake a stick at, and her daughters look poised to do the same. Heaven help the fool who tries to tell either girl (or their mother, or in fact their uncle) that they are disqualified from some field of study pr profession by their gender.

Or consider this - my grandmother attained voting age at a time when voting age didn’t affect her - because women were simply not allowed to vote.

My mother vividly described her joy at seeing the beginnings of women representing Americans in Congress. My sister and I both were ecstatic at the prospect of being able to vote for a woman for President of the United States, for the first time ever.

And here’s where I will again cite Molly over my hero Ms. Steinem. Gloria Steinem (and many others, I’m using her as an example, not singling her out) has expressed concern over the fact that not enough young people, especially women, understand how historic that was, and what a bitter disappointment the loss represented.

I get that, and I understand it. However, I asked Molly about that. Her response was that while she understood that no woman had been elected as President of the US, that all it meant was that no woman had been elected - not that being a woman disqualified a candidate from office, or that no woman could be elected.

And that, folks, is Progress - permanent, irreversible progress. It is unthinkable that the US will ever again tell women they can’t vote because they are women. It is unthinkable that policy makers will ever again debate in public the question of whether a person’s gender in and of itself makes one unsuited for office.

And again, don’t get me wrong. Some (maybe many) people feel that way (see the next installment). There will still be obstacles, and attempts to roll back progress. Reproductive rights are clearly under attack.

But the fact that women vote, run for office and get elected, will eventually be President of the US, and that no one is debating these fundamental rights, means that we have been, and will continue, to move in the Progressive direction, and that’s good news, even in this terrifying time.

And that’s the Tsuga’s View

In the next installment of “The Tsuga’s View”, I explain why we should thank my neighbor for helping pull up the floorboards, and why the current political situation is not yet a crown fire, no matter what my friend says.