[PEN-L:7260] Harvey

[Bill Burgess <burgess@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

First, I had a similar reaction to Louis P, that Harvey flirts with
idealism in his latest book, and this can be seen in his application of
Liebnitz and Whitehead and the distance he takes from Engel's "strong
version" of dialectics. (If I understand these issue at all, I think that
Richard Levins and Richard Lewontin's _The Dialectical Biologist_ provides
an excellent statement of the "strong" position, as against B. Ollman's and
(perhaps) Leibnitz's "internal relations" approach.)

But on other points about Harvey I think Louis is simply off-base.

On p. 189 of his book Harvey does not question the Sioux claim to the
plains, but rather that such a claim is based on ecological practice. What
he targets here is the "**uncritical acceptance** [i.e. by some
**non-Sioux** environmentalists] of of 'ecologically conscious' statements
[which] can, furthermore, be misleading."

Hello, Louis, have you been following the Makah whaling story [The Makah
Nation in Washington state killed their first grey whale in 80 or so years
a couple of weeks ago]? I agree completely with what you and J. Craven have
written in defense of the Makah's right to whale. Harvey's point is exactly
that the uncritical application of 'ecologically conscious' positions (like
killing whales is a **Bad Thing**) leads to the reactionary rejection of
Makah rights unless they are 'real Indians' who are starving to death and
don't use outboard motors to tow their whales back to shore. Another
example here in BC is opposition to logging by Natives on the part of some
environmental groups, e.g. the Friends of Clayoquat Sound.

Louis also reacts to Harvey's claim that New York is an ecosystem, as if
Harvey doesn't know how capitalism has fucked up cities, especially in the
U.S. Again, Harvey is simply challenging the mythical, romantic notion of
Nature and ecology as something separate from human society.

Louis has Harvey's view on "militant particularisms" backward. Harvey is
not an opponent of militant particularism; he is a supporter, with Raymond
Williams's condition that they are "properly brought togeather", i.e.,
united by a univeralist notions like class. I think that Louis doesn't
appreciate that Harvey's book is **mainly directed** against
post-modernist-type rejection of univeralist and materialist positions. It
is a re-statement of his 'historical-materialist-geographical' Marxism
against the pomo accusations of 'totalizing meta-narative' and the like in
his earlier _The Condition of Post-Modernity_. As noted above, I have my
doubts too, but let's discuss them in their proper context.

One view is that the 'paleo-Indian' migration from Asia had a role in the
extinction of the giant beaver, camel etc. in the Americas after the last
ice age (10,000 or so years ago). This is speculation, but it is foolish to
deny and underestimate the impact of Native societies on the environment.
For example, I think it is environmenal historian William Cronan who
convincingly shows that the tree species dominating 'New England' forests
at the time of contact with Europeans [pine?] were the result of burning by
Natives. Native settlement and activity DID alter the environment,
including "destroying" previous ecosystems. How could it be otherwise? I
don't know if Harvey's criticism of Foster for using phrases like
"destroying" the world or the environment is fair, but it is an elementary
materialist point that does occasionally need to be made.

It is false that Harvey holds the idealist position that the clash between
Indians and European settlers was fundamentally between the **notions** of
time of space. Rather, he is making the basic materialist observation that
ideas are influenced by class society, i.e. settlers from capitalist
society viewed land as private property and capital, which has to be
measured and demarcated, and precisely represented on maps for the purpose
of legal documents, land title offices, etc. It is an an ABC point in
Harvey's discipline of human geography to show how different land survey
systems, i.e. different "ideas" affect how agriculture and towns develop.
(An example is the difference between the French feudal long lots in the
1600s along the St Lawrence River, and the 1800s capitalist square-grid
township system inscribed onto the prairies).

Again, I'm for discussing whether or not Harvey goes too far down the
idealist road on some of these points, but Louis' version is a gross
exaggeration.

BTW, I thought the related thread on the contradiction of academic writing
and politics is worth discussing more in a forum like Pen-L. My take on
this is to try to remind myself every day to not confuse my academic
activities with advancing left-wing politics. How do others view this?

Bill Burgess