Modifying the Myth of the Garden

摘要

In a critical engagement with the second edition of Paul Thompson's The Spirit of the Soil, I offer two sets of considerations in support of developing his agrarian view of sustainability into a conception of enlightened land stewardship that is capable of serving as a wider conception of environmental ethics for the Anthropocene. First, I argue that paying attention to emergent novel ecosystems in a framework of adaptive ecosystem management across varied landscapes can help recognize and integrate values associated with both production and preservation, thus substantially easing the tension Thompson identifies between them. Second, Thompson's agrarian vision of sustainability in The Spirit of the Soil is unfortunately restricted by an essential connection with the work of growing and consuming food, but in The Agrarian Vision (2010) Thompson offers a much broader and inclusive conception agriculture. I argue that if we adopt his own broader conception of agriculture, then Thompson's arguments favoring the concept of sustainability over a model of global stewardship become significantly compromised.