Stalking the Wild Taboo - Garrett Hardin

Garrett Hardin

Garrett Hardin is Professor Emeritus of Human Ecology at the University of California at Santa Barbara and the author of numerous important books and articles on biology, ecology, and ethics. During the 1960s, he was know as "Mr. Abortionist" because of his championing of abortion in hundreds of speeches around the country. In 1959, he published the best-selling Nature and Man's Fate which has been reprinted a number of times as a Mentor paperback. (This single book has probably had the greatest influence on the Webmaster of any book he has read ). Hardin has written a number of editorials and articles for Science (journal of the AAAS) over the years, the most influential being The Tragedy of the Commons, which has been translated into five languages and has been called "one of the most famous essays written in our time" by Charles Munger. His 1993 book, Living Within Limits won the Phi Betta Kappa prize for scientific writing for the general public.

Professor Hardin has been considered an immoralist and advocate of murder by the religious right, called a right-libertarian by moderates and a fascist/neo-nazi by the radical left. Hearing that some members of the liberal eastern intellectual establishment considered his views "obscene," he penned an essay "Obscenity: Secret Suppressor of Free Speech " in response.

It has been said that the man cannot write an uninteresting sentence. The Webmaster agrees and recommends everything Hardin has written, even when he disapproves.

Thoughts by professor Hardin

On taboo. - An effective gatekeeper of the mind does not call attention to itself. It actuates a psychological mechanism called a taboo.

An element of behavior that is transferred from one culture to another is likely to suffer a sea change. So it has been with taboo. Pacific islanders apparently have no hesitancy in explicitly giving taboo as a reason for stopping a discussion. By contrast, Westerners, with their cherished tradition of free speech and open discussion, would be embarrassed to say (for instance), "We will not discuss population because it is under a taboo." Instead, they change the subject.

On morality. - The morality of an act is a function of the state of the system at the time it is performed.

Clearly the concept of pure justice produces an infinite regress…We are all the descendants of thieves, and the world’s resources are inequitably distributed, but we must begin the journey to tomorrow from the point where we are today.

Every life saved this year in a poor country diminishes the quality of life for subsequent generations.

On the Commons. - But if a pasture is run as a commons open to all, the right of each to use it is not matched by an operational responsibility to take care of it. It is no use asking independent herdsmen in a commons to act responsibly, for they dare not. The considerate herdsman who refrains from overloading the commons suffers more than a selfish one who says his needs are greater. Christian-Marxian idealism is counterproductive. That it sounds nice is no excuse. With distribution systems, as with individual morality, good intentions are no substitute for good performance.

Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons. Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all.

To couple the concept of freedom to breed with the belief that everyone born has an equal right to the commons is to lock the world into a tragic course of action.

If we renounce conquest and overbreeding, our survival in a competitive world depends on what kink of world it is: One World, or a world of national territories. If the world is one great commons, in which all food is shared equally, then we are lost. Those who breed faster will replace the rest. Sharing the food from national territories is operationally equivalent to sharing territory; in both cases a commons is established, and tragedy is the ultimate result.

In a less than perfect world, the allocation of rights based on territory must be defended if a ruinous breeding race is to be avoided. It is unlikely that civilization and dignity can survive everywhere; but better in a few places than none. Fortunate minorities must act as the trustees of a civilization that is threatened by uninformed good intentions.

On immigration. - In a similar way we should ask ourselves what repression keeps us from discussing a subject as important as immigration…How curious…Curious but understandable - as one finds out the moment he publicly questions the wisdom of the status quo in immigration. He who does so is promptly charged with isolationism, bigotry, prejudice, ethnocentrism, chauvinism, and selfishness. These are hard accusations to bear. It is pleasanter to talk about other matters, leaving immigration policy to wallow in the cross-currents of special interest that take no account of the good of the whole - or of the interests of posterity.

A community that renounces war as a means of settling international disputes still cannot survive without that discriminating form of altruism we call patriotism. It must defend the integrity of its borders or succumb into chaos.