Posted by
Edwin Leap on Friday, July 04, 2008 7:07:35 PM
Today I was watching television and saw a 'celebrity fact' list; the kind used as filler on so much of the vacuous television that airs today. It had to do with actor Will Smith. It went something like this: 'Green Facts about Will Smith.' It listed a few good things the actor had done, including donating to the Martin Luther King, Jr. museum. None of the things listed had to do with the environment. Hmmm.
So I realized that I was witnessing the evolution of language; but unlike the theory of evolution, it was not an unguided, random process. The word 'green' is being used to denote virtue. Of course, it might just as well be the word 'purple' or 'bookshelf.' But I see a trend; it isn't that you're green or purple, it's that you aren't. If one is not green, one is not virtuous. We know that to refuse to bear the banner of environmentalism leaves us branded earth fascists and nature-haters. But who knows what will follow? 'He's not very green,' will stop meaning I don't recycle or drive a hybrid. It will mean that my definitions of virtue are no longer valid. It will mean that I have failed the modern tests of virtue by failing to adopt ideology and world-views that are considered good and wholesome by an entire generation (or series of generations) to whom virtue has nothing to do with Divine authority, the worth of mankind or any hint of objective truth. I will be, initially, 'un-green' for failing in my duties to theearth and the non-human creatures and plants that inhabit it, as well as to the 'spirit' of earth that underlies the views of those atheists and agnostics who treat earth as a deity.
But soon enough, I will be less than green for intolerance of gay marriage, support of absolute truth claims; for denying the right to abortion and unfettered sexuality of youth, and for ultimately denying the neo-socialist rhetoric that has young America, and much of old America, in it's red-gloved fist.
I'm not very green. But I'm good. And I refuse to accept that transformation of my language. Green may be a political viewpoint. And it's certainly a color I love. But I'm not green. Because when Kermit said 'it ain't easy being green,' he was more prophet than frog.
Edwin