Reclaiming the farmer paradigm: A strategy for environmental rhetoric (Rachel Carson, Wendell Berry, Victor Davis Hanson)

Current rhetorical strategies of both supporters and opponents of environmental protection have polarized environmental discourse, rather than helping the participants reach consensus. Arguments based on the either/or fallacy are particularly harmful in this respect; furthermore, environmentalists have weakened their own positions by making unrealistic demands and by engaging in internal disputes over philosophical matters instead of focusing on concrete issues. An effective American environmental rhetoric would be more pragmatic, appealing to the kind of enlightened self-interest seen in the relationship between a good farmer and the land.; Rachel Carson's Silent Spring is a model of effective environmental rhetoric. Understanding the difference between convincing and persuading, Carson employed a full-featured rhetorical approach, reinforcing her central enthymeme of human/nature reciprocity with a carefully chosen lexicon, and more importantly with a cultural paradigm—the bald eagle—which has both exemplary and metaphorical dimensions.; The cultural paradigm considered here—the Farmer Paradigm—likewise has both exemplary and symbolic potency; it couples reciprocity as a hallmark of the human/nature relationship with the farmer's well-known propensity for acting appropriately and practically in difficult situations. As elaborated in Wendell Berry's concept of “context” and Victor Davis Hanson's “middleness,” the Farmer Paradigm can function as an antidote to the polarization, extremism, and lack of focus that characterize current environmental discourse. An American environmental rhetoric based on the Farmer Paradigm would be emphatically, and effectively, pragmatic.