At the other end of the spectrum is commercial exploitation. Curtin also levels a scathing attack on the green revolution, the spread of modern agriculture, which he calls murderous. Curtin spends most of his energy educating his readers about he error of our western ways. To put his argument in context, he provides an elegant taxonomy of violence that defines not only personal violence such as mugging, murder and domestic abuse but also institutional and systemic violence, which comes in both overt and covert forms. For example, forcing a Third World agrarian community to adopt mechanical agriculture and reject their caste system is a form of systemic violence.
Colonialism is covert systemic violence.
Genocidal violence is overt systemic violence. As with his book s title, Curtin waits until the final chapter to reveal the details of his own environmental ethic. He says that in America we have lost our connection with the land and have turned over responsibility for environmental caring to the national government. He argues we need is to rekindle our sense of place with a dose Thomas Jefferson s passion for local control and an ounce of Edward Abbey s love of nature. My view is that the best guarantee we have of preserving the wilderness of nature is through cultivating an informed and humble citizenry that is genuinely committed to preservation.