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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
The Limits Of Violence: People And Property In Edward Abbey's "Monkeywrenching" Novels, David Thomas Sumner
The Limits Of Violence: People And Property In Edward Abbey's "Monkeywrenching" Novels, David Thomas Sumner
Faculty Publications
This paper explores Edward Abbey’s fiction asking what kind of ethical imperative his monkeywrenching novels offer. While advocating the destruction of property in defense of wilderness, The Monkey Wrench Gang draws a clear ethical distinction between the destruction of property in defense of wilderness and the harming of people. Yet the sequel, Hayduke Lives!, blurs this ethical line when a security guard is killed during the novel’s final eco-sabotage scene. After exploring several possible textual explanations for this apparent change and then interviewing several of Abbey’s close friends regarding this issue, the author concludes that the shift does not …
Eco-Terrorism Or Eco-Tage: An Argument For The Proper Frame, David Thomas Sumner, Lisa M. Weidman
Eco-Terrorism Or Eco-Tage: An Argument For The Proper Frame, David Thomas Sumner, Lisa M. Weidman
Faculty Publications
What does the term “terrorism” mean? Is it accurate to lump illegal acts that destroy property but carefully avoid harming people into the same category as acts clearly intended to kill? Is this a difference of kind or just of degree? While we (the authors) don't generally endorse the destruction of property as a method of generating social change, we believe that the destruction of property is fundamentally different from the intentional killing of people; therefore, to label acts of obstruction, trespassing, vandalism, sabotage, or arson as “terrorism” is inaccurate and has the potential to damage one's understanding of real …