The Martlet

Attempting to creating a vegetable plot in the centre of campus in the name of sustainability is an inappropriate, non-productive action.

Increasing sustainability and recognizing society’s unsustainable way of living are very real and serious issues. However, believing that defacing a prominent location on campus is justified by the cause of sustainability is intellectual and moral laziness.

It’s quite a stretch to believe that anyone present at the gardening protest envisioned the gardens lasting and yielding enough produce to be part of a realistic sustainable solution. And it’s difficult to think that the location chosen was the most opportune for growing vegetables.

So, if sustainable development and vegetable growth are not the primary goals of the protest, then publicity must have been the purpose — to raise awareness on sustainability and put pressure on the university governance. Such a prominent location at the corner of the quad is ripe for this.

This goal of publicity through protest is valid and useful. But the act of prominently vandalizing university grounds is not. Performing illegal or inappropriate acts in protest is beneficial, if those acts themselves are meaningful and performed with intelligence. The gardens at the protest have value as an image, but are themselves of no value, intellectually or materially, being of guerrilla style and quality.

This lack of intrinsic meaning to the gardens harms the promotion of sustainability. The resulting message of the protest is that irresponsible acts trump positive change; that ends are more important than means. This message gives skeptics fodder while making people who support sustainability feel discredited and disparaged.

A desired outcome of the protest is to portray progress on sustainability as a victim of university bureaucracy and tyranny. The fact that the university is hostile toward an unauthorized garden and undoes the efforts of the protest demonstrates the hostility of the university toward the sustainability movement. However, this is a logical fallacy. If the university opposes an unauthorized garden in the middle of campus, it does not follow that the university opposes gardens or sustainability. The reasons for such opposition is not necessarily to hinder sustainability.

Supporters of the gardens argue that at least they are doing something — that action, any action, is always better than inaction. This argument is invalid. While, in the face of a crisis, inaction can be worse than action, it does not follow that all actions are therefore better than inaction. Digging deeper is not the way to get out of a pit.

More probably the reasons for the actions undertaken on the library lawn are the result of what is easy to do and what feels good. Rising up against some oppressive force always has an appeal. Showing up charged and motivated to be controversial, to feel like one is making a difference is fun and easy — while the thoughts of issues of real importance are at the back of the mind.

Believing actions done in the name of a cause (even one you and I support) to be infallible is folly. The final judge on these events is whether it can foster debate on sustainability, or just on protests. One always must be intelligent when protesting; otherwise the message cause can be lost. Doing what feels good isn’t always sustainable.