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To channel Hlynka again, then, Greenpeace is on the extreme end of traditionalism/conservatism and their attitude towards
the industrial revolution and its consequencesoil pipelines is (predictably) the exact same as a certain other US group's attitude towards abortion clinics.I don't think it's a surprise that countries defined by liberalism, specifically France, treats Greenpeace the way they do.
Their goal might seem hyper-reactionary. If I were to try to create a coherent extrapolation, I'd almost characterize it as "humanity should abandon the use of metal and depopulate down to 10,000 people who all live in East Africa".
But their attitude and methods are very progressive. They don't frame it as replacing our existing culture, so they're not radicals. But they look around, see things in the world that they don't like, and push for changes to get rid of them, regardless of the effect of those changes. (Wishful thinking helps here: "what bad effects?") IMO, that's progressivism at its purest.
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I don't think it's traditionalism/conservatism. I think they just want to be unhappy.
There's a joke about an old Jewish man taking a customer satisfaction survey. He says "I am very upset". "Why?" "I couldn't complain." "But you said you're upset" "Exactly, I couldn't complain."
My mental model of big parts of the environmental movement, greenpeace very much included, is a lot like that old Jewish man. They just want something to be conspicuously upset about, either so they can be professional protestors instead of having to get real jobs that involve, like, actual work, or to have an excuse to be the center of attention, or because they're mentally ill, or to sleep with true believers, or whatever. There's environmentalists doing actual environmental protection stuff, sure. But greenpeace doesn't want a solution, they want to veto things. There's a difference.
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Defining Greenpeace as part of traditionalism/conservatism, like Hlynkas redefinitions, moves us to a position of less understanding and unnecessary confusion.
Highly liberal USA doesn't do so. Liberal Britain is following zero carbon targets even under the Torries, who aren't a conservative party. Liberal Germany has strong Green party and anti nuclear policies. So it is false that this is due to liberalism. Rather than blaming conservatism and praising liberalism for what Greenpeace a group that liberals are more sympathetic towards, the reality is that the French are more pro nuclear than many other peoples and they appreciate better that it worked well for them. You could say that the French in general including French liberals are more pro nuclear, and more hostile towards Greenpeace, but you can't praise liberalism and blame conservatism in general.
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