Online Confessions of Eco-Guilt

Abstract

People whose environmental concern is dominated by the impact of everyday activities such as buying and consuming food, transportation, and using water, those I name ‘everyday environmentalists’, discuss these activities online in blogs, discussion boards, and the comments sections of major news articles. In these forums, everyday environmentalists often describe their failure to live up to their own environmental standards for personal behavior using terms such as ‘guilt’ or ‘eco-sin’. This terminology, their focus on their moral and existential crises regarding their perceived sin, and the emerging patterns of responses to such confessions indicate that the framework of ‘nature religion’ can aid our understanding of this phenomenon. Such analysis suggests that a new online religious-like ritual regarding eco-confession is emerging among everyday environmentalists. Analyzing the actions of everyday environmentalists through the lens of nature religions does, however, stretch the concept of nature religion and raise questions about the online practices of everyday environmentalists.

The seven sins of hunting tourism

“…We conclude with Causey's point that we need to consider the extent to which the hunting community truly must commit to defending and protecting all forms of hunting, or whether it can start to criticize some unethical commercial elements without chastising hunting as a whole ( Causey, 1989 ). In a time of broader “eco-guilt” ( Fredericks, 2014 ) and the Catholic Church contemplating adding “ecological sins” to the Catechism ( Esteves, 2019 ) we find that the Seven Sins of Hunting Tourism are a fine way to start.…”

“…In our paper, we identify on the basis of a cross-section of tourism literature seven tropes that hunters risk falling for when they go on a hunting holiday, when they become hunting tourists: “The Pay Effect”, “The Tourist Bubble”, “Last Chance Tourism”, “The Bucket List”, “When in Rome”, “The False Display”, and “The Saviour”. These tropes, derived mainly from tourism literature and specifically applied to a hunting context, may be understood as potentially emerging ‘ecological sins’ in a trend of eco-guilt on the part of tourists ( Fredericks, 2014 ). In the section that follows, we briefly outline key tenets of western hunting codes of conduct, as they involve ideals of fair chase, minimizing unnecessary suffering and norms of stewardship.…”

Reacting to Consecrating Science: What Might Amateurs Do?

“…This, combined with the clear trends in reviews as discussed below, indicates that popular reviews can tell us something significant about the influence of new cosmology media on its followers, or at least those who write reviews. (For a longer discussion of the trustworthiness of internet comments and the ethics of using them as a research source see Fredericks , 66–67).…”

Scholars, Amateurs, and Artists as Partners for the Future of Religion and Science

“…Bloggers and people who commented upon blogs or discussion boards repeatedly talked about “confessing their eco‐sins” or ways they were troubled by “eco‐guilt.” In the spring of 2012, a call for papers about religion, nature, and popular culture from the International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature, and Culture prompted Fredericks to study these texts in more detail. In the article that resulted from this work, she analyzed over 1,000 news articles, blog posts, and discussion board comments (Fredericks ). Drawing on the idea of “nature religion” or “nature religions” developed by Bron Taylor and Catherine Albanese, coupled with Catherine Bell and Jonathan Z. Smith's ideas of ritual, she argued that these online communicants were unintentionally developing a religious ritual to deal with their moral guilt and the existential crises they experience when they fail to live up to their basic environmental values (Fredericks ; Bell ; Smith , ; Taylor ).…”

“…In the article that resulted from this work, she analyzed over 1,000 news articles, blog posts, and discussion board comments (Fredericks ). Drawing on the idea of “nature religion” or “nature religions” developed by Bron Taylor and Catherine Albanese, coupled with Catherine Bell and Jonathan Z. Smith's ideas of ritual, she argued that these online communicants were unintentionally developing a religious ritual to deal with their moral guilt and the existential crises they experience when they fail to live up to their basic environmental values (Fredericks ; Bell ; Smith , ; Taylor ).…”