Satire In The Future Of Life By Edward Wilson

Discussion’s such as the one Wilson writes disputing over whether or not being an environmentalist is humane or whether being an conservative is indeed the logical path to follow. In Edward Wilson’s “The Future of Life” he successfully achieved the element of satire through the hypocritical and unproductive nature of arguments. With these two opposing sides Wilson is able to clearly illustrate the mock fullness and overall generalization to discredit each side of the argument.

Wilson begins each passage using strikingly similar structures saying things such as “What they call themselves” ,and “what power” each side wants to achieve, to be followed by their accusations towards the opposing side to be examples of “foolishness.” With each side being undoubtedly similar the satire begins to make its presence known, due to the fact that in each of the passages the side being represented

In the first few sentences of the people first critics side they begin by calling the environmentalist “wackos” and “extremists”, while the environmentalist consider the people first critics to be “brown-lashers” and “rebels.” In the world that we live in today calling one these such names is unexceptable and even more unexceptable since this selection of words was used in a professional piece of writing. With the decision to write such unethical words, Wilson makes each position seem improper and spiteful to the point where each one makes outlandish conclusions, deeming that the environmentalist are “an instrument for gaining political power” and the people first critics “are the worst bunch of hypocrites you’ll ever not want to find.” With this lack of respect from the opposing party it only perpetuates the root of the problem. Since they are not able to put aside their differences this discussion can be regarded as