Who Is Daniel Quinn, Favored Author Of James Lee, Discovery Hostage Suspect?

by Colby Hall | 3:13 pm, September 1st, 2010

» 11 comments

The Discovery Office hostage situation is still a very fluid story that has yet to be resolved. But interesting clues are revealing themselves about the situation. The assailant has been identified as James Jay Lee, and a environmental screed listing “demands” has been published under the domain “SavethePlanetProtest.com” (the full text of which can be read here.) Lee’s MySpace reveals a 43 year-old male who is originally from Hawaii, and an avid reader and fan of the writings of environmental writer Daniel Quinn. So, who is Daniel Quinn?

Quinn is described on WikiPedia:

Daniel Quinn (born 1935 in Omaha, Nebraska) is an American writer described as an environmentalist. He is best known for his book Ishmael (1992), which won the Turner Tomorrow Fellowship Award in 1991.

Quinn himself does not, however, identify as an “environmentalist,” pointing out that the term evokes the notion of something that is “out there,” and somehow “not us.” The typical conception of environmentalism, Quinn argues, is one of a false-dichotomy — a false division that says there’s “the environment,” and then there’s “us humans” living in the environment (and somehow not a part of it)

Quinn has not been immune to controversy. The same WikiPedia page includes the following:

Daniel Quinn offers readers a way out of the dilemma between inattention and blame. It is tough to hold the attention on global problems and still imagine solutions and reasons for hope. Some blame humanity in general, and claim “human nature” necessarily leads to species loss and habitat degradation. In Quinn’s writing, one can find a perspective that is pro-sustainability and pro-human, countering the view that humans are inherently toxic to the world.

While response to Ishmael was mostly very positive, Quinn inspired a great deal of controversy with his claim (most explicitly discussed in the appendix section of The Story of B) that since population growth is a function of food supply, sustained food aid to impoverished nations merely puts off and dramatically worsens a massive population-environment crisis. This crisis is born of a disconnect between local humans and the local habitat with its food. Quinn points out that ending this disconnect is a proven way to avoid famines.

Daniel Quinn, Discovery Channel Office, Discovery Channell, James Jay Lee, James Lee, Savetheplanetprotest.com

Moderate

“humans are inherently toxic to the world.”

Certainly can not blame this one on the Tea Party. Tree hugger gone wild.
felixw

Surely this some right-wing terrorist — the kind that Big Sis warned us against. And the evidence that he is an ultra-left environmental extremist must be more lies by the vast right wing conspiracy. Because I heard on MSNBC how political violence is always coming from conservatives….
http://www.facebook.com/people/Stephen-Hogan/179500970 Stephen Hogan

felixw said:
Surely this some right-wing terrorist — the kind that Big Sis warned us against. And the evidence that he is an ultra-left environmental extremist must be more lies by the vast right wing conspiracy. Because I heard on MSNBC how political violence is always coming from conservatives….

Way to make this about you guys.
felixw

Stephen Hogan said:
September 1, 2010 at 3:57 pm Stephen Hogan(Quo

Steve, I guess you missed the countless hours of programming on MSNBC trying to link conservative to violence. Of course, after the Ft. Hood pro-Islam terrorist, the New York pro-Islam car bomber, the Alabama Obama-loving murdering professor, and a half-dozen other stories that seemed to imply the exact opposite, MSNBC dropped the stories. Even they could see that they were not credible. But if you don’t like people playing these kinds of stories for political gain, you should direct your complaints to the leftwing pundits who pushed this angle again and again to absurd extremes.
kairos

felixw said:
Steve, I guess you missed the countless hours of programming on MSNBC trying to link conservative to violence. Of course, after the Ft. Hood pro-Islam terrorist, the New York pro-Islam car bomber, the Alabama Obama-loving murdering professor, and a half-dozen other stories that seemed to imply the exact opposite, MSNBC dropped the stories. Even they could see that they were not credible. But if you don’t like people playing these kinds of stories for political gain, you should direct your complaints to the leftwing pundits who pushed this angle again and again to absurd extremes.

That’s pretty much it.

The game gets played both ways.
giuliannamaria

“humans are inherently toxic to the world.”

Wow, Moderate. That’s a new low in taking things out of context.

Full sentence: “In Quinn’s writing, one can find a perspective that is pro-sustainability and pro-human, countering the view that humans are inherently toxic to the world.”

Do you understand the meaning of the word “counter”? Or are you just eager to blame an author whose work was mangled and misrepresented by a madman?

This man was a nutcase. He could have latched on to any book, any cause, and he would have taken it to the same extreme. No one but a lunatic could read Daniel Quinn’s work and come away with the idea that violence is the answer.
LouiseLaTease

Lee was just trying to expose human filth for what it really is. We understand. And we’re here to help.
http://swellco2000.com/2010/09/james-jay-lee-kinda/
fallenchicken

Okay all things considered — a book about a telepathic Chimp sounds awesome.
bellap12

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http://www.facebook.com/people/George-Peterson/25006469 George Peterson

From Lee’s manifesto: “Immigration: Programs must be developed to find solutions to stopping ALL immigration
pollution and the anchor baby filth that follows that. Find solutions to stopping it. Call for people
in the world to develop solutions to stop it completely and permanently. Find solutions FOR
these countries so they stop sending their breeding populations to the US and the world to seek
jobs and therefore breed more unwanted pollution babies. FIND SOLUTIONS FOR THEM TO
STOP THEIR HUMAN GROWTH AND THE EXPORTATION OF THAT DISGUSTING FILTH!
(The first world is feeding the population growth of the Third World and those human families
are going to where the food is! They must stop procreating new humans looking for nonexistant
jobs!)”

A Fox News viewer, apparently, among other things. To be clear, Daniel Quinn’s books do indicate that our civilization is dangerous and headed to collapse. He does indicate that population-curbing programs would be a good idea. However, he does not imply that these changes should be made with eugenics and violence. He advocates groups of people coming to common-sense solutions through education. He does not ever say that humans are evil or dirty or a problem. In fact, he makes it very clear that the problem isn’t humanity but the way humanity started living after the agricultural revolution.

The way it looks to me is not necessarily that he was inspired to violence by the books but inspired to change the world by the books… then decided (if you can call what someone this unstable does) that taking hostages would reach that end. Clearly he is confused and dangerous, and his story ended sadly today.

More: http://dirtygreek.org/
fegum

The whole sentence which you took that partial quote from actually says this:
“In Quinn’s writing, one can find a perspective that is pro-sustainability and pro-human, COUNTERING the view that humans are inherently toxic to the world.”
In other words, he doesn’t believe that.
Way to take things out of context.