Michael Pollan vs. Ted Nugent on Hunting

Ted, I can't help but notice in this article from December 2 2010 that you say you have never killed a game animal in violation of any law.http://www.tednugent.com/writings/writings.aspx?PostID=1118619Yet you pled guilty on in August 2010 in California to illegally baiting a deer, which also was a spike horn, another violation, and didn't have your card signed by a game warden, another violation. You were charged with 11 misdemeanors and plead no contest to 2 of them.http://www.wilx.com/home/headlines/101013474.htmlIt seems as if you are playing fast and loose with the truth. You admitted you should have known more about the law, gee you think so. Just because your rich and have money to pay fines, does not mean you are above the law. Stop lying and admit you have broken laws while hunting.

What a fantastic comparison! It is entirely too rare that we are afforded the opportunity to clearly see the similarities between these two seemingly opposed movements.As someone who has lived in both worlds of this topic, I have to say it is most refreshing to hear Pollan's honesty about "hook and bullet" (HBC) crowd being disdained by the environmentalist crowd. However, the same is true of the HBC's view of the environmentalist movement. I can't say who started attacking first, but the disdain is certainly mutual in a lot of cases. I think the unfortunate fact of the matter is that both sides react negatively to the erxtremists of both sides. Environmentalists typically bristle at the delivery typified by The Nuge in his video, and the HBC roll their eyes at the environmentalist who can't tolerate the idea of killing any animal or cutting down a tree. I have seen people shut out when they start talking about land preservation and protecting wild animals, and I have seen people shut out when they talk about forestry and hunting.Both sides here have much in common, but stop listening because of the extremes of the viewpoints before finding their shared common ground: Conservationism.How the environmentalist adhers to conservationism is obvious, but the HBC's natural leaning toward conservation is often overlooked because of, again, the extremist. The "hunter" who grabs his gun and shoots at anything that moves gives us all a bad name. The same is true of poachers (which is a problem present wherever hunting is prevalent). The true outdoorsman has conservation as his chief concern. He wants land preserved, not as a museum, but as a resource to be intelligently managed and enjoyed. He doesn't want to see anything go extinct or get clear cut. He wants balance. It was so nice to hear Pollan recognize this fact.Perhaps if more people from both sides of the issue were as honest as Pollan, we'd have more bridges being built between these two worlds that really want the same thing.Alexandra: You make an excellent point about the willingness of the HCB to impart its knowledge to others. When you spends hours in the woods with blending in with the backdrop as your main objective, you see and learn things that can never be obtained without that experience. The outdoorsman LOVES sharing that with people who have never felt it.And someone needs to make this meeting of Nugent, Pollan and Bourdain happen. Best idea ever.

Interesting comparison, John. You can certainly hear resonance between them. As a vegan-turned-hunter, what I'm struck by in these clips is how easy it is to offend folks who are coming from a different perspective and who talk about these things in a different way. There's bridge-building to be done, I think!

I am really glad that Pollan referenced the elitism of the conservationist movement. Quite frankly, I think it can be traced back to the places that the current conservation movement recruits: colleges.  In my experience (Salem State College), there is no outreach to the community that encourages conservationists to work with migrant farm workers, picking veggies or at the Blood Farm in MA, raising animals for slaughter, or to see any other person’s point of view in general. The movement was made up either of “hippies” that smoked cloves (for the record: my college offered pasta, french fries and cereal as vegetarian options, so no one was really able to be a vegan) or of people who tended to preach their opinions in a heavy-handed way. Both of these types wore their politics on their sleeves in a way that is off-putting. In the same way, hunters and fishermen can have a way of wearing their politics in their gun holster or on their trophy wall, and to many uninitiated to guns/shooting, they don’t understand that guns do not inherently invite violence. (Much like knives don’t invite violence, otherwise you’d be afraid of the butcher and your kitchen.) My point is that each side does not know what makes sense to the other.  Nugent’s verbiage is inherently violent “to slap the anti-hunters silly,” “jihad,” etc. This disconcerts the crowd that is already uncomfortable with violence, as it implies that Nugent (and by extention the hunting crowd in general) is unwilling to have a conversation in a neutral manner. Truthfully, I think the hunter crowd might feel like they would be out of their element in a neutral conversation on Pollan’s turf (the often elitist world of the intelligencia), despite the fact that the ideas of the “Nugent hook and bullet conservationists” and the “Pollan naturalist omnivores” are compatible. Both promote responsibility, stewardship and intelligent portions. The message is the same, but the cultures which bred them seem, on the surface, diametrically opposed.  I have found that if you are willing to meet the hook and bullet crowd on their turf (gun range, forest) and participate in an activity (learn to shoot, tie flies) with them, they are very open to teaching, talking and otherwise inviting “the outsider” in, but you have to check your ego & judgement at the door.  Pollan’s crowd: Remember that many hunters and fishermen learned these skill sets from their father and grandfathers, so not only are they primed to understand hunting and fishing as respectable acts, but they understand them as traditions that are meant to be taught to people that they trust, and asking to learn from them is a huge sign of respect and trust. (Back to talking to everyone now…)  It’s not a matter of compromise and needing a middle ground between veganism and killing Bambi; it’s a matter of needing to find the logic of each group’s situation and trying to tailor that message to your community, so that the cultures do not seem so alien to one another. I propose a possible solution: Perhaps Michael Pollan should try to learn to shoot from Ted Nugent and invite Anthony Bourdain over to help cook.  I think that those three might get along really well.

Nugent wins hands down. I loved the enthusiasm. He states it right when he says that animals are the best food on the planet! 

Nugent, for the win. His respect for the kill and his honor to the environment are second to none.