David Suzuki: Hypocrite or Henpecked?
In my first post on uber-environmentalist David Suzuki, I wonder if he sees himself as some sort of Medieval lord.
In my second post, I wonder if he is just a garden variety hypocrite.
In this post, I look into just what drives David Suzuki to do what he does.
More accurately, who drives him.
David Suzuki revealed some interesting things to Barbara Wade Rose:
At about the same time he metamorphosed from research scientist to scientific broadcaster, Suzuki met and married his second wife, Tara Cullis, an English scholar and committed feminist, and emerged from a second chrysalis. He had been married once before, to a Japanese-Canadian high school sweetheart who finally asked him to choose between his marriage and his research. He spent so much time at his University of British Columbia laboratory it took his three children a year to realize that their father had moved out of the house.
Early in his marriage to Cullis, Suzuki tossed off one of the derogatory comments about whites that had become a convenient weapon with which to stab liberal consciences. "'You white people, you'll never understand what I've been through,"' he recalls saying. "Rather than being cowed by it and pulling back, she immediately said, 'How dare you say that? I as a woman have been through things . . .' And she launched into this attack that said essentially just because you're the victim of racism doesn't mean you can't be as bigoted as anyone else. That for me was a real turning point."
Not just a turning point in his perception about bigotry. Really, it was a turning point in his relationship with people, and with women in particular. In his traditional Japanese family, women were subservient. Now here was a woman with a strong personality.
Strangely, though, Suzuki seemed unable to treat Cullis as an equal. If he couldn't be in charge, he could only be subservient himself:
In speaking of the issues he tackles, he says, "There are many times when I feel I don't want to do it, I'm afraid. It's my wife and family that make me do it. Tara is the big figure in my life."
He notes that the really powerful people in environmental groups are almost always women. "What has really excited me," he says, "is that in the feminist perspective it is something far more profound than just a civil rights issue. It has to do with the whole thing of Mother Earth."
I bet Cullis explained in no uncertain terms just how profound the feminist perspective is. Maybe Suzuki tried to debate that viewpoint. But in the end, Suzuki became Cullis' second banana.
"Women are concerned about their children's lives," he says when speaking about environmental issues. "Men are concerned about the immediate bottom line, which is success, power, and profit. Women know goddamn well that we're talking about -- our children's future."
Good boy. Now go wash those plastic bags. I said go wash those plastic bags!
A devotee of recycling, he sometimes has to be brought up short by his wife when it's late at night and he would rather go to bed than wash any more plastic bags.
He would rather go to bed, but she makes him wash those plastic bags.
And he does it.
Interestingly, while Suzuki doesn't get a pass to get a good night's sleep when there are plastic bags that need washing in order to save the planet, Cullis seemed happy buy up a huge plot of land, even if it represents a grossly large amount of land for a family that size to be using:
He and Cullis used the proceeds from a Royal Bank award several years ago to purchase a piece of property in the Queen Charlotte Islands. They call it Tangwyn, a Welsh name that means "blessed peace".
Cullis is of Welsh extraction. Suzuki wins the money on the strength of his work, but she gets to name it in her ancestral language. Meanwhile, Suzuki can't go to bed until the plastic bags are washed.
Kinda feel sorry for the guy.
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Comments
lol! Well, that explains everything now. Thanks for the laugh.
Posted by: Joanne (TB) at May 24, 2007 04:48 AM
I don't feel sorry for him one iota.
Posted by: Reid at May 24, 2007 10:22 AM
This puts a whole new perspective on Suzuki and what makes him tick. It would be interesting to know his current relationship to his first wife and children. Is he a delinquent father or is he helping all his children?
Did he have any children with Cullis or was she only his white trophy wife?
Posted by: Observer at May 24, 2007 11:06 AM
Hey Steve - you're not being fair to poor Suzuki. You think it's easy for him to be Canada's great high priest of Kyotology (our answer to Al Gore)?
Posted by: Brian in Calgary at May 24, 2007 11:25 AM
The best thing to do is : Ignore David Susuki alltogether.
Posted by: Jan at May 24, 2007 11:40 AM
Observer, the heir-apparent to the Suzuki Foundation is his daughter by Cullis. No mention of his children by his first wife having been granted any part of the Suzuki legacy. That is not to say he is not involved or responsible in some way -- I just don't know one way or the other. But they don't figure in his public life the way his daughter by Cullis does.
Posted by: Steve Janke at May 24, 2007 12:07 PM
sounds like a pretty normal marraige to me
whats your point?
Posted by: Sierra at May 24, 2007 01:49 PM
What a sad state for humanity, male and female, when an entire generation finds victimhood so compelling, it becomes their profession. Folks, victim = dupe.
Posted by: iowavette at May 24, 2007 03:00 PM
sounds like a pretty normal marraige to me
whats your point?
Posted by: Sierra at May 24, 2007 01:49 PM
-------------------------------------------------
The point is if somebody is going to advise Canadians how to regulate their lives, HIS life and lifestyle must be scrutinized to determine if he is genuine, and from what I read about Suzuki, he is a scam artist filling his pockets with public loot.
Posted by: Mary at May 24, 2007 07:13 PM
Never mind who's driving the garden variety hypocrite David Suzuki. His shakedowns of corporate donors are chump change compared to the billions and billions of dollars the monstrous hypocrites in the Conservative Party are poised to rip out of Canadians' hands.
Posted by: at May 24, 2007 10:04 PM
What the hell is a serious evironmentalist or a envirofeminist for that matter doing with plastic bags in the first place? Much less wasting precious water resources to clean them?
Posted by: john at May 25, 2007 01:27 PM
So, just where is this "Tangwyn"? One thread says it's on Quadra, and another quote refers to the Queen Charlottes. I know he has land on Quadra as I live across the Passage from there- are they one and the same or did the journalist in this thread make a typo?
As far as adding my take on this jerk, everyone who has called him a hypocrite has covered him very well and nothing needs to be added. As far as credentials, mine equal his as far as the environment goes. In other words he has SFA to back him up without the common sense that any one with a brain can figure out, unless he's way smarter because he's making tons of money on this crapola. In fact, with his traning he should be able to come to a completely different conclusion ergo it must be the money that drives him.
Posted by: Dave from Campbell River at May 25, 2007 03:10 PM
Suzuki makes sence. His life, my life, your lives are all
vulnerable to breakdowns in ethics, integrity, commonsence.
Whats important is his ability to spotlight the obvious and attempt to bring it into the realm of action: personal, relational, political, corporate, educational. Really glad he's alive, really glad he is thinking feeling speaking
and really really glad he creates enough trouble to
rankle the ire of those with nothing better to do, and those
who, like him, are fully commited yet see things differntly.
Posted by: Crazy Bear at May 28, 2007 05:00 PM
 
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