Criticism
Academics Ralph Maughan and Douglas Nilsona write that wise use is a "desperate effort to defend the hegemony of the cultural and economic values of the agricultural and extractive industries of the rural West", and have "argued that the Wise Use agenda stemmed from an ideology that combined laissez-faire capitalism with cultural characteristics of an imagined Old West"
Some critics of the wise use movement claim that the strong rhetoric used has deepened divisions between opposing interest groups, and has indirectly increased violence and threats of violence against environmental groups and public employees. "Many observers noted that Wise Use activity in some areas overlapped heavily with the 1990s formation and growth of militias, self-styled volunteer paramilitary organizations presciently committed to their own version of homeland security."
Environmental historian Richard White has criticized Wise Use for upholding the rights of large landowners at the expense of working rural people in his essay, "'Are You an Environmentalist or Do You Work for a Living?': Work and Nature."
Broadcast journalist Stephenie Hendricks claimed in her book Divine Destruction that wise use is in part "being driven by biblical fundamentalists who believe exhausting natural resources will hasten the Second Coming of Jesus Christ."
Read more about this topic: Wise Use
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“...I wasn’t at all prepared for the avalanche of criticism that overwhelmed me. You would have thought I had murdered someone, and perhaps I had, but only to give her successor a chance to live. It was a very sad business indeed to be made to feel that my success depended solely, or at least in large part, on a head of hair.”
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