Jim,

You make some excellent points, and I am willing to concede most of them. I wasn't intending to advocate a Platonic or neo-Platonic Ideal.

Rather, my concerns are with humankind's accelerating ignorance of its own biological nature and interdependance. I don't think it's necessarily elitist to say something like that. But it is inconsistent for me to, on one hand, advocate elite decisionmaking for the rest, and as I have done elsewhere, denigrate hierarcy as unrealistic and ultimately anti-biologic. So again, points taken.

Although my categories are fuzzy they are not unreal. Philosophy is moving away from Ideal categories and towards coherance, which you mention in a couple of contexts, because its work has so thoroughly changed our understanding of Ideal categories as such. But that doesn't mean that there is no coherant set of real values without which human survival is not possible.

To add weight to my concerns, consider a concept from Communication Theory: it is called a strange loop, and is a notable characteristic of modernism in particular. It is a cycle: novelty-elation-familiarity-boredom-novelty..
and can be virtuous or vicious. Personal angst about which is evident in attitudes about components, not only of the Nat'l. Parks, but of the environment in general, you are correct, is no reason to abandon a process which we all value.

After all, evolution is a gamble just as democracy is, and if we humans abandon our natures, then we must become something else or perish.

In fact the only thing I am left with in your response to complain about is this: "If public is changed to mean the loudest voices in the room, or the loudest and most organized lobbying groups, then yeah, I think that is a problem to consider..."

It is no change at all that 'public' means the loudest and most organized lobbying groups, unless it means the hierarchic/bureaucratic power structure, or perhaps opinion polls. In any case, there are certainly things to consider and engage!

So we are back to Mr. Smith's more pragmatic questions, I think, though they will certainly be impacted by the Commission and those of us who hope to influence the future of the Nat'l. Parks.

Regards.