“Why do we love to believe that mankind is a plague upon the Earth? We view anything and everything that happens in nature, no matter how barbaric, bloody, or destructive, as good. Indeed, the word ‘natural’ has no negative connotation at all.
If a volcano like Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines dumps millions of tons of sulfur into the stratosphere, cooling the Earth for two or three years, this is simply Mother Nature at work. If humans did it, we would call it an environmental catastrophe.”
Roy Spencer. May 29, 2008
http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=MDExMTEwZWVjZmI5MGFmNzgzYmM1MWVmNTc0MDMyYTU=
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part 1 http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/000797.html
part 2 http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/003015.html
part 3 http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/003044.html
part 4 http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/003104.html
part 5 http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/003112.html
part 6 http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/003120.html
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
If an alien spacecraft parked itself in a sun-synchronous orbit and began to make observations of the earth below, they would distinguish us from the biosphere in which we are immersed as we distinguish termite mounds from the forest. Rather than observing us as phenomena separate from nature we would be measured as interesting natural phenomena.
The fact that we routinely imagine ourselves as separate from nature is a kind fractal scale illusion that plays into our reflexive sense of anthropocentrism. But there is more to it than simple scalar vanity.
A volcano’s lahar that destroys a village offers little to distinguish itself from the Union Carbide plant’s eruption in Bhopal to our alien scientists in orbit. And it’s true both volcanoes and human industrial accidents are naturally occurring phenomena on planet Earth.
But human consciousness rightly distinguishes two different orders of events. Only one was preventable. Nature cannot be held to account for volcanoes. Union Carbide is accountable for the safe operation of its plants.
Humankind, especially the Western varieties, imagines that we are rational individuals, in control of our destiny. Being reasonable, self-interested individuals capable of making cogent decisions introduces a whole range of moral conundrums—guilt, responsibility, shame, mendacity, greed, as well as honour, bravery, kindness, charity. etc. These conundrums are simply inapplicable to “nature,” as they once were for us before we fell from the grace of our bicameral Neolithic Eden into the vagaries of conscious awareness.
Nature is innocence, even while being deadly. Nature has no moral imperative and we, because we must consciously scheme our future, are responsible and more often than not, wrong and guilty.
It’s called the human condition. The paradox is that we are part of nature.
Wes George makes some remarkably good posts. Keep ’em coming.
Roy Spencer doesn’t have his head in the clouds; what a guy.
Wes, I couldn’t disagree more; what you describe seems a rehash of determinism and this year’s model of original sin. If this is what you think about humanity I guess you see the future as either being a silicon one, or a victory for entropy; ultimately that is what nature is; a mechanism to achieve entropy; humans, or at least some of them, are pedalling furiously in the other direction; personally we always lose, but who in their right mind doesn’t want to leave something for their children and the next generation? And by the way, there’s nothing reflexive about my anthropocentrism; I work very hard at it.
>but who in their right mind doesn’t want to leave something for their children and the next generation?
I wonder this when I see the guy hosing his cars and garage during the driest May on record. He has a child less than a year old. I wonder this when our fruit and veg is wrapped individually in plastic and then put in a plastic bag, amongst the box of Shrek fruit loops and containers of bottled water. I wonder this too when a mobile phone less than a year old is replaced so that the child can have the latest colour and shine and mind-numbing videos, when the family pet is destroyed because it growled at a child who was pulling its ears and laughing at the ‘stupid dog’, and when the woman in the spotless champagne-coloured 4WD thinks nothing of spending $48,000 for a Sex in the City tour of New York.
Humans as a species live largely for the here and now. We like to think of ourselves as above the baseness of other animals with our ability to think into the future and think of others, but how can you honestly say that as a whole we really care about anything other than ourselves? Other beings are selfish, although don’t feel the need to place themselves on a pedestal and proclaim otherwise, but no species has been as much of a destructive force to itself and all other life as us naked apes. Our denial of life in the rest of the universe is staggering, our will to spend billions exploring other worlds whilst trashing our own only suggests intelligent beings here are perhaps Douglas Adams’s white mice and dolphins.
Cohenite, what I suggested was that the human condition was quite the opposite of the determinist position. In fact, determinism and sin, original or otherwise, are mutual exclusive concepts. No?
So Wes, as we become cleverer, we are to be held responsible for more and more “natural” happenings?
Accusatory science just points the finger and says, “you caused it, you fix it”!
The most primitive people felt just as guilty and their solutions were about as effective.
I know, I was apprenticed to an aboriginal rainmaker when I was young.
Wes; sorry, I got caught up with your termite analogy; humans are the only ‘natural’ creatures who are not biologically programmed to follow a determined, instinctive path; hence your paradox, I guess, but I am flummoxed by your words “wrong and guilty”. Sounds very AGW to me.
Travis; a reasonant post; it is thoroughly misanthropic; the essence of misanthropy is a disdain for humanity for not being perfect; the standard of perfection here is a natural one; but without humanity nature is nothing; behind the verdant greens and azure blues is no meaning. I must say I am astounded by your comment “Our denial of life in the rest of the universe is staggering.” Haven’t you heard of SETI? Humanity craves the thought of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe; the greatest potential of mankind is to explore space; to suggest we should stay on this gilded cage and hunker down on the pretext of dwindling energy and unethical abuse of the natural condition is nothing more than a perverse desire to return to the womb.
Great point, Spangled D,
AGW theory has much more in common with sympathetic magic than anyone would care to admit.
Let me guess: Your rainmaker would have believed that through some detailed ritual probably involving song and dance in the full regalia of his shamanic office and performed at a public gathering he would have some influence on the weather.
Rudd, Wong, et al believe that ritualistic media events, full of high protocol and adorned in the regalia of state performed in Bali and Paraliament have some influence on the weather. And the fawning public is awed!
From Frazer’s ‘The Golden Bough’ (1922):
“Led astray by his ignorance of the true causes of things, primitive man believed that in order to produce the great phenomena of nature on which his life depended he had only to imitate them and that immediately by a secret sympathy or mystic influence the little drama which he acted in the forest glade or mountain dell, on desert plain or wind-swept shore, would be taken up and repeated by mightier actors on a vaster stage.”
Sounds unhealthily familiar.
Cohenite,
Of course I have heard of SETI, and not everyone wastes water or consumes like there is no tomorrow.
> Humanity craves the thought of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe
For many it could just as well be that humanity craves that it is the only intelligent life in the universe. If this were such a golden fleece to chase, there would be much more reliable funding and more Sagan-like Contact than Reagan-like Star Wars. The Voyager probes were an attempt to reach out, but some involved in the program believed it was a limp handshake. Do you think that we have seriously exhausted looking for intelligent life on Earth, or have we chosen to dominate it instead, for fear of being challenged?
It has nothing to do with perfection. Nobody and nothing is perfect, and what is perfection anyway? Everyone has a different ideal of perfection. However, it is one thing to recognise actions which are long-term destructive to yourself and others and another to not do anything about them when it is within your control.
>without humanity nature is nothing; behind the verdant greens and azure blues is no meaning
Nature can live without humans, and there is nothing to say that some species do not appreciate scents and sounds and spectrums as we do.
>to suggest we should stay on this gilded cage and hunker down on the pretext of dwindling energy and unethical abuse of the natural condition is nothing more than a perverse desire to return to the womb.
Now this is staggering. The ultimate consumerism! What do we learn if we join a migration cross-galaxy in search of a new home planet? That we can destroy that too? What have we learnt from our time on our own planet? Your suggestion is more like a cessarian. IMHO, one of our greatest flaws is to not be accountable for our actions – whether it be going to Bali with the spin doctors, or hosing the patio each week.
Right Wes, plus the sacrifice of a water dwelling animal.
There must be sacrifice. So good for the soul.
That’s all about to start for us.
“…I see the guy hosing his cars and garage during the driest May on record. He has a child less than a year old. I wonder this when our fruit and veg is wrapped individually in plastic and then put in a plastic bag, amongst the box of Shrek fruit loops and containers of bottled water. I wonder this too when a mobile phone less than a year old is replaced so that the child can have the latest colour and shine and mind-numbing videos, when the family pet is destroyed because it growled at a child who was pulling its ears and laughing at the ‘stupid dog’, and when the woman in the spotless champagne-coloured 4WD thinks nothing of spending $48,000 for a Sex in the City tour of New York.”
Travis’s rant sums up the folly of our times well, Cohenite.
Because we are “the only natural creatures who are not biologically programmed to follow a determined, instinctive path,” we are free to exercise our will in making decisions. Thence, we are the one creature on the planet capable of wilfully making hurtful choices.
Poetically, we are well advised to realise that our most cherished decisions exercised with all the due diligences of free will may be utterly wrong for future generations. This is the spirit of the scientific method.
Our default moral position should be humble as it goes. This applies equally to those who would charge a global technocracy with managing the climate as it does to those who imagine that “without humanity nature is nothing.” In fact both positions part of the same gestalt, don’t you think?
Note that Travis’s observation in no way negates great human achievements. But to doubt that humanity’s special position in nature comes without a heavy burden of responsibility is a philosophically unpersuasive argument.
Travis, the evils you describe [and I know just what you mean] will be overcome by our strong inclination towards reason.
It takes time but it happens.
People even pick up their dog shit these days.
“Ultimate consumerism”; the stern , patronising ascetic, Clive Hamilton, has much to answer for; for my father the ultimate consumerism was having pickled kumquats with his rabit tail stew; for me when I was young it was sphagetti with cheese; now people are upset about plastic bags and wrappings as though these were evil incarnate; this AGW business is all about a reduced lifestyle and the nature debate is just a red herring. Now I’m grown up this would be my idea of ultimate consumerism:
First course: a pale green broth of swamp produce, accompanied by stalks of deep fried reed, and a sald of celery root, whortle berry and shreds of pungent black bark.
Second course: a ragout of pale meat in coral sauce, heavily seasoned, with side dishes of jellied plantain and crystallised jaoic.
Third course: collops of perfumed paste on disks of chilled melon, accompanied by small mollusks in spiced oil.
Fourth course: a hash of assorted crushed insects and cereal, pickles, plum-coloured conserve and pellets of fried meat.
Fifth course: a wafer of baked pastry garnished with steamed centipede and blue vegetable.
With apologies to a great science-fiction writer, and to other men of vision who seem too few on the ground in this era of moral accountancy and vicarious ethical restraint.
cohenite, more power to your elbow but I hope you feel suitably guilty.
What did Ronnie Corbett say about conducting a reign of terror with a balloon on a stick?
If we return for a moment to Wes George’s alien spacecraft, yet imagine that it arrived 20,000 years ago and observed homo sapiens in the natural environment, where would this position the comments which have followed in this blog?
It seems to me that we regarded the aboriginal people who inhabited Australia at the time of arrival of the first fleet as being in tune with nature, and the custodians of nature.
However, do we also regard the English people in the first fleet as also being in tune with nature?
At what point in time did homo sapiens transition from the natural inhabitant of nature, in tune with nature, to the present inhabitant upon whom we dump so much scorn and criticism, who is trying his hardest to destroy nature?
It is the same species, same characteristics, what has changed?
Wilderness is where we aren’t. That doesn’t mean it’s any better than us, but it means that something exists outside of us. I would hate to live in a world where all there is what we manage ourselves. That world would have a lot of components that we would forget about or not care about, and would necessarily wither away.
Pete,
Inga Clendinnen noted something in her book, Dancing with Strangers: Australia First Contact, that I found extremely moving. Paraphrased poorly: On one occasion, as Captain Cook first sailed up the coast of eastern Australia in 1770, he watched a group of aboriginals who were gathering wood along the beach through a spy glass. Although it was a clear day and their ship was only a kilometre or two off the beach, the men and women on the beach took no notice of HMS Endeavour with her sails in full display. Cook found this nonchalant attitude of the locals rather odd, considering that they had never seen a sailing ship of any kind before. Other first contacts in New Zealand and Hawaii, for example, aroused very strong reactions in the indigenous peoples.
Clendinnen suggests that aboriginals couldn’t “see” the Endeavour, instead they saw only what could be safely contained within their mythological paradigm, probably a hieroglyphic constellation of ancestors who were always hanging about in some form or another, nothing to get chuffed about.
This indicates that pre-contact aboriginals might have existed in a pre-conscious continuum much like Julian Jaynes’ concept of the bicameral mind. If so, then aboriginals shouldn’t be held responsible for their fire stick ecology or extinction of Australia’s megafauna in the same way that rational, self-aware Europeans can be for the introduction of the rabbit and fox to Australia. Aborigines weren’t “custodians of nature,” they were nature. The apex predator of the continent.
It’s an issue of conscious awareness and the moral responsibility that follows on from the ability to make rational decisions based on understanding the cause and effect relationship between one’s actions and the environment.
Hello Wes George,
My question was maybe a bit obtuse. The discussions in this thread have focussed on the destruction by man of planet earth.
But that is “today’s man”.
Would these criticisms of man’s destructive behaviour be equally valid when applied to homo sapiens 20,000 years ago?
If not, at what point in history, or at what point in man’s development did we change from being custodians, or “nature impact neutral” to the present statee of being nature’s destroyers?
PP
“Would these criticisms of man’s destructive behaviour…applied to homo sapiens 20,000 years ago?”
No, because humans were not consciously aware 25,000 ybp in the same way that modern humans are. You can’t hold a mob of roos responsible for overpopulating an area…Nature is innocence.
“If not…at what point in history, or at what point in man’s development did we change from being custodians, or “nature impact neutral” to the present statee of being nature’s destroyers?”
We started out in a pre-conscious continuum in a near apex predator relationship to the ecosystem. We were NOT originally custodians of anything. No species is “nature impact neutral.”
Later, when we culturally evolved a conscious awareness of ourselves as separate from nature we became morally responsible for our actions, then we became “custodians of nature.”
That’s what the myth of our expulsion from the Garden of Eden is about…remember, we became ashamed of our nudity. Self-awareness dawned. No exact date for this Origin of Consciousness is agreed upon. I like Gilgamesh’s Ur, about 6000 ybp?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicameralism_(psychology)
http://www.ancienttexts.org/library/mesopotamian/gilgamesh/
Saying modern man has now become “nature’s destoyer” implies a third paradigm shift in our relationship with nature that has YET to happen (If we master the genome someday, then we rise above mere custodial work to being creators of nature.) We are still in the second phase, “custodians of nature.”
Paradoxically, even while being “custodians of nature” humanity is still part of nature, therefore the “destruction” we introduce into nature is, ironically, natural.