Man and Nature

For a good deal of the most recent human history, Man's attitude toward Nature has been, "Cut that forest, drain that swamp, dam that river. Dig a canal here, plow that prairie under." These actions probably reached their peak in the nineteenth and most of the twentieth centuries, but they're still going on. Man believed that he could and should "control" Nature, and there was even a fear or dread of the wild. We talked about dominating and controlling Nature. It was "development." It was civilization.

However, we have begun--maybe only in a small way--to realize that what we have done to Nature has frequently had unforeseen, bad consequences. Cutting down our forests has meant that we don't have the ground covered with trees which filtered the water that we humans might eventually drink, and absorbed water that otherwise might cause floods. Plus, trees have sequestered carbon, and getting rid of them means more CO₂ in the atmosphere, which adds to global warming.

Draining swamps similarly has had negative impacts on the land's hydrology, meaning, again, absorption of water that otherwise might contribute to floods.

Damming rivers and streams has impacted the ability of some fish species to spawn. More generally, all of these means of "managing" or "controlling" Nature have almost always had an impact on wildlife, for example eliminating habitat for waterfowl.

I wonder to what extent this unfortunate, outdated, and dysfunctional attitude toward Nature is biblical. Genesis can be read as granting Man dominion over all of Nature and wildlife: they are for Man to use and enjoy (and, to interpret that in the vocabulary of a modern capitalist society, to exploit for profit).

In recent times and in some places, there have been signs of a changed attitude toward Nature. (Native Americans have always had a much better, respectful attitude toward Nature; but unfortunately they and their ideas were not given much respect by European settlers.) We have gotten rid of dams, but probably mainly small ones. All the great dams built in recent times are still standing and, in fact, in many places in the world dam building is proceeding apace. We still think we can engineer our way out of flooding and we are looking to science for remedies for most of the problems that we (science, engineering, etc.) caused in the first place.

The core problem is too much tampering with Nature and, even back of that, too many people in the world who are demanding land to live on, water to drink, etc.

Copyright © 2018.

Modified November 30, 2018.
Update, January 17, 2019. I recently came across a quote from Marjorie Stoneman Douglas (whose name might be more widely known today than it was in her lifetime because the now-infamous high school in Parkland, Florida, the scene of a school shooting, was named after her. In her time she was known as a writer and conservationist):

We have a hard time believing that Nature would be in a good state without our manipulation.

Of course, Nature usually does quite well without our interference and  in fact is usually the worse for our efforts--as this posting has tried to show.

I Am Back (Blogging, That Is)

After a lapse of a month I have decided to resume blogging.

Even though it's been unrewarding, at times—when I look at the statistics on my readership—still, I guess I am egotistical enough to believe that I have something to say and something that's worth sharing with anyone who cares to read.

At the age of 70, I have acquired some views of life and of humanity. Mainly one tinged with sadness. I think anyone who is intelligent, educated, liberal—and maybe I need to add "disaffected," which I am but which might not be a necessary consequence of any of the other traits mentioned—has to feel much as I do.

Here is one concise statement, my summing up (hey, how is that for arrogance, summing it all up in just a few words!?!) of what's wrong with humanity and what might be, ultimately, the one trait that might just do Mankind in: Man is capable of believing that which is not true (and of course that probably, or even obviously, has the corollary of denying that which is true).

There is a discipline that you never hear about these days. It was big in, say, the 1930s, and it's called General Semantics. I was introduced to it at the age of 17.

A guy by the name of Count Alfred Korzybski is credited with founding General Semantics. A man named S. I. Hayakawa, generally labeled a linguist (he was also at one time a US Senator and also, infamously, the President of the University of California, Berkeley who called in troops to combat student protesters in the era of student protests of the Viet Nam War and more, in the 1960s), also was a writer on the subject as was a man named Stuart Chase, basically a journalist.

To try to sum up General Semantics: The word is not the thing and the map is not the territory. We tend to feel that if you can put a name to something, that somehow means that the thing exists. This enables us to throw around words that don't have a referent—that is, they don't name anything that exists in the real world. It's this belief in the non-existent that is my subject here.

Now, today and in the West, most people would not believe in dragons, unicorns, mermaids, trolls, leprechauns—etc., etc. The list could go on and on.

Then there are some marginal categories where today some people, maybe a minority, do believe: UFOs, ghosts. Maybe Satan, maybe angels (we're getting a little less marginal here, I'd guess).

And the paranormal. And miracles. And maybe God. (As you can see, I've been going from minority beliefs to beliefs which are more and more common but which some few are skeptical of.)

I think many ideas, about Nature, about human society, etc., are widely held but are incorrect. Many ideas have some natural-selection value such that believing them may get their believers killed. An extreme but obvious case would be a person who thinks he can jump off the roof and not be killed—maybe because he thinks he can fly; we label that insanity. Maybe the sad story of Jonestown in Guyana, where religious leader Jim Jones persuaded nearly all his followers to commit suicide by drinking poisoned Kool-Aid. Some less extreme cases would be where someone attempts something very dangerous and gets himself killed. (Think the annual "Darwin Awards.")

Probably more incorrect ideas harm another human than harm the holder of the belief himself. As an example, in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1693, it was believed that some members of the community were witches, and those "witches" had to be executed. At other times and places, witches, "heretics," homosexuals, etc., were burned at the stake, boiled in oil, or otherwise gotten rid of.

One egregious example would be the Inquisition, which probably executed thousands (forgive me for not turning up statistics here). Or take any case of genocide--the Holocaust, Rwanda, Kosovo, or any other--which killed people because they belonged to a hated group whose members were basically deemed undesirable and not deserving to live.

Is not all of this because some people hold incorrect ideas?

We may well doom our planet by means of war; pollution; global warming; other destruction of land, resources, etc.

We have evolved our ability to manipulate our planet by building great buildings and dams. We have waged wars which have destroyed, devastated, and laid waste large areas. We have built nuclear power plants which then have had accidents (Chernobyl, Fukushima) and made sizeable areas uninhabitable.

So we have become smart, smart enough to erect these edifices. But are we smart enough?

Copyright © 2012 by Richard Stein