Klein nominates Sir Francis Bacon as the patron saint of our profligacy. Knowledge is power, the power to subdue and "hound nature... penetrating into [her] holes and corners." Klein enjoys noting the "poetic justice" of his catching pneumonia while trying to subdue a chicken. Nature does bite back.
The anti-extractivist ethic recognizes and reveres our reciprocal interdependency with the Earth and all its life-structures and forms. Aldo Leopold's land ethic, for instance, places us firmly within the biotic community not as master but as citizen-steward. Rachel Carson called out the arrogance of presuming to control nature, an attitude "born of the Neanderthal age of biology and philosophy, when it was supposed that nature exists for the convenience of man."
Thoreau stands as the anti-Bacon in this narrative. “The earth I tread on is not a dead inert mass. It is a body—has a spirit—is organic—and fluid to the influence of its spirit—and to whatever particle of the spirit is in me.” That's no spooky spirit, it's simply the salute of life respecting life, living light to live long and prosper. It's the spirit of survival and sustainability, and it's the spirit we'll need to propel us to the stars. The cosmic piety of Sagan and Tyson and Roddenberry ("we are star-stuff" etc.) has its roots in the natural piety of Wordsworth ("my heart leaps up") and James and Dewey.
Happy Trek Day. #LLAP
6 am/6:26, 69/93, 7:03
I like her comment on page 166 about, "We occupy countries and arm their militias and then wonder why they hate us. We drive down wages, ship job overseas, destroy worker protections, hollow out local economies, then wonder why people can't afford to shop as much as they used to..." Very true, but I wonder if we could transport ourselves way back into time if we would find that there were human beings then who thought only of themselves and if they could steal a banana while letting a lion get their neighbor they would take the banana. I'm not sure that I would lay all of the blame on Sir Francis Bacon, but I would love to transport him to our generation and ask what he thinks now. Dr. McCormack taught us last night that in evaluating the ancient Egyptians' belief system we have to detach ourselves from our Eurocentric beliefs and to acknowledge that other cultures didn't believe as we do. In light of the devastation of Nauru, it's a sad reminder of what can go wrong when we believe that what works best of us (even when it doesn't) will work well for another civilization (which of course it didn't). It is truly disturbing to read about how the refugees are treated on that island. I am glad Naomi Klein brought that to my attention.
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