The Violent Truth About Nature

For centuries, members of our society have perceived nature to be a romanticized entity, disregarding the inevitable dangers that exist. One individual that shared this mindset was Timothy Treadwell, known to many people as the “Grizzly Man”. Treadwell lived among the coastal grizzly bears of Katmai National Park in Alaska for 13 summers. At the end of his 13th summer in the park in 2003, he and his girlfriend Amie Huguenard were killed and eaten by a grizzly bear. Treadwell's life, work and death were the subject of the 2005 documentary film by Werner Herzog titled Grizzly Man. The film tackles numerous deep issues about man's role in the world and his place in nature. (See Trailer Below)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogYDUmIigw0

The ideas and issues of this film are similar to William Cronon’s The Trouble With Wilderness. At one point in the reading Cronon explains, “Among the core elements of the frontier myth was the powerful sense among certain groups of Americans that wilderness was the last bastion of rugged individualism.” This is a perfect example of Timothy Treadwell and his relationship towards the environment in which he found refuge. Throughout the documentary, Herzog explains to the viewer that Treadwell had an individualistic mindset when in regard to nature within the Alaskan wilderness. Treadwell used nature as an escape from his life back home, and he saw nature as a place where he could be free from all of society’s restrictions and judgments. Treadwell never looked at nature from a realistic standpoint where nature is actually violent because its inhabitants have to fight and struggle to survive. Humans aren’t adapted to that type of life and never will be.

Cronon expands further on this issue, saying, “Idealizing a distant wilderness too often means not idealizing the environment in which we actually live, the landscape that for better or worse we call home,” along with, “The romantic sublime was not the only cultural movement that helped transform wilderness into a sacred American icon during the nineteenth century. No less important was the powerful romantic attraction of primitivism, dating back at least to Rousseau—the belief that the best antidote to the ills of an overly refined and civilized modern world was a return to simpler, more primitive living.” Cronon’s explanation on romanticizing nature is similar to Werner Herzog’s thought on this issue. (See Video Below 2:08 – 4:08)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xQyQnXrLb0

In a segment of the video (2:08 – 4:08), Herzog explains that nature is “violent” and is not the romanticized image of the wilderness that most people see as harmonious. He also describes nature as “lacking order” and "chaotic". However, in the end Herzog makes clear that he “loves the jungle, but he loves it against his better judgment”.

Conclusively, Timothy Treadwell’s story epitomizes the fact that humans cannot successfully live in a wild and primitive environment without repercussions. Cronon and Herzog exemplify this fact through their works, and suggest that while people can enjoy the wilderness, it is necessary to acknowledge the very real dangers that nature entails.

Animal Smuggling Exposes Illegal Wildlife Trade

An Indonesian man was stopped at Suvarnabhumi International Airport last week with dozens of rare wildlife stuffed into three suitcases. This would-be smuggler was caught at Thailand Airport with animals including snakes, squirrels, and tortoises. He had purchased the wildlife at Bangkok's Chatuchak Market and was attempting to smuggle them out of the country. According to Traffic - the organization that fights wildlife trafficking - the man was found with "88 Indian star tortoises, 33 elongated tortoises, seven radiated tortoises, six mata mata turtles and four Southeast Asian narrow-headed softshell turtles. He also had three Aldabra tortoises, one pig-nosed turtle, and one ploughshare tortoise, which Traffic described as the world's rarest tortoise". However, the list doesn't stop there. Authorities also found "34 ball pythons, two boa constrictors, several milk snakes, corn snakes and king snakes and one hog-nosed snake, 19 bearded dragon lizards, four spiny-tailed lizards, two Sudan plated lizards and six Argentine horned frogs", and to top it all off, "there were 18 baboon spiders, 22 common squirrels and one African grey parrot inside the suitcases, Traffic says". 

"Suspected smuggler stuffed squirrels, tortoises into suitcases"

Reported by CNN Wire Staff on CNN.com - February 11, 2011

http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/02/10/thailand.wildlife.smuggling/index.html?hpt=T2





These Indian Star Tortoises were one breed of many found and seized in the smugglers suitcases.


Sadly, this seems to be one of many cases like this, as Chatuchak Market (located right down the street from wildlife protection and nature crime police offices) is widely known for its illegal mass sales of rare animals.


What this man was planning to do with these animals? We may never really know - but my guess is his plans were to smuggle them out and sell them on the black market; a case that can be directly related to man's anthropocentrism. This man, like most others, holds the belief that because he is human he has the right to treat animals as subhuman beings - capturing them, detaining them, and selling them as if their existence is worthless. Beliefs such as this are so widely held, that CNN doesn't even recognize that what he is doing - holding animals in captivity and treating them as subhuman - is wrong. The only issue addressed by CNN is how this man tried to do what he did, buying the animals illegally and stuffing them all in a suitcase. Society has selfishly interpreted Darwin's "survival of the fittest" and used it to justify doing just about anything to any being deemed subhuman, and in doing so has exploited nature for economic purposes. The man trying to smuggle these animals probably thought that once sold, the money from his acts would bring him great happiness - a type of metaphor that is held as truth in today's society. These types of metaphors are addressed in Nieztzsche's On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense - "Truths are illusions, we have forgotten are illusions- they are metaphors that have been worn out and have been drained of sensuous force, coins which have lost their embossing and are now considered as metal and no longer as coin" (pg 5). In closing, the "truth" that money brings happiness quickly followed Nieztzsche's priciple and revealed itself as an illusion... this man is now in prison and faces wildlife smuggling charges. 


Meredith Whittier

Board of Regents Approves Wind Turbines-EDITED

///EDITED///

Article in the North Texas Daily
Friday November 12, 2010
written by Isaac Wright

WIND POWER = HAPPINESS

In our society, the way that we think about having control over nature, as discussed in the Merchant reading, is always represented in a bad way. The reading discusses nature being a "motherly" figure that we take advantage of and treat badly. But there are a great deal of ways that society as a whole can take control of the nature that surrounds us and help to preserve it for the future. We have great technology (that most believe can be the demise of nature) that we can use in order to, in a way, shape nature to help us; as well as also helping itself to survive and persevere. We can use technology to help save the nature and create better living conditions for ourselves. Control and power do not always bad or harmful things; there are ways to use them to make things better for our beautiful mother nature.

In a way to cut energy usage in out new UNT football stadium, UNT has proposed and had approved a plan for installing three new wind turbines near the stadium that will provide much of the energy needed to power it. In my opinion, this is a great idea and very much needed. Since the start of the construction, I have been very against the idea of destroying a great deal of nature and land in order to build a new multi-million dollar stadium for the purpose of luring better football players to our school. But the addition of wind turbines to aid in powering the stadium makes the idea a little bit more comforting. Though these three turbines are not able to provide all of the energy that the stadium will require, it is certainly a good start (and absolutely better than nothing). I feel that the best part of this whole proposition is that this idea was solely brought about by the students here at UNT. The students felt strongly about the new stadium and this proposition and have pushed for change and improvement. This shows that we all, as students, can truly make a difference in this University as well as have a slight impact on the world, but it does require people to step up and speak out against what others are doing.

I believe that UNT is taking a great step away from coal power and is perhaps leading the way in making changes for a better future.


http://www.wfaa.com/news/turbines-108251249.html



The Merchant reading describes a point where mother nature and all its glory was compared not to a living organism, but to a machine, "dead, inert, and insensitive to human action." This is much like a mechanistic worldview. In Francis Bacon's eyes, nature harbors secrets about technology that can be used for improvement of human condition. Nature can help us to improve our technology, to in the end, improve life for humans. This represents nature in a way that its purpose is to be used at the humans expense. In actuality, a machine is nothing compared to nature. Nature is so complex and giving, it can do many things and has an abundance to offer all living organisms. Nature is universal. It affects everyone, and the idea of humanism is destroying it.
While reading Radical Ecology Science and Worldviews, one quote particularly stood out to me. "Because the needs and purposes of society as a whole were changing with the commercial revolution, the values associated with the organic view of nature were no longer applicable" (pg. 44, Merchant). All of the technological and cultural advances within society have caused a giant commercial tsunami to sweep over an organic nation, much like Katrina did to New Orleans, destroying much of what it is known for. This commercial tsunami swept over us destroying the many views, ideas and values of nature making it to where they are no longer able to be fully applied in our society.

With UNT bringing this new stadium into this BEAUTIFUL Denton environment, and destroying alot of nature and land along the way, the idea of something being put in place concerning the preservation and conservation of nature makes the thought much more bearable to me. Thinking of nature as an organism rather than a machine to provide for us has helped UNT to propose a plan for wind turbines to help power the large new stadium. Though at first glance it may seem as though we are using nature to benefit humans, in the long run it is actually to benefit nature as well. This is a great example of humans working alongside nature "hand in hand" to each better each other. :)

-Allison Williams