Post by codalunga on Mar 18, 2015 16:04:44 GMT -5
Here's a little story for you all: there's a small swamp where I live in Italy. Its territory consists of 164 hectares (around 400 acres I guess) of protected land and water. No hunting nor fishing is allowed, since it's a place where dozens of species of endangered birds and other animals come to nest or to winter.
A couple of days ago an adult specimen of Podiceps grisegena has been found hanged to a tree, its body completely plucked. Here are a couple of pictures if you guys want to see it. At the moment nobody knows who the culprit might be.
I used the word "sadism" in the title of this thread. What I mean by "sadism" though, doesn't only refer to the pleasure one might have in seeing a living being suffer, but it also reflects the amusing aspect of this activity.
The first thought that came to my mind after having found the dead grebe was that of a manifest mockery of nature: to me it looked like a display of power, a message of superiority, a more direct way of saying fuck you to the natural world. We all know how civilization subjugate the wildness both around and within us. You can say one of its intrinsic characteristic is precisely this demonstration of power.
I'm sure you've already experienced such open manifestations, but this was the first time that I personally had the chance to witness it. Building a dam, clear-cutting a forest, poisoning the air with pollution: those are all examples of dominion over nature. What they have in common though is that their show off of power lies partly in the idea that nature cannot counter-attack them. The contempt, therefore, it's indirect. But in this case, I found that the derision was way too clear and direct. It had a specific addressee, as if nature needed to understand how powerful its human enemy is.
Now, to spice up the discussion: how much do you think is nature considered as an enemy nowadays? I'm not talking about considering it as an obstacle or as something which must be kept at bay, but rather as a real threat to humanity? And also: do you think mockery as a weapon is a sort of (d)evolution of civilization's wickedness? Or rather a last resort which shows how civilization is slowly crumbling?
A couple of days ago an adult specimen of Podiceps grisegena has been found hanged to a tree, its body completely plucked. Here are a couple of pictures if you guys want to see it. At the moment nobody knows who the culprit might be.
I used the word "sadism" in the title of this thread. What I mean by "sadism" though, doesn't only refer to the pleasure one might have in seeing a living being suffer, but it also reflects the amusing aspect of this activity.
The first thought that came to my mind after having found the dead grebe was that of a manifest mockery of nature: to me it looked like a display of power, a message of superiority, a more direct way of saying fuck you to the natural world. We all know how civilization subjugate the wildness both around and within us. You can say one of its intrinsic characteristic is precisely this demonstration of power.
I'm sure you've already experienced such open manifestations, but this was the first time that I personally had the chance to witness it. Building a dam, clear-cutting a forest, poisoning the air with pollution: those are all examples of dominion over nature. What they have in common though is that their show off of power lies partly in the idea that nature cannot counter-attack them. The contempt, therefore, it's indirect. But in this case, I found that the derision was way too clear and direct. It had a specific addressee, as if nature needed to understand how powerful its human enemy is.
Now, to spice up the discussion: how much do you think is nature considered as an enemy nowadays? I'm not talking about considering it as an obstacle or as something which must be kept at bay, but rather as a real threat to humanity? And also: do you think mockery as a weapon is a sort of (d)evolution of civilization's wickedness? Or rather a last resort which shows how civilization is slowly crumbling?