![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
And I am also in Arcadia
Nov. 26th, 2014 11:02 amTired of hearing the justification that turns up over and over again: We should save the planet 'for our children.'
It's an extension of the self obsession we allow ourselves as human. I find it everywhere, even in the Green Party, there's this obsession with things being valued in so much as they serve us. We should value trees because they do this thing or that which in turn helps the human race to survive. But this justification of the other life forms on this planet shouldn't be necessary. A tree has the right to be because it is. It doesn't need to serve us to validate its existence. We extend this need to validate to each other. What gives us the right to live? Serving each other? This is where rulership and religion have conjoined to bring us all to heel. This is what all social structures devolve to; finding your place in the pyramid of servitude and embracing it, knowing that something somewhere matters less than you, and you may do what you like with it; the weak matter less than the strong, the woman matters less than the man, the animal matters less than the human, and everything is in fact designed and destined to be used. Even we are designed and destined to be used by one another.
It is a system that fails itself endlessly. If this planet is 'for our children,' why should I help at all? I like visiting the wilderness, I like to explore. This may add to carbon emissions. Well, I won't be here when that is a real problem, and my children won't suffer at all because I don't have any. I'd sooner give my money to saving habitats and other life forms; I don't do it 'for the children,' because if their parents won't do anything to ensure they are going to have clean air, clean water, human rights, and a diverse and beautiful ecosystem, why should I bother? I might just as well say that the earth ends when I do, and leave the struggle to the grandchildren of the people refusing to do anything about it today.
Our understanding is not the delineator of reality. Beauty is not in the eye of the beholder. The tree is beautiful, known or unknown, and when it falls, it makes a sound whether observed or not.
It's an extension of the self obsession we allow ourselves as human. I find it everywhere, even in the Green Party, there's this obsession with things being valued in so much as they serve us. We should value trees because they do this thing or that which in turn helps the human race to survive. But this justification of the other life forms on this planet shouldn't be necessary. A tree has the right to be because it is. It doesn't need to serve us to validate its existence. We extend this need to validate to each other. What gives us the right to live? Serving each other? This is where rulership and religion have conjoined to bring us all to heel. This is what all social structures devolve to; finding your place in the pyramid of servitude and embracing it, knowing that something somewhere matters less than you, and you may do what you like with it; the weak matter less than the strong, the woman matters less than the man, the animal matters less than the human, and everything is in fact designed and destined to be used. Even we are designed and destined to be used by one another.
It is a system that fails itself endlessly. If this planet is 'for our children,' why should I help at all? I like visiting the wilderness, I like to explore. This may add to carbon emissions. Well, I won't be here when that is a real problem, and my children won't suffer at all because I don't have any. I'd sooner give my money to saving habitats and other life forms; I don't do it 'for the children,' because if their parents won't do anything to ensure they are going to have clean air, clean water, human rights, and a diverse and beautiful ecosystem, why should I bother? I might just as well say that the earth ends when I do, and leave the struggle to the grandchildren of the people refusing to do anything about it today.
Our understanding is not the delineator of reality. Beauty is not in the eye of the beholder. The tree is beautiful, known or unknown, and when it falls, it makes a sound whether observed or not.
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}