ECOCRITICISM NATURE AND SILENCE

It is pretty irritating to watch the isla estrella, submarine/surface environmental garbage collectors posing all smiles with their black plastic bags in front.  It would be more intelligent to use transparent bags, with pertinent recycling of you know what. There is no virtue in the action of moving garbage from one spot to the dump, forgive moi. The other useful activity these environmental specialists could perform,  would be to measure water quality, plus botanical inventories of plants, animals and or fish encountered in such fun, biannual activities.  That is me beef, the lack of substance, vision, long run results.  For that reason I move in  other directions, because I can, enjoy research, looking at me practice with some rigor, seriousness, lacking...in the others....

NATURE AND SILENCE

CHRISTOPHER MANES

PAGE 24

 

There is only the unfolding of life form, more or less genealogically related, each with a mix of characteristics. To privilege intellect or self-consciousness, as opposed to photosynthesis, poisoned fangs, or sporogenesis, may soothe ancient insecurities about humanity's place in the cosmos, but it has nothing to do with evolutionary theory and does not correspond to observable nature.

 

In similar fashion biocentrism brings to bear the science of ecology upon the exclusionary claims about the human subject. From the language of humanism one could easily get the impression that Homo sapiens is the only species on the planet worthy of being a topic of discourse. Ecology paints quite a different, humbling picture. If fungus, one of the "lowliest" of forms on a humanistic scale of values, were to go extinct tomorrow, the effect on the rest of the biosphere would be catastrophic, since the the health of forests depends on Mycorrhyzal fungus,  and the disappearance of forests would upset the hydrology, atmosphere, and temperature of the entire globe. 

 

In contrast, if Homo sapiens disappeared, the event would go virtually unnoticed by the vast majority of Earth's forms.  As hominids, we dwell at the outermost fringes of important ecological processes such as photosynthesis and the conversion of biomass into usable nutrients.  No lofty language about being the paragon of animals or the torchbearer of evolution can change this ecological fact--which is a reason enough to reiterate it as often as possible.

Mercifully, perhaps, there exist other touchstones  for appraising human worth besides ecology and evolutionary theory--philosophy, literature, art, ethics, the legacy of Renaissance and Enlightenment, for the most part, that Dryzek, Bookchin and other humanist environmentalists clamor to preserve.   When, however, the issue the silencing of nature by the rhetoric of "Man" we need to find new ways to talk about human freedom, worth and purpose without eclipsing, depreciating, and objectifying the nonhuman world. Infused with the language of humanism, these traditional fields of nature are ill-equipped to do so, wedded as they are to the monologue of the human subject.


Back in the studio, the local literature scene, novel/short story is a good token of the blind, anthropocentric mode of looking at our concrete/asphalt surroundings. Take SIMONE* for example, in thet narrative there are two meaningless instances of vegetation, everything else is about the self, total alienation, absolute disconnection, indifference from the little, dull, scarce flora/fauna still with us in most metropolitan areas of isla estrella, formerly Puerto Rico, USA.

* Rodriguez Julia, Ana Lidia Vega, Luis Rafael Sanchez, are in the same bag, it is as if flora/fauna were not part of our summer time and the living ain't easy...If you think differently check them out...



ECOCRIITICISM: OTHER PERCEPTIONS ON NATURE ECOLOGY ENVIRONMENT AND LANDSCAPE

DISGUSTED with the perception, invisibility of our ecology, environment, landscape and nature for many years, I suspected there must be other views from other places that would help explain/understand the hilarious, improvised, self congratulatory, posing, useless, dull, lacking aesthetics/imagination landscape maintenance and installation in ISLA ESTRELLA, formerly Puerto Rico, USA.

It goes beyond turf, palms, Ficus, the dominant trend in that area. It includes the other fads in  water-soil, garbage collection twice a year segments of the environmental niches in the concrete/asphalt isle.  The organic agriculture, urban chickens, are in the same bag. It seems  that all these groups pretending to be useful are just trying to make some money selling whatever they have at hand and/or obtaining federal grants for the heck of it.

It is hard to believe that in 2013, no private/public group,  any government agency has any knowledge/notion of one group of people in the USA, getting rid of turf/lawns in every possible, imaginable space such as highway medians/sidewalks with tons of money saved in one hand.  On the other, the substitution of grass with ground covers, self seeding plants requiring mowing twice a year or none at all.

The elimination of tractors, mowers, trimmers, blowers with gas/oil/fumes pollution, labor is also another gain when one eradicates grass from spaces in which sports are not practiced.

The carnival of garbage collection twice a year is not the only way one could be useful in terms of our urban context, nor it is planting clams/oysters to filtrate water in Condado lagoon, or  giving away and planting trees in the wrong places as every other tree planted between the University of Isla Estrella in RIO and the Nechodoma Episcopal church.

The blind fools in charge of these groups have never noticed the undulating or broken sidewalks, the mutilated branches near the electrical wires on the Ponce de Leon avenue and every other street in the metro zone.

Most people create groups with some faint idea of what ecology, the environment is, creating more problems than solutions.  Facebook has plenty of young adults with the enthusiasm of elementary children and the principal, planting in sterile/compacted soil for example, or planting this or that for profit, including earth worms, pretending to be serious about ecology, nature, environment but motivated by profits and posing in front of the little or big hole, spade in hand.

To be continued

The Ecocriticism Reader

Landmarks in Literary Ecology

Edited by Cheryll GlotFelty & Harold Fromm

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