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...