Caspar Davis wrote:
>
> At 5:54 PM -1000 11/21/98, Jay Hanson wrote:
>
> >
> >Those who beleive "nature's way" is the prefered future, do not understand
> >"nature's way". THis is nature's way:
> >
> >---------------------------
> >
> >IN THE LANGUAGE OF ECOLOGY -- a language which it behooves us all
> >to learnóthe conditions of an imperiled environment are described
> >in a few short and pungent words: 'drawdown,' 'overshoot,'
> >'crash,' and 'die-off.'
>
> I would suggest that this is not natures's way but rather the result of
> trying to impose homocentric "economics," technology and greed on
> nature. As I understand it, populations of species higher on the food
> chain do tend to fluctuate with their food, especially when there are
> unusually fat years.But this seldom reaches catastrophic proportions.
> As to Ireland, the famine was due entirely to greed and politics.
[snip]
> Caspar davis
I would urge that *both* positions are correct:
(1) Human greed and politics creates many occasions for human
suffering (generally the intended sufferers are, of course,
different humans from the humans who inflict the suffering).
However: (2) Nature, as Stephen Jay Gould so pointedly said:
is enamored of the idea of individuals, but not committed
to the wellbeing of *particular individuals*. So nature's
way includes lots of suffering, from the individual "natural
man" who nonetheless gets sick, to more "global" things
like the big meteor inmpact 65 million years or so ago
that wiped out many species. "populations of species
higher on the food chain do tend to fluctuate with
their food" does not simply say these most elevated
"classes" in nature have fewer offspring while
maintaining their standard of living with unruffled
feathers, but that
many of the individual species members go hungry in
hard times, yes?
It certainly is not clear that human intelligence can
succeed in transforming
the individual's (in each case: my, your, one's
friend's, etc.) environment to be proactively supportive
of the individual (me, you...) -- although this does
happen at lesat some times for some persons (D.W. Winnicott's
"holding environment").
But it seems altogether clear that
nature -- the truly "free market" -- doesn't care about
any of us. Nature is mindlessly promiscuous, dealing out what
any individual perceives as good and bad with utter
indifference. Humans can be intentionally hurtful or
intentionally helpful. Nature invented erogenous zones and
their respective cancers; mankind invented genital mutilation
"customs" and tantric yoga....
Nature doesn't care if we die off. Some of our
fellow humans may care to snuff us out (and some of
the rest may well qualify simply as part of nature,
including not just mentally defective individuals, but
very bright persons "hypnotized" by such things
as "investment opportunities"....)
My 2 cents....
"yours in discourse"
\brad mccormick
--
Mankind is not the master of all the stuff that exists, but
Everyman (woman, child) is a judge of the world.
Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
914.238.0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua, NY 10514-3403 USA
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