Final Reading Place Blog :(

Individual Portion

Our group pondered the expanse at which humans and nature interact. In the everyday world, most people interact with nature on such a minimal conscious scale that it is hardly worth studying.  When looking at a looser definition of “interaction,” it can be said that humans cannot go more than a few hours without interacting in some form with nature.  This can take all forms of interaction.  Think about it with your own life: how often does the weather dictate your decision to do something or affect you in some way? How often do you look out the window and see the birds flying in the sky or squirrels scampering from branch to branch? In this sense, humans interact with nature so frequently it’s hard to describe a time when we aren’t somehow affected by nature. In the more conventional sense, humans interact with nature on a very small scale, especially compared to the characters we have read about in class like Christopher McCandless or the Feral Child. Realistically, humans only come into contact with true and untouched nature every once in a blue moon.  Not counting climbing the occasional tree, when was the last time you took the time to completely separate yourself from technology or civilization and not constantly wish you just had WiFi or a TV?

As per contributing for our group’s project, I was the one who went outside for over two hours in freezing wind and rain (can you tell I’m a little bitter??) and took all of the pictures that related to the passages our group picked out from our four sources (The Land Ethic, Where I Live and What I Lived For, Feral, Into the Wild) which Chloe then put into the PowerPoint. I also bought Feral and annotated scenes from it that we found most powerful as well as annotating a section of The Land Ethic before realizing we only needed one per group and Chloe had done one too.

I think this project was a great idea in theory, but it also lacked structure, which made it extremely difficult to get started and cement an idea with the group.  I feel like making it a group project was a good way to end the year and made the coordination of all of the project pieces an obstacle that every group had to overcome. Battling through adversity is a great way to test a group’s strengths and see how much effort they were willing to put in to get a good grade.

For my individual texts, I used songs that depict man’s relation to nature and the artists’ views on them. The first song I chose was “Songs for a Dying Planet” by Joe Walsh, which is a statement about how politicians are lying to the public and that humans are killing everything that lives for their own good: “We're killing everything that's alive, and anyone who tries to deny it wears a tie and gets paid to lie.” The second song I found is called “The Last Great American Whale” by the legend Lou Reed, which talks about how Americans only care for artificial beauty, and that the technology and guns humans have invented take away Native culture and are destroying Native lands and ideals.

"Songs For A Dying Planet"—Joe Walsh

Is anyone out there?
Does anybody listen or care anymore?
We are living on a dying planet,
We're killing everything that's alive,
And anyone who tries to deny it
Wears a tie

And gets paid to lie
So I wrote these songs for a dying planet,
I'm sorry but I'm telling the truth,
And for everybody trying to save it
These songs are for you, too.
Is anyone out there?

"Last Great American Whale"—Lou Reed

They say he didn't have an enemy
His was a greatness to behold
He was the last surviving progeny
The last one on this side of the world

He measured a half mile from tip to tail
Silver and black with powerful fins
They say he could split a mountain in two
That's how we got the Grand Canyon

Last great American whale
Last great American whale
Last great American whale
Last great American whale

Some say they saw him at the Great Lakes
Some say they saw him off of Florida
My mother said she saw him in Chinatown
But you can't always trust your mother

Off the Carolinas the sun shines brightly in the day
The lighthouse glows ghostly there at night
The chief of a local tribe had killed a racist mayor's son
And he'd been on death row since 1958

The mayor's kid was a rowdy pig
Spit on Indians and lots worse
The old chief buried a hatchet in his head
Life compared to death for him seemed worse

The tribal brothers gathered in the lighthouse to sing
And tried to conjure up a storm or rain
The harbor parted, the great whale sprang full up
And caused a huge tidal wave

The wave crushed the jail and freed the chief
The tribe let out a roar
The whites were drowned, the browns and reds set free
But sadly one thing more

Some local yokel member of the NRA
Kept a bazooka in his living room
And thinking he had the chief in his sights
Blew the whale's brains out with a lead harpoon

Last great American whale
Last great American whale
Last great American whale
Last great American whale

Well Americans don't care for much of anything
Land and water the least
And animal life is low on the totem pole
With human life not worth more than infected yeast

Americans don't care too much for beauty
They'll shit in a river, dump battery acid in a stream
They'll watch dead rats wash up on the beach
And complain if they can't swim

They say things are done for the majority
Don't believe half of what you see and none of what you hear
It's like what my painter friend Donald said to me,
"Stick a fork in their ass and turn them over, they're done"

 

Into the Wild-- Response

After reading Jon Krakauer's  Into the Wild and his article "How Chris McCandless Died," it seems very evident that Krakauer had some sort of obsession with McCandless.  Even after first publishing his book, the debate continued over McCandless's cause of death.  Whether it was starvation or severe food poisoning, there was so much controversy over the COD that Krakauer demanded research that would prove his theory right. After a hasty first edition release, Krakauer received scrutiny for his assumption that it was the alkines in the seeds that killed McCandless, when all previous research had proved the wild potato to be harmless if consumed. Krakauer talked to several experts to try and validate his assumption. It wasn’t until much later, however, that Ronald Hamilton came upon World War II records from a concentration camps, stating that the Nazis used these seeds in bread, which soon killed tons of prisoners after they consumed it. 

In my opinion, it was very noble of Krakauer to pursue the correct cause of death.  In his mind, I am sure that he not only needed to figure everything out so that the scrutiny and debate would stop, but also just for his own piece of mind. As McCandless’s note was extremely cryptic and not very clear, the debate over his COD is still not cleared. In his weakened state, he was not able to properly convey what was happening to him and what was he feeling. 

Vine Project

As I was thinking about this project, I had no idea how to relate Vines to our Reading Place class.  As I was  first thinking about what Vines to create for this project (after the Wild game), I realized that it was the perfect opportunity to demonstrate the lack of nature in downtown St. Paul, and the lack of care for the little amounts of landscaping still left in that urban environment. As I sat at a stoplight with Chloe White, it occurred to me that all of the fans, pouring out of the Xcel Energy Center, were stampeding over grass, bushes, and rocks in the heat of getting away from the crowd and disappointing loss. Though the poor lighting may not convey the message well enough, the herds of fans streaming from the arena had a complete disregard for the nature around them, and almost every person had their head down looking at their phone or was looking at the traffic lights and police to direct them to their cars. The disregard for nature can be related to "Mob Mentality," when people act in such a way with a crowd that they would not act if they were all alone.  As the "Mob," (in this case MN Wild fans) fumed over the loss, they trotted over grass and bushes, still wrapped up in the game. To demonstrate, the "Let's Go Wild" chant was soon picked up as we drove out of earshot of the Xcel.
The other Vine depict the main current uses for nature by humans.  It shows how instead of adapting around nature, humans have just forcefully controlled and abused nature to their own advantage, not taking any care or interest of the world around it.  Drinking fountains, finished wood, and glass/bricks are all examples of how humans have harnessed the natural world and used for their own prosperity. The final Vine illustrates humans' fear of the outside world, and the lengths to which they will go to protect themselves.  The bars on the window suggest both the innate need to stay safe and stay out of harm, as well as the lack of concern for any animal that could get hurt by humans' use of bending metal. If a deer, turkey, squirrel, or antelope were to get stuck in the space between the bars and window in the window-well, they would be helpless to get themselves out.

https://vine.co/v/MJv6wOUJmK6

https://vine.co/v/MJd5qVFWzMK

The "Declensionist Nature" of Genesis

Almost everyone knows the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.  Even if you do not belong to the Christian Faith, the chance that you know the story is extremely high.  If you haven’t, however, maybe you have heard the Greek myth of Pandora’s Box? They’re essentially the same thing in which both Eve and Pandora are the first woman on Earth from their respective beliefs.  Both illustrate human’s natural inability to resist temptation.  Eve eats from the Forbidden Three of the Knowledge of Good and Evil while Pandora opens the box she was told not open, for it contained all of the evils of the world in it.  But let’s focus on the story from Genesis.

            After Eve eats from the Tree and convinces Adam to snag a snack from the tree as well, their eyes are opened to (as the name of the tree suggests) the knowledge of good and evil.  Post forbidden snack, Adam and Eve clothe themselves and soon after speak to God, who realizes that they broke the one rule He had set down for them.  It is at this point in Genesis that the state of human nature seems to decline, and the debated declensionist narrative begins.

            On this topic, I believe that the narrative of Genesis does not so much criticize all human nature and the fact that we are made to fail as much as it just explains that no one is perfect, and that even the first humans, hand-crafted by the Lord himself, were flawed. Instead of a declensionist narrative, it seems like the story of Genesis lets people know that everyone makes mistakes, and that it is only how you respond to your own mistakes, as well as the mistakes of others. The Bible goes on to describe how you should treat others like you want to be treated, which lends me to believe that if you are gracious and forgiving of others’ mistakes, others will be forgiving of your own.

            After Adam and Eve eat from the tree, the human condition worsens and worsens, until God is forced to wipe the Earth clean and start with a clean slate, only sparing a few individuals and a whole lot of animals in an effort to purge the world of the sin and evil that had befallen it.  Again, it seems like this is only eluding to the fact that though God gets frustrated with his creation, all it takes is the will to give a second chance, because everyone is flawed and gives into temptation, but it is only those who are willing to forgive that are truly free.

 

This Means War

This Means War

            Over the course of this class so far this semester, we have compared the aspects of humans, nature, and culture, exploring the similarities and differences between the three. As a class, we have created Venn Diagrams and list charts depicting the overlapping relationships including music, dancing, and other aspects of human life, even using Cheetos and French cuisine to describe the relationship.  Very few things were able to be placed singularly in the “human” category.  One of these was technology, which has completely shaped and altered the way humans live, and which each technological advancement, humans move farther and farther away from nature.

            Possibly the most important and uniquely human invention is, as the title of this blog suggests, is war.  Other than human beings, no other species has the desire to kill or harm an entire race or group of people out of pure hatred, jealousy, lust, or misunderstanding. Think about it—when’s the last time you saw all of the bears in a forest gather against all of the buffalo in the same region?? When did a large pack of geese attack a large pack of ducks over turf? Or religious misunderstanding?

            Never.

            Now, with the rapidly expanding field of technology, our potential for worldwide devastation is greater than ever before.

Let’s go back 100 years ago, just before the start of World War I.  Add the new technology of machine guns and you get the technology used in the War.  Fast forward 30 years and add the technology for atomic bombs and you get World War II. Now think of today, not only are developing countries fighting for nuclear technology and nuclear weapons.  Not only does the US have the potential to essentially wipe entire countries off of the map with nukes, we also have the potential to send countries back to the stone age using cyber-warfare and cyber-attacks, like Stuxnet, which set back Iran’s nuclear program close to a year with only a single attack.