Scan barcode
A review by baldingape
Biophilia by Edward O. Wilson
3.0
'The Natural world is the refuge of the spirit, remote, static, richer even than the human imagination. But we cannot exist in this paradise without the machine that tears it apart.' pg 11 - 12
And that is perhaps the most heartbreaking thing about being a human.
We see and hear all about this climate change stuff, and while some deny it still, those of us that are very aware of it are left in this dilemma where we know what's going on, but we feel somewhat helpless to do anything about it.
Tie that in with the last book I read about just how much of the land is cut off to people, and its helplessness becomes more apparent. What can little old me do? We might ask ourselves one of the plebs in the 'machine in the garden,' except much of that garden is taken away from us. And we're just left with the machine.
Yet that machine is the very thing that I rely on. Many of us do, but as a disabled person, I certainly feel trapped by the machine because as I look into the abyss, I see that it is the machine that keeps me alive, yet we should arguably have been playing in the garden all along.
And that is the dilemma that I live in.
Without the machine, I am dead. But without the garden life is empty.
I especially liked when he said this towards the end of the book:
'I have argued in this book that we are human in good part because of the particular way we affiliate with other organisms. They are the matrix in which the human mind originated and is permanently rooted.' pg 129.
Could it be that we're becoming a species that will slowly become more defined by how we don't affiliate with other organisms?
'The forests may all be cut; radiation slowly rise, the winters grow steadily colder, but if the effects are unlikely to become decisive for a few generations, very few people will be stirred to revolt.' Edward O. Wilson wrote.
The book published in 1984 and it's still a problem we're trying to navigate in 2021.
By the end, he states that we need to promote more selfish ideas as to why we need to conserve the world around us, and I think he may have a point.
Try as hard as we might, all attempts to get people to care about the 'natural world' outside of themselves and their enclosed habitats appears to fail if you don't appeal to their own self-interests.
This may be an ugly view upon humans, but it nevertheless seems to be true.
And that is perhaps the most heartbreaking thing about being a human.
We see and hear all about this climate change stuff, and while some deny it still, those of us that are very aware of it are left in this dilemma where we know what's going on, but we feel somewhat helpless to do anything about it.
Tie that in with the last book I read about just how much of the land is cut off to people, and its helplessness becomes more apparent. What can little old me do? We might ask ourselves one of the plebs in the 'machine in the garden,' except much of that garden is taken away from us. And we're just left with the machine.
Yet that machine is the very thing that I rely on. Many of us do, but as a disabled person, I certainly feel trapped by the machine because as I look into the abyss, I see that it is the machine that keeps me alive, yet we should arguably have been playing in the garden all along.
And that is the dilemma that I live in.
Without the machine, I am dead. But without the garden life is empty.
I especially liked when he said this towards the end of the book:
'I have argued in this book that we are human in good part because of the particular way we affiliate with other organisms. They are the matrix in which the human mind originated and is permanently rooted.' pg 129.
Could it be that we're becoming a species that will slowly become more defined by how we don't affiliate with other organisms?
'The forests may all be cut; radiation slowly rise, the winters grow steadily colder, but if the effects are unlikely to become decisive for a few generations, very few people will be stirred to revolt.' Edward O. Wilson wrote.
The book published in 1984 and it's still a problem we're trying to navigate in 2021.
By the end, he states that we need to promote more selfish ideas as to why we need to conserve the world around us, and I think he may have a point.
Try as hard as we might, all attempts to get people to care about the 'natural world' outside of themselves and their enclosed habitats appears to fail if you don't appeal to their own self-interests.
This may be an ugly view upon humans, but it nevertheless seems to be true.