Dear Hannah,
People love to talk about Mother Nature, but they rarely capitalize on our being Her children. They never consider that maybe like everything else in the universe we're doing what She intended -- even in doing the things She never would have done without us. Even in destroying what we perceive to be natural. They call it the state of nature when we haven't done anything to change nature itself. They say that things are natural before we touch them and unnatural after we do. The birds make their nests out of twigs, and the twigs are considered natural when they're made into nests -- and only because the birds never think of doing anything else. A government, unlike an anthill, is considered alien; almost as if it was made out of spirits and miracles or mutants and toxins. A condo is a blemish and a hornet's nest a necessity. We recognize everything as natural except everything we do. We recognize everything as necessary except what we need. We secretly believe in the divinity of man. We consider him and God the only foreigners in the universe.
Even the men who reject our divinity outright say we're diabolical. If we aren't the greatest thing that happened to the planet they feel forced to say we're the worst; and if they won't say we fell out of heaven, they feel comfortable saying we came out of hell. Joe Rogan and a host of other "modern" men say we're a disease. Not any one of them has proved to me who benefits by finding a cure.
The most obvious thing that everyone seems to have missed is that the animals won't really appreciate that we're gone. The trees won't either. Neither of them has any inkling what human beings really are or what we mean; which means that none of them can appreciate the fact that we've left. And supposing we were to get rid of the whole human race and "fix" this mess by not being around to enjoy it, we'd have gotten rid of the only reason we had to fix it in the first place, which is us.
The man who says human beings are a cancer is like a man who complains about human beings messing up their beds. He might propose we get rid of the humans to keep our beds clean, but he never asks who's going to be happy that they're made. He tries to make the world a better place, but only by getting rid of anyone who could properly consider it better.
The radical environmentalist appreciates what nature does for us, but he's never explained how nature could be anything without us. The humanist is arrogant, and measures everything by himself. But the environmentalist doesn't know what to measure anything by. He has an ideal that dies with him. His entire cause is laid up in the one thing he wants to destroy, which is himself.
The irony of this whole circumstance is that the Book of Genesis may not be factually correct with its talking snake and miraculous trees, and because of its unscientific (and maybe allegorical) approach the man of science makes fun of it. But despite this backwardness it's more sensible than the majority of our environmentalists. The Garden of Eden was created for Man and all the animals were given to his dominion because we're the only beings on the planet who are capable of thinking of the welfare of animals in general. We're the only beings on the planet who are even capable of thinking of the concept of animals in general. We're also the only beings on the planet capable of ruining the animals in general. The radical environmentalist sees only the third because he doesn't understand the first and the second. He thinks seeing us in an "objective" light makes him enlightened. In losing his subjectivity he's really sunk back down with the animals; for his subjectivity is his self-consciousness. He values every creature except the one which is capable of valuing every creature. He tried to see with God's eyes -- and God blinded him when he stared too long into the sun.
Your father,
-J
*Schopenhauer writes about allegory-haters in his Studies in Pessimism: "A mother gave her children Aesop's fables to read, in the hope of educating and improving their minds; but they very soon brought the book back, and the eldest, wise beyond his years, delivered himself as follows: This is no book for us; it's much too childish and stupid. You can't make us believe that foxes and wolves and ravens are able to talk; we've got beyond stories of that kind! In these young hopefuls you have the enlightened Rationalists of the future."
I heard this week that scientists proved women with thicker backsides are responsible for making smarter children. This evolutionary fact explains a lot about my dating history, but it does nothing to explain why none of our scientists are Ethiopians. You'd need something more than a scientist to explain something like that. You'd need someone who actually understands what makes people tick, which is the particular kind of human that our scientists fail to appreciate. You'd need a poet or a philosopher wearing the sport-coat of a historian.
Our scientists are brilliantly retarded. Like our autistic math fanatics, they see reason and balance in everything except the important things. They boil down our wildest dreams to synapses and question whether our noblest feelings mean anything at all. Our scientists are valuable because they help us do things, but they can't be relied upon to tell us what to do. They have to be protected by warriors and politicians and pamphleteers -- by brute strength and bullshit. Their labs are defended by patriots with religious convictions and the lust for the glory of epic poetry. Their lives are worth living because of warm and irrational pregnant women.
People love to talk about Mother Nature, but they rarely capitalize on our being Her children. They never consider that maybe like everything else in the universe we're doing what She intended -- even in doing the things She never would have done without us. Even in destroying what we perceive to be natural. They call it the state of nature when we haven't done anything to change nature itself. They say that things are natural before we touch them and unnatural after we do. The birds make their nests out of twigs, and the twigs are considered natural when they're made into nests -- and only because the birds never think of doing anything else. A government, unlike an anthill, is considered alien; almost as if it was made out of spirits and miracles or mutants and toxins. A condo is a blemish and a hornet's nest a necessity. We recognize everything as natural except everything we do. We recognize everything as necessary except what we need. We secretly believe in the divinity of man. We consider him and God the only foreigners in the universe.
Even the men who reject our divinity outright say we're diabolical. If we aren't the greatest thing that happened to the planet they feel forced to say we're the worst; and if they won't say we fell out of heaven, they feel comfortable saying we came out of hell. Joe Rogan and a host of other "modern" men say we're a disease. Not any one of them has proved to me who benefits by finding a cure.
The most obvious thing that everyone seems to have missed is that the animals won't really appreciate that we're gone. The trees won't either. Neither of them has any inkling what human beings really are or what we mean; which means that none of them can appreciate the fact that we've left. And supposing we were to get rid of the whole human race and "fix" this mess by not being around to enjoy it, we'd have gotten rid of the only reason we had to fix it in the first place, which is us.
The man who says human beings are a cancer is like a man who complains about human beings messing up their beds. He might propose we get rid of the humans to keep our beds clean, but he never asks who's going to be happy that they're made. He tries to make the world a better place, but only by getting rid of anyone who could properly consider it better.
The radical environmentalist appreciates what nature does for us, but he's never explained how nature could be anything without us. The humanist is arrogant, and measures everything by himself. But the environmentalist doesn't know what to measure anything by. He has an ideal that dies with him. His entire cause is laid up in the one thing he wants to destroy, which is himself.
The irony of this whole circumstance is that the Book of Genesis may not be factually correct with its talking snake and miraculous trees, and because of its unscientific (and maybe allegorical) approach the man of science makes fun of it. But despite this backwardness it's more sensible than the majority of our environmentalists. The Garden of Eden was created for Man and all the animals were given to his dominion because we're the only beings on the planet who are capable of thinking of the welfare of animals in general. We're the only beings on the planet who are even capable of thinking of the concept of animals in general. We're also the only beings on the planet capable of ruining the animals in general. The radical environmentalist sees only the third because he doesn't understand the first and the second. He thinks seeing us in an "objective" light makes him enlightened. In losing his subjectivity he's really sunk back down with the animals; for his subjectivity is his self-consciousness. He values every creature except the one which is capable of valuing every creature. He tried to see with God's eyes -- and God blinded him when he stared too long into the sun.
Your father,
-J
*Schopenhauer writes about allegory-haters in his Studies in Pessimism: "A mother gave her children Aesop's fables to read, in the hope of educating and improving their minds; but they very soon brought the book back, and the eldest, wise beyond his years, delivered himself as follows: This is no book for us; it's much too childish and stupid. You can't make us believe that foxes and wolves and ravens are able to talk; we've got beyond stories of that kind! In these young hopefuls you have the enlightened Rationalists of the future."
I heard this week that scientists proved women with thicker backsides are responsible for making smarter children. This evolutionary fact explains a lot about my dating history, but it does nothing to explain why none of our scientists are Ethiopians. You'd need something more than a scientist to explain something like that. You'd need someone who actually understands what makes people tick, which is the particular kind of human that our scientists fail to appreciate. You'd need a poet or a philosopher wearing the sport-coat of a historian.
Our scientists are brilliantly retarded. Like our autistic math fanatics, they see reason and balance in everything except the important things. They boil down our wildest dreams to synapses and question whether our noblest feelings mean anything at all. Our scientists are valuable because they help us do things, but they can't be relied upon to tell us what to do. They have to be protected by warriors and politicians and pamphleteers -- by brute strength and bullshit. Their labs are defended by patriots with religious convictions and the lust for the glory of epic poetry. Their lives are worth living because of warm and irrational pregnant women.
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