Blogs

A couple of days ago, we read Timothy Morton's "Introduction: Toward a Theory of Ecological Criticism." Although we discussed in class yesterday that Morton's dense and hard to read language makes sense, because his work is literary criticism, not an explanation of a theory he came up with, I still have some issues with the style of the excerpt. Mainly, my issue with the style is that it is what it says it is: an introduction. I dislike the style of introductions. They simultaneously summarize the work they preface, and their authors try to weave a separate narrative throughout the introduction. But this makes me impatient. Introductions just drag on and on, almost getting to the point, and then digressing to talk about something unrelated to fill the pages and sound impressive. Introduction just make me want to either get to the darn book, and turn me completely off of it. With this introduction, I just wanted to read the book, and get past the fluff. I appreciated what Morton was trying to do, and I'm certainly glad that I didn't have to read his whole book for class in one night. However, that doesn't mean I am at all satisfied with introductions, especially the one at hand. I just wanted to read what it was failing to summarize eloquently and actually find out the content.

I enjoyed our two shared rambles this week; thank you for venturing outside w/ me!
Next week we conclude our work together. Here's the plan for our upcoming shared events:

By 5 p.m. Thursday, record on-line your final set of weekly observations of your adopted on-campus "site."

By Sunday @ 5, post on-line your reflections about our two excursions this week. (Max, who was unable to join us today, is hoping to "experience" the blind field shuttle on Serendip, so please think of your posting as an attempt to include her in that activity.)

For Monday's class,
* srucara will select our site

* please come ready to tell me what groups you've organized yourselves into, for our final teach-in

* review the instructions for completing your checklist and portfolio:
/exchange/courses/ecolit/f12/portfolio
and come w/ any questions about the process

* please also read, in preparation for our discussion,
Timothy Morton's Introduction to Ecology Without Nature: Re-thinking Environmental Aesthetics
(it's in our password protected file: /exchange/courses/ecolit/f12/readings )

* On Wednesday, we'll do final evaluations, and then have
a teach-in, sharing with one another what we have been learning...

* My last day on campus will be the following Wed, Dec. 19.
Before then, you need to schedule a final writing conference w/ me.
Please come to that having reviewed my comments on your last paper,
as well as your other work for the semester,

I was inspired by the blind field shuttle tour that we took in class today and decided to see how far across my site I could walk by myself and with my eyes closed. I got about ten feet. Fifteen feet tops. This just goes to show how different this experience is on your own from being in a group. One thing that surprised me about my own experience was my intuition. I sensed a tree before I ran into it. It wasn’t that I saw it or felt it, but rather I could somehow just tell that it was there.

I then decided to make observations about the “Soundscape” (a phrase that Mr. Papalia used a few times on our class’s tour) of my site. The first sound that registered was the sound of rustling branches. Then church bells, distant dogs barking, and people talking. I heard the consistent rumble of a train and the flow of traffic. Car horns sounded intermittently as did the voices of students walking around campus. Visually Bryn Mawr is very sheltered from the surrounding Philadelphia area but sound-wise it certainly isn’t. Traffic is a constant, noticeable noise. The other sense that intensified when I had my eyes closed was smell. Fried food scents drifted intermittently out of the dining halls. That was really the only smell strong enough for me to smell through my cold nose.

Elizabeth Costello claims that because she was able to "think" herself into one of her fictional characters that, before, had never existed, then she should be able to think herself into any being. This claim does not sit well with me, as I find that there are many intrinsic problems that make it untrue. First, Costello's ability to think herself into another human character doesn't necessarily mean much; it would have been much easier to put herself into another character's shoes given that the character was another human being. Part of the reason she was able to think herself into the character was because she was able to empathize with human emotion. Another flaw with her statement is that she really isn't thinking herself into an entirely new being; after all, she may have invented the fictional character, but it was, essentially, of her own entity. My question is therefore, why is it more difficult for humans to empathize with animals (which is what we are in all actuality)? When answered "consciousness", Elizabeth Costello replies, "They have no consciousness, therefore. Therefore what? Therefore we are free to kill them? Why? What is so special about the form of consciousness we recognize that makes killing a bearer of it a crime while killing an animal goes unpunished?" I find this to be the more important question, and statement. What is consciousness, and how are we able to differentiate between the consciousness of another human being and the consciousness of an animal?

Every experience is dependent on the way you frame it. Carmen Papalia was one of the most positive people I’ve encountered in a long time. For me, losing my eyesight is a terrifying idea. Sight is generally considered the most important sense that humans use. It is “essential” to our functioning in the world. However, Mr. Papalia showed us another way of thinking. He framed being vision impaired as not an impairment at all, but as something to value and even celebrate. And after his blind field shuttle tour of Bryn Mawr’s campus I would have to agree with him. Through the tour I was able to get to know both the campus and my classmates a lot better. I felt more connected to my surroundings out of necessity. One wrong step and I felt like I was going to fall down the slope that led into Morris Woods. But I didn’t, which I think that it was largely due to my classmates. This in itself was interesting since it was literally the blind leading the blind. None of us could see. Even our leader could not see perfectly. But as eetong and I discussed on our way out of class, this, in a way, made us feel safer. We felt that since he had had so much experience being in our situation, that he was a very trustworthy guide. Granted, I was in the middle of the line and so protected by both the people in front of me and the people behind me (both would feel uneven terrain before I did.) I was also protected by my height (any overhead branches would hit the people in front before hitting me.) I wonder how my experience would have been different if I had been in the front of the line?

I don't know why, but the thing I keep thinking about from The Lives of Animals is the way Costello began her talk: with the information about the Nazi concentration camps during World War II. Maybe this is because I worked with the Jewish Community Center in Skopje on a project about the Holocaust, and because my best friend's favorite museum is the Holocaust Museum in Skopje. That's why I was so shocked when Costello makes the connection between the concentration camps and eating meat. I mean, I pledged to be vegetarian for a year when I was an active member of PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), and I still do feel guilty when I eat meat, but I never thought of eating meat as something as atrocious as mass genocide. After all, there is a reason why the biological food chains exist: some animals eat other animals for subsistence, others eat plants. Also, why should plants not be considered living beings in the same way as animals and humans? Following that thought, would it be ethical to eat plants then too? I don't think that there is a single solution or answer to these questions. That is why I am against campaigning for a single way of life - diversity is beautiful, and it's what makes life interesting. Hence, while I do support Costello for being vegetarian, I'm not so sure I agree with her reasoning.

In The Lives of Animals, Coetzee adressed the question: “If we are capable of thinking our own death, why on earth should we not be capable of thinking our way into the life of a bat?”

As the question was being addressed with intensity, it could not be easily be explained by a simple sentence saying--"we are not bats"--although this is what I was thinking right after I read this question.

And the question could extend to--Are we capable of thinking from the perspective of another animal, live or dead?

I believe that some of us are capable--and I mean psychics. Like Oda Mae Brown in Ghost, psychics could embrace another soul into their body. Also, when we are caught by a spell, we could become little mouse, birds, etc.

Back to "reality", under many circumstances, when the "animal side", or shall I say, the beast-like part, of our soul is activated, we are thinking like any other animal--like the Nazi example in this book. So yes, we are capable of thinking as an animal, but not a nice one. We could never think like a nice, innocent little rabbit (unless we are infants) because I think the only intersection of cognitive process between human and other animal is that related to the same type of desire we have, not virtue, not ethics.

I opened this class with a Thoreauvian ramble that was in the form of a rhymed poem in iambic pentameter. In my final site sit I hope to show the influence of our botanical ramble and blind field shuttle, and to respond to Anne’s “push.”

To the left sun

and to all else the push push push of the wind

leaving shadows dancing

sounds fading

true blue sky and deadened brown leaves.

How long in this place? is every day a new breath of life

disturbed by the powdering of leaves into confetti and a sharp cold blade leveling the hibernating

the sleeping

the fighting

the surviving

the living

life of plants.

i  trespass in my presence

hearing breathing tasting seeing

stationary but ready to move.

reflection of life as now but future too

Ending only to begin again anew. 

Today’s observation period at my sight sit besides being my last was also the first one that I’ve managed to have for a few weeks. With the weather conditions making the day feel more like it should be in March rather than December, it felt like it was going to be a rather pleasant hour at my bench. Unfortunately though, the visuals that I witnessed at the bench were not as pleasant as the weather. Although the sight of the trees along the nature tree and the pine needles healthily covering the bench were still there, placed right in the middle of the Arboretum field in front of me, was a cleared section of dirt and gravel. Leading from this spot were both a similar dirt and gravel path and a black plastic fence snaking away towards the Nature Trail and apparently extending all the way to Haverford Road. Upon inquiring about the cleared patch later, I found out that the field was being prepared to be turned into a temporary parking lot for the golf tournaments that were to take place on local golf courses during the summertime.

I just had this random thought that being an vegetarian is against the natural design in some way... Some vital amino acids are almost only accessible to us by meat or diaries before supplements were available. Native Americans once had a diet relied completely on maize and their life span suffered from that. That was vegetarian in practice but they were forced to be.

I looked up the history of vegetarianism. Vegetarianism was initially almost always religion or philosophy related. It did not only serve as an attitude but a discipline among a specific community.  Since about late eighteenth century vegetarian population started to grow and became more common without institutional restriction. I see this of as a mark of the civilization of human society because we are only to think about being nice to other beings when survival is not the main concern. I want to say that it seems to me that we have evolved to be able to even think about being a vegetarian. If we are able to choose a diet regardless of our natural biological premise, it indicates a privilege. So even though we are using a non-violence policy to other animals, what exactly is the philosophy behind - Mercy? Love? A repulse to eat the juicy flesh? I know that a lot of times different philosophies yeild the same outcome, but I wanted to bring up this to discussion...