Timothy Treadwell was the self-proclaimed shepherd of nature: its guardian, its speaker, and its lord. Admittedly, there are aspects of nature that are threatened by humanity's actions, and Treadwell could indeed be indicated as champion of that cause. However, he fell into the same trap that many individuals who may contemplate the status of the world do; he romanticized it and he believed it helpless. Nature is ill-equipped to handle the toxins that modern humans are capable of creating as a result of industry, but Treadwell's belief in having to shield nature from the world, even shielding nature from the natural order, is something of a paranoia. On an individual level, even a small scale level, nature is more than a match for humanity, and has endured for more than four and a half billion years. To treat such an unfathomable phenomenon as a newborn child is insulting to its existence.
Just as a lack of trust is insulting, romanticizing nature may be considered one of the ultimate expressions of naiveté. The flowers that bloom in the summer are easily torn from the earth and fade, and the freshly birthed creatures of the wild do indeed have fragile lives. Yet, to view such things as a representation of nature in its entirety is a blindness that humans who no longer contend with nature on a daily basis suffer. For millions upon millions of years, animals have died as a result of weakness or merely because there is a creature that holds a higher place in the food chain. Natural disasters plague the world and leave chaos in their wakes. The natural world as a whole cannot possibly be depicted as some pure maiden that may be ravaged by such blights as death, disease, or destruction: those traits are part of the natural order as well, and failure to acknowledge those facts invites the possibility of courting death as well.
From the point of view that nature does have a darker side, one may consider Werner Herzog's view of the natural world as being justified. Yet, Herzog's opinon is no more sensible than Treadwell's, and it is just as blind. Herzog considers nature as a volatile force of chaos, an engine of destruction driving the earth towards a swirling mass of putrefaction and madness. In his ardor, he seems to forget that life on Earth has existed for hundreds of millions of years, and it continues to exist today. It is true that there is a shadowy part of nature, containing the darker parts of life and forcing the living to engage in gladiatorial combat, with survival as the prize. Yet, does not light have to exist in order to cast such deep shadows? If peace and order never existed at any point in time, and humans came from another world describing peace as a regular procession of the natural order, the humans of this world describe the earth they live in as peaceful. It is only due to the positive aspects of the world that the negative aspects may be identified as such.
Labeling all aspects of the natural world as evil or chaotic is a crime very few may even be capable of committing. Watching the sky on an unclouded day would only be the calm before the storm, or the silence of the sky would be the weight of death pressing down on the earth. Seeing a waterfall cascading down a cliff, surrounded by lush greenery would only be a reminder of the oppressing force applied by the natural world, the falling water a premonition of the end that awaits all living beings: sudden, violent, and hard. In short, such a view would render all parts of this world a living hell, and would strip away any reason for living. Such a view contradicts human instinct, and indeed condemns it for its existence.
All encompassing hatred or love for nature renders an individual as blind to the natural world as if he or she had lost an eye. Something as broad and as old as nature cannot be described in one aspect, or from one viewpoint. Herzog and Treadwell allowed their personal beliefs to interfere with what they saw, even dictating what crossed their respective fields of vision. Nature can only taken in in its entirety through true introspection and thought. Perhaps it may never be fully understood, for how can something so old be understood by a species so young?
Jacob,
ReplyDeleteThis was one of the best blog posts I've read since we've started writing on this platform. Truly insightful and it was a pleasure to read. In particular, I found the analysis of Herzog's ideology to be interesting. I hadn't necessarily thought about his ideology from the perspective of everything in nature being violent. One quote that stands out is the section where you write:
"Seeing a waterfall cascading down a cliff, surrounded by lush greenery would only be a reminder of the oppressing force applied by the natural world, the falling water a premonition of the end that awaits all living beings: sudden, violent, and hard. In short, such a view would render all parts of this world a living hell, and would strip away any reason for living."
Prior to reading this, I had viewed Herzog's perspective along the lines that he viewed the natural order itself being evil, not each individual component of nature being evil. However, I think your perspective falls in line with the idea that Treadwell's ideals are polar opposite to Herzog's. Again, the post was deeply insightful. Great work.