Tom Sherman on Sat, 26 May 2001 02:46:24 +0200 (CEST) |
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<nettime> LANGUAGE AND NATURE |
IT'S HARD TO HAVE A CONVERSATION WITH NATURE BECAUSE NATURE DOESN'T TALK BACK. We've always dreamed of speaking Nature's own language, of being part of the big picture. But when we talk to Nature, we find we are just talking to ourselves, or more accurately, to each other. Just like the birds singing in the darkness before dawn, they're not singing for us, they're singing to the other birds. When we look into a sky or a mountain or at a tree's mighty bough, when we speak directly to Nature, we're talking to ourselves. We shouldn't expect a reply. Nature has nothing to say to us. It stands mute, ignoring us. This is simply the way it is. This is particularly rough on people from the city. They get really lonely and they want to talk to Nature. They want to tell Nature how they feel, about the people they know. Nature isn't interested. Nature doesn't care. Nature is a tough audience. It'll listen to anything you want to say and then there'll be nothing but silence. Unless you learn to read the signs. If you want to hear what Nature has to say, then you've got to learn to read the signs. Nature speaks through sign language. Once you crack the code, you'll find that Nature has a lot to say. Not that Nature makes sense. It doesn't. It never says what you want it to say. It never responds to us. Talking to Nature is easy, making sense of Nature's signs is another matter. Nature can be very frustrating, especially for city people. IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO TELL A STORY TO NATURE IN A LANGUAGE IT WILL UNDERSTAND. It's funny how uptight people are about telling stories about animals and plants and rocks and rivers and shooting stars. Every time people start to tell a story about Nature, someone is ready to jump all over them for being anthropomorphic. That means they are guilty of attributing human qualities to creatures or things that are not human. This is done most frequently through the convention of the voice-over. Human thoughts and voices are inserted into the minds and mouths of other species. This seems to be particularly offensive when it is done to entertain. It doesn't matter that squirrels really act like cartoon characters. It doesn't matter that all babies are cute or that all young adults fight over sexual partners and territory. But if you dare put human qualities on animals, a lot of people will think it's awful and condemn you for doing so. The defenders of anthropomorphism say people have trouble relating to Nature without making it like themselves. They say if we can't make Nature like ourselves, we won't be able to relate to Nature at all. And that's tragic. People often feel alienated from Nature. There's a problem with stories that don't feature much human interest. How can you tell an interesting story about a spider and a rock or about a rock and another rock? It's hard to get hooked on rocks or spiders unless you give them something to say or do that you can relate to. Or you could just keep your mouth shut. If you keep your anthropomorphic stories to yourself, who's going to know? One thing for sure, Nature won't care. from NATURE IS PERVERSE SOMETIMES (version 1.0) Tom Sherman # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net