A left-leaning (he claims to be moderate) colleague at work excitedly reported to me this past Friday that he had the opportunity to hear a lecture by Alan Weisman, author of a new book called The World Without Us. I listened with a polite smile on my face to his exclamations of how interesting, inspired, thought-provoking, erudite, etc. Weisman’s thought experiment was. After hearing only a little of what he had to say, it became very clear to me that this book is just another exercise in liberal self-loathing.
You see, in the mind of a liberal human beings are really nothing more than filthy, wasteful, selfish, violent, boorish, worthless, destructive, over-abundant creatures with little redeeming value. We are a pox on the face of mother earth, a nasty virus that needs to be eradicated, or at the very least, contained and more strictly controlled. Failure to control this virus that is humanity will surely result in imminent catastrophe. Global warming hysteria is only one manifestation of this mentality.
Liberals love to fantasize about a world without people, well, people who are not them. From the book’s reviews…
Publisher’s Weekly – Weisman’s enthralling tour of the world of tomorrow explores what little will remain of ancient times while anticipating, often poetically, what a planet without us would be like.
So, we should look forward to a world without humans with poetic anticipation? Interesting.
The New Yorker – After thousands of years, the Chunnel, rubber tires, and more than a billion tons of plastic might remain, but eventually a polymer-eating microbe could evolve, and, with the spectacular return of fish and bird populations, the earth might revert to Eden.
I don’t fully understand the self-loathing that is evident on the left. It’s almost pathological. As a conservative, I certainly have moments (usually when I’m stuck in traffic or standing in line) when I think a few less people might be a good thing, but I don’t fantasize about it or formulate academic arguments that advocate the benefits of reducing or eliminating human populations. In my view, what good is Eden if no one is there to appreciate it?
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Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackAs a human, I would regard the absence of humanity as the ultimate catastrophe. I don’t think anything that could happen to humanity (whether as a result of some imagined lefty-eco-sin, or some imagined conservative-moral-sin, or just plain descent into dark ages) quite measures up to that level of disaster.
But then again, the eco-nazis hold untouched, unthinking nature as their romantic ideal, rather than a thriving human civilization.
Precisely. Nature is god and our very existence is sinful. Our penance must include eradicating ourselves and/or living within a restrictive eco-moral-code created by the High Priests of Environmentalism…
…like Al Gore.
OK, I think I do understand the liberal tendency to romanticize a world without humans. I have some of that myself, at least in that I can visualize a world that hasn’t been overrun with humans and the changes that our technological prowess has brought. This is one reason I play D&D, it lets me vicariously experience a world that has not been tamed, fenced in and exploited in every way imaginable.
I spend a lot of time in the outdoors, and it is a constant source of frustration for me to see the inevitable trash and destruction left behind by careless, thoughtless human beings such as those who run their four-wheelers straight up or down a hill, creating ruts that will become erosion gullies. I can go to some of the most remote Rocky Mountain areas and find dozens of beer cans, beer bottles and other detritus of the species I call “homo destructus”.
I think the world would be a better place if there were, say, 1/5 of the current number of human beings living on it. But that doesn’t mean I approve of genocide. I think the human population of the planet will eventually stabilize at a self-sustainable number. Perhaps that number is equal to the current population, perhaps it is less or even more, but right now the human population on the planet is exerting a powerful pressure on the world’s eco-systems particularly in the ocean where we are overfishing so much that I am beginning to fear for our own future.
But that doesn’t mean I hate humans, or that I wish human beings didn’t live on the planet. What I do wish is that human beings were better educated, better behaved and more aware of their impact on the natural world. When I see some thoughtless jerk throw his lit cigarette out the window while driving down the highway, I have to admit that I think the world might be a slightly better place without people who view the natural world as nothing more than a big personal ashtray.
What I want to see is harmony between humans and the earth, and I think that will happen when technology reaches a certain point. It is well-known that reproductive rates decline when certain economic levels are reached, so to me the answer to the problem of humans trashing the earth is exactly the opposite of what the eco-nazis want. The answer is improved technology, improved education and improved economic conditions in the parts of the world where humans are still so focused on survival that they aren’t thinking about how to save the forests.
Nature is truly amazing to me. The natural instincts of animals…the adaptations of animals and plants to shifting climates, etc.
But mankind really amazes me. Surely, we are part of nature, but we have taken dominion over it for the most part. We have harnessed the natural world in an astounding way.
I am not a humanist by any means, but I am always just blown away by what humans can accomplish.
God is the only force above us, and obviously the processes that He has put in place have dominion over us (we are not even a “close second”).
Last Sunday morning, I was in Monterey, California at 6 am pacific (8 am “my time”). After an hour plus layover in Salt Lake, and an hour layover in Dallas, the wheels touched down at SHV. I called Mrs. Andy on a cel phone. I got off the plane, walked through the terminal, and 5 minutes later, the Mrs. Andymobile pulled up. I was in my own living room at 4:15 in the afternoon, some 2,000 miles away.
Human achievement astounds me! Just the last 100 years…Airplanes, automobiles, computers, telephones, cel phones, antibiotics, vaccines, eye surgeries that correct vision permanently, cancer cures, Interstate highways (the list is endless)… Show me an animal that has invented anything. Sure, their instincts cause them to build, forage, and survive. But man has got that soul that they do not.
A world without humans is a pipe dream, and truthfully a waste of gray matter and creativity. I say, use all that brilliance and vision to improve the human condition. In doing so, the condition of Earth will improve along the way.
1.) Last I checked, we’re part of nature.
2.) Such books, even ones which have ACTUAL poetry in them would be hard to appreciate if the world was, indeed, without humans.
3.) If the world existed without humans, eventually some species would rise up to take our place…or the ecosystem would settle into a boring equilibrium of predator/prey until either the world suffered a world-wide catastrophe or was colonized by some space faring civilization which recognized a prime piece of real estate.
Well, don’t count out the raccoon… I’m pretty sure if humans disappeared, in a few million years intelligent raccoon descendants would be building cities all over the place.
My own personal perspective on this is actually very simliar Cosmic’s. I just get weary of the far-left having wet dreams over the prospect of eliminating or constraining by force the human race. I’m weary of the self-loathing. Books like Weisman’s just annoy me. I have no doubt it will become fuel for their perverse eco-fantasies wherein all humans are dead(except them of course), dogs wear clothes, pigs wear lipstick, and mistreated lab rodents are represented by their own personal injury attorney…
CC: Man…those coons have you spooked. Actually, you have a good point.
Raccoons are very resourceful, and hard to drive away. They are combative, and tenacious…I wonder why no major college has adopted the raccoon as their mascot. We do have the beaver, the badger, the bulldog, the tiger, the duck, and even the gamecock. But none has adopted the raccoon as far as I know.
I know how to get rid of raccoons, but I don’t know the firearms restrictions in your town or county…so my advice might cause more problems than it solves.
I want someone to try to equate animals with humans right in my face before I die. Just once I would like to ask one of these kooks to show me a whitetail that fired back, or a coon that trapped a human.
Dadman: Don’t sell personal injury attorneys short. Just remember the damage that the serpent did in Eden.
Geez. Get a load of the comments on the amazon review! These people are nuts!
Andy:
I’m not spooked by raccoons, I would have said the same thing even before my recent raccoon experiences. I think raccoons are far more intelligent and far more adaptable than people realize. As you point out they are competitive, combative, tenacious and more than a little intelligent. I suppose if humans disappeared the most likely path to a new intelligent species would go through chimpanzees or gorillas, but I dunno, I think raccoons should be on that list too.
If you really want to measure the nuttiness of the typical liberal enviro-goon, just ask them to rank a human embryo against a set of animals in terms of their importance. The last time I did this with a female liberal, human embryos ended up ranking slightly above “cockroach” but well below “mouse.”
CC: Didn’t mean “spooked” as an insult…please forgive.
I would vote for dogs (dogs are very intelligent), except they aren’t in a very good position to develop an upright posture to free up their forlimbs for manual tool-wielding work.
PS, I find the “mess” inherent in civilization inevitable.
If any of those currently cute and fuzzy creatures were intelligent and tool wielding, you wouldn’t see harmony with nature with respect to them either. They all use the environment to whatever extent their means allow (it’s just that there are much tighter boundaries on their means), and don’t concern themselves with cleaning up things that won’t immediately foul their own nest (until you punish them enough for peeing on your carpet) (game theory – the more remote and nebulous the mess, the less sense it makes to clean up).
“I would vote for dogs (dogs are very intelligent), except they aren’t in a very good position to develop an upright posture to free up their forlimbs for manual tool-wielding work.”
Prof Farnsworth/Futurama: “But, through the miracles of science (trails off mumbling)”
Fry: “Err … this wouldn’t happen to involve another hideous abuse of our abilities, leading to an ethical and moral dillema mankind simply isn’t equipped to face, would it?”
Prof Farnsworth: “Well, maybe just a litle bit”
“The New Yorker – After thousands of years, the Chunnel, rubber tires, and more than a billion tons of plastic might remain, but eventually a polymer-eating microbe could evolve, and, with the spectacular return of fish and bird populations, the earth might revert to Eden.”
BTW, rubber and plastics, being organic compounds, would probably vanish within the century. Ceramics are what would remain for a good long time.
…and twinkies….
Yes, those twinkies and ding dongs would last forever. I would add to the list McDonald’s french fries (reference Supersize Me)…
Are you kidding me? McDonald’s french fries have a lifespan measured in nanoseconds before they start to biodegrade into limp, tasteless mush….
Aaaahhhhh McDonald’s french fries… hot, crisp, salty…. now I’m getting hungry.
NO! I’ve sworn off fries until I lose 20 pounds! NO FRENCH FRIES FOR ME!!!!
Check out the film Supersize Me. McDonald’s french fries don’t biodegrade at all. Microbes don’t even seem to be interested in them…
Now, go have some fries…
Heh, I know that once they get in my system, I can never seem to get the weight off…
OK, they may not bio-degrade but they taste-degrade rapidly. I suppose the microbes are like me and they just like the fries fresh, hot, crisp and salty! Good for the microbes!
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