She's Alive.
May 25, 2012 3:45 AM   Subscribe

She's Alive... Beautiful... Finite... Hurting... Worth Dying for is a beautiful non-commercial attempt from www.sanctuaryasia.com to "highlight the fact that world leaders, irresponsible corporates and mindless 'consumers' are combining to destroy life on earth. It is dedicated to all who died fighting for the planet and those whose lives are on the line today. The cut was put together by Vivek Chauhan, a young film maker, together with naturalists working with the Sanctuary Asia network." (Vimeo link).

To the list of those lost should be added the name of Chut Wutty, Cambodian environmental activist and journalist, killed last month by military police guarding an illegal logging operation in Koh Kong Province. (More from the BBC, and an extended SBS Australia story implicating forestry company Timbergreen and local organizations not only in illegal logging but in the use of forest products to produce illegal drugs.)

Beyond general support for your favorite environmental group, those who wish to support wildlife rangers working in dangerous conditions might like to check out the work of Sean Willmore, maker of the Thin Green Line.
posted by Ahab (34 comments total) 11 users marked this as a favorite
 
combining to destroy life on earth

Human life on Earth. The old girl will get on fine once we're gone. Yes, current policies and behaviour are reckless, idiotic vandalism, a dirty protest against nothing. The problem, as is often pointed out, is that appeals to our collective better nature, as opposed to the courage and resolve of a few, seem to be achieving very little. Perhaps framing the debate in terms of simple self-interest, which is surely what it comes down to, might work better. Maybe. People are pretty fucking stupid about their own self-interest too, of course.
posted by howfar at 4:45 AM on May 25, 2012


Thanks for the fix, Taz.
posted by Ahab at 5:19 AM on May 25, 2012


Human life on Earth. The old girl will get on fine once we're gone.

I hate the idea that the only victims of our disastrous approach to the environment will be human, and that the earth will continue just fine after we are dead. It's short-sighted and anthropocentric. Global warming has implications for whole ecosystems. Mammals without corridors linking their current habitat to places that will be more like their current habitat in the future are going to die. Amphibians and reptiles are dying already. The ocean is changing (pdf). And yes, all this has happened before, but when all this happened it was the result of some crazy outside force like an asteroid. Or it took place over many millions of years and life on earth adapted to it over time. WE are the ones causing this mass extinction. And when we are gone, lots of other animals that may have survived us without the climate going mad will be gone, too.

As well as the links in this excellent post, I'd like to mention a project I posted about previously, The Wall of the Dead. It's a project that memorializes rangers and naturalists who have died in the course of doing science or protecting parks.
posted by ChuraChura at 5:31 AM on May 25, 2012 [17 favorites]


I hate the idea that the only victims of our disastrous approach to the environment will be human, and that the earth will continue just fine after we are dead. It's short-sighted and anthropocentric. Global warming has implications for whole ecosystems.

Yeah, but so do Ice Ages. Point is that the planet will continue happily with/without us.
posted by Sebmojo at 5:39 AM on May 25, 2012


Point is that the planet will continue happily with/without us.
posted by brevator at 5:46 AM on May 25, 2012


Oooh, so Mother Nature needs a favor?! Well maybe she should have thought of that when she was besetting us with droughts and floods and poison monkeys! Nature started the fight for survival, and now she wants to quit because she’s losing? Well I say, hard cheese.

– Charles Montgomery Burns
posted by resurrexit at 5:54 AM on May 25, 2012 [2 favorites]


I hate the idea that the only victims of our disastrous approach to the environment will be human, and that the earth will continue just fine after we are dead.

Well, you might hate it, but it is considerably more accurate than the notion that we will "destroy life on earth", as you yourself seem to admit. Even your own argument is too easily rebutted by pointing out that many other species will come to exist in the place of those that are lost.

But read my whole comment before you let that knee jerk too far. I don't find the desecration and destruction of wonderful, beautiful and unique things any less horrifying than you do. I am no less disgusted by the harm being done to sentient beings either. However, the Green movement has too often allowed itself to be defined as placing morality before practicality, when the core of its message has to be that morality and practicality are one and the same thing. Making wildly overblown claims about destroying all life is not the way to convince people who desperately need convincing.

I'm not trying to minimise the significance of environmental damage. The problem is that being seen as a bunch of holy minded yoghurt-knitters is detrimental to the Green movement, and that the language employed to describe the video is exactly the type of thing that promotes that image.
posted by howfar at 6:05 AM on May 25, 2012 [1 favorite]


Our attention has repeatedly in recent months been drawn to the disparities between the 99% and the 1%. Perhaps it is time to look at what divides those who crave ever more toys and those who choose to consume less.
posted by mareli at 6:05 AM on May 25, 2012 [3 favorites]


"Save the planet? We don't even know how to take care of ourselves; we haven't learned how to care for one another. We're gonna save the fuckin' planet? . . . And, by the way, there's nothing wrong with the planet in the first place. The planet is fine. The people are fucked! Compared with the people, the planet is doin' great. It's been here over four billion years . . . The planet isn't goin' anywhere, folks. We are! We're goin' away. Pack your shit, we're goin' away. And we won't leave much of a trace. Thank God for that. Nothing left. Maybe a little Styrofoam. The planet will be here, and we'll be gone. Another failed mutation; another closed-end biological mistake.”
― George Carlin
posted by brevator at 6:06 AM on May 25, 2012 [3 favorites]


To me it seems that arguing over whether the planet itself will survive is an exercise in sophistry. If we go out in circumstances where we've exhausted our own natural resource base, killed much of the planet's wild flora and fauna, and have poisoned its air and water, it'll take a lot longer for anything significant to come back.

The Thin Green Line Foundation formed after the success of the film now notes that at least 1000 park rangers have died in the line of duty during the past ten years, and raises funds to support their families. I shan't link directly to their site again (lest I get banned forever) but I'd like both us and our planet's wildlife to carry on as long as possible. Ideally, I'd like it to be the case that neither large numbers of wild flora and fauna nor humans become extinct.

And I tend to think that people who research and defend high conservation value areas (whether they be rangers or scientists or activists or all of the above) are one of the best chances we currently have of achieving those goals. So my hat goes off to them, and I hope that those amongst them who die while attempting to maintain a more interesting, diverse, and beautiful world find themselves a space to rest in peace.
posted by Ahab at 6:18 AM on May 25, 2012 [4 favorites]


that whole "oh we're not so great, i don't even care if we die out" thing is just so affected and grating

i'm all, "man, come on" to that
posted by This, of course, alludes to you at 6:53 AM on May 25, 2012 [2 favorites]


It's funny, I would have thought a poster named Ahab would be promoting hunting her down and driving a harpoon into her heart.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 7:00 AM on May 25, 2012


Perhaps it is time to look at what divides those who crave ever more toys and those who choose to consume less.

I think that part of the problem with this approach is that except in a vanishingly small number of cases "those who choose to consume less" are basically just a bunch of pompous holier-than-thou twits who in reality have no objection at all to consuming if it's something really cool like an iPod or an epic cross-country road trip, but think that whatever hobbyish disavowal of some particular form of consumption they're into at the moment, although it results in no material difference in their lifetime footprint, makes them into Martyrs for Mother Earth or something.

(The people who actually are martyrs for causes like those showcased at the end of this video, or who dedicate their lives to making a difference, are quite noble, just not the average person who regards themselves as "one who chooses to consume less" in my experience.)
posted by XMLicious at 7:17 AM on May 25, 2012 [2 favorites]


Derrick Jensen:
Premise Six: Civilization is not redeemable. This culture will not undergo any sort of voluntary transformation to a sane and sustainable way of living. If we do not put a halt to it, civilization will continue to immiserate the vast majority of humans and to degrade the planet until it (civilization, and probably the planet) collapses.

Premise Ten: The culture as a whole and most of its members are insane. The culture is driven by a death urge, an urge to destroy life.

Premise Seventeen: It is a mistake (or more likely, denial) to base our decisions on whether actions arising from these will or won’t frighten fence-sitters, or the mass of Americans.
posted by Trurl at 7:33 AM on May 25, 2012 [1 favorite]


I almost laughed out loud when I scrolled to the bottom of that list of "premises" and found that it finished up with "Click to purchase Endgame."
posted by XMLicious at 7:39 AM on May 25, 2012


To me it seems that arguing over whether the planet itself will survive is an exercise in sophistry.

But then why would you post a video that plainly represents one side in that argument ("She's our mother, she can be saved")? I suspect what you mean here is "I don't think it's useful or productive for people to mention that the planet isn't going to die", which may actually be true, but I'm not sure you're putting it in very clear terms. I tend to find that sophistry is an accusation levelled at those arguments we know to be correct but don't want to acknowledge or engage with.

My point is not that there is any lack of urgency and importance to saving what we have. But I think there is at least a productive argument to be had about if environmentalism is best served by claims that seem to me both hyperbolic and dependent upon the listener sharing a world-view with the speaker.
posted by howfar at 8:19 AM on May 25, 2012


I'm not trying to argue from a place of morality (though I do think there are serious moral implications to our current "response" to climate change) - I'm trying to argue this from a place of science. The organisms that I study will not do well when there are major changes in the climate that lead to expansion of the Sahel, less predictable rainfall over West Africa, drastic declines in fishing stocks, and people turn to hunting in larger numbers (pdf). When the Diana monkeys disappear, so will other primates who rely on Diana monkeys for protection from predators. When all these primates disappear, trees will lose valuable seed dispersers, predators will lose an important food resource, and the rainforests in Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, and Liberia will start to disappear. The same thing is going to happen to forests relying on primates in South and Central America. When we lose these carbon sinks, things are only going to get more bizarre.

Maybe I should have said "misconception" instead of idea. All life on earth is not going to continue merrily along after us because we are irrevocably changing the planet. It's not going to all be bad, and like I said, these things have happened before. But we are in the middle of a human-caused mass extinction (welcome to the Anthropocene), and things are changing so rapidly that many organisms currently alive will not have adequate time or adequate genetic variation to deal with it. There will be things - lots of things - left on earth. New things will pop up as all of the organisms that go extinct leave open niches.
posted by ChuraChura at 8:32 AM on May 25, 2012 [1 favorite]


Howfar, it's nice that you've now almost made it to the end of the first video.

Perhaps you could finish that one, and then move onto the other articles and videos before continuing to shoot your mouth off about two short phrases used by a young Indian filmmaker who is perhaps more prone to characterizing the earth as mother than your average Welshman might be, and less familiar with standard English than you or I.

In so doing you might realize that the connecting factor between the links presented in my post is the notion that we should honor those who suffered nasty ugly and violent deaths because they got off their arses and did something about their sense "of urgency and importance to saving what we have."

It's an obit thread, mate. Stop shitting in it.
posted by Ahab at 9:25 AM on May 25, 2012 [1 favorite]


How rude. If we're not going to talk about the issues raised by the things you presented, I've no idea why you'd choose to post them here rather than your own blog. Have a pleasant day.
posted by howfar at 9:30 AM on May 25, 2012 [2 favorites]


Yes I will, thank you, howfar. It will involve paying my sea shepherd dues, and then planting forage and habitat flora for three endangered species of black cockatoo, and one locally threatened species of bandicoot. Late though it currently is, and as tired as I will be through the day, the value of the work and the presence of people who share my world view (that we will make it happen no matter what) will no doubt lend a sense of joy and community to both occasions.
posted by Ahab at 9:52 AM on May 25, 2012


Don't forget to recharge your cellphone before you leave in case of emergency.
posted by smidgen at 10:40 AM on May 25, 2012


appeals to our collective better nature.. seem to be achieving very little.

I disagree. Sheesh there is so much good news:

*Wild Hope: On the Front Lines of Conservation Success (2012)

Good news and triumphs are everywhere. There's 10s of thousands of non-profits working every day. Millions of people working on it. The book Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Social Movement in History Is Restoring Grace, Justice, and Beauty to the World is a good place to start to learn more. My god if you all you did was read MeFi you'd think the zombie apocalypse had already happened.
posted by stbalbach at 11:13 AM on May 25, 2012 [1 favorite]


Really enjoyed the video ("enjoyed" is not the right word, but whatever). Thanks for posting it.
posted by broadway bill at 11:35 AM on May 25, 2012


To me it seems that arguing over whether the planet itself will survive is an exercise in sophistry.

I don't see it that way, as the movie frames the point in such anthropomorphic terms.

It's an obit thread, mate. Stop shitting in it.

That seems uncalled for. You don't get to dictate how people react to the stuff you post.

The movie was pretty, and I can swear I've seen it all before, many times. It's fair to critique the movie without shitting on the people it eulogizes.
posted by 2N2222 at 12:52 PM on May 25, 2012


However, the Green movement has too often allowed itself to be defined as placing morality before practicality

I would argue that the Green movement - like any broad-based political movement is heterogenous and large. Further, I would argue that it's a pretty standard neo-liberal critique of the Green movement, to attempt to marginalise and stereotype it to its most extreme/wacky proponents and define the movement from the outside as one placing morality over something so amorphous as "practicality", which - I'm sorry to say as somewhat of a technocrat myself - is generally a codeword for neoliberalisation of one stripe or another masquerading as either "political reality" or "basic economics". In other words, a pretty standard New Labour/Third Way response to the world's ills.

I think (without painting the movement as wholly-problem free or as a white knight) a lot of criticism of Greens/environmentalism comes from a place of confusion and perhaps even anxiety or offense, that there's a group of people with the effrontery to imagine that:

1. Things could be different - often radically so - than how they are today.
2. The actual evidence is quite firmly on the side of a "radical" political/social movement, to the horror of neoliberals prone to dismiss environmentalism as either impractical or needlessly ideological and in stark contrast to the "established facts" or othordoxy, and most crucially
3. That our current, increasingly global, society is one brought about by specific history, actors, and interests, rather than a natural, logical, or particularly optimised evolution.

In this respect, I think one criticism of environmentalism is right: in that it is the true inheritor of Marxist social and political (not economical, cause that was nonsense) thought, rather than the pathetic, vote-grubbing, fact-ignoring, relativistic husks that ostensible labour movements all over the world have been reduced to.

Which is why I am now a very committed Greens voter, and am likely to remain so as long as the facts regarding climate change and environmental damage - far and away the biggest existential threat to humanity - remain glossed over and ignored by other groups that purport to represent what I believe in.

Please don't misunderstand, Howfar; I'm not calling you a neoliberal here (that's a kind of insult we can all do without!), however, I'm saying that particular criticism you raised and how you raised is a textbook neoliberal criticism of environmentalism, in an attempt to marginalise it and paint the movement as some kind of airy-fairy collection of hippies to idealistic and impractical to see the world how it really is, readily supporting by cherry-picking the wackiest loons on hand.

But the reality is the Greens movement is an increasingly broad and mainstream movement, and it is proportionally over-represented by very straight-laced and unhippy-like scientists, bureacrats, public servants, policy writers etc.
posted by smoke at 3:48 PM on May 25, 2012 [3 favorites]


smidgen, don't own a cell phone, but I'll be ten minutes out from a major teaching hospital and the snakes and I are friends. Thanks for your concern, but I reckon I'll be right.

Heh primalux, the link was there, but the post got pulled because of the fundraising element involved in the Thin Green Line Foundation's work. With some rapid edits (replacing a "thin green line foundation" link with the "Sean Wilmore" link and the wikipedia link) by taz, the post went back up. I agree the link to the foundation should be there and I thank you for adding it. Their work simply needs to exist, particularly in relation to supporting the families of rangers killed or wounded in developing countries. Virunga alone has seen something like 160 killed since 1990. In short, we can't expect people in countries mired in poverty to protect (with their lives) that which we in the developed world value unless we're willing to contribute something towards that protection. If that's better education, training, salary supplements, and/or pensions for families of rangers, it's a pretty good start.

2N2222, I'm not trying to do any (or much) dictating here. But yes, I do think I have a right to turn around and bite when someone doesn't watch or read the materials in the post, and then goes on a concern trolling offensive ("perhaps framing the debate.." "environmentalism is best served by") over initially two words (and later two very short phrases) presented in quotation marks, pulled from a youtube description pretty clearly written by someone from a very different cultural background, who speaks a different English to that of the concern troller.

There's an element of RTFA (or at the very least, read the rest of the rest of the post..) in my anger at howfar. There's an element of disgust at what appears to be an almost racist response to that youtube description and (if he or she watched it) the video itself. As already mentioned, English differs between cultures, and how we conceptualize the world differs with it - in this case the fact that the lead video was made in India is obvious from both the description and the video itself. And there's an element of incredulity that someone might feel the right to comment volubly, at length, and in definitive terms about the needs of a movement that I, as well as every author, cinematographer, and subject of the post belongs to, but he or she does not.

As for telling me I'm rude. I'm fine with that. Quite seriously, there is joy and companionship in the work and the fight. When our actions attract state surveillance, censure, legal sanctions, and violence from those who oppose our work (all of which is pretty common here in WA), we try to just get over it, and get on with on it.

Now it really is time to fuck off to the stall and my planting. Oo'roo.
posted by Ahab at 4:29 PM on May 25, 2012


I'm saying that particular criticism you raised and how you raised is a textbook neoliberal criticism of environmentalism, in an attempt to marginalise it and paint the movement as some kind of airy-fairy collection of hippies to idealistic and impractical to see the world how it really is, readily supporting by cherry-picking the wackiest loons on hand.

But the reality is the Greens movement is an increasingly broad and mainstream movement


Yes. That's almost exactly what I'm saying. I'm also saying that discussion about how and if the attempt to do so should be resisted is viable and valuable. Apparently expressing those concerns in one way is worthy of a favourite from Ahab, and expressing them in another way worthy of an accusation of "thread shitting". It reminds me, tragically, of the kind of silencing tactics that drove so many of us out of radical-Left politics. If we can't discuss different perspectives without resorting to name calling, there really isn't much hope for a viable popular movement, is there?
posted by howfar at 10:38 PM on May 25, 2012


the kind of silencing tactics that drove so many of us out of radical-Left politics.

That is something I can totally agree with. It saddens me to when people who agree about 95% of things have these vehement splits because of the remaining 5%.
posted by smoke at 11:54 PM on May 25, 2012


It saddens me to when people who agree about 95% of things have these vehement splits because of the remaining 5%.

It does appear to be one of the common side-effects of basing politics on passion. People motivated by their sense of what is right, rather than what is right for them, seem more likely to form brittle alliances. The traditional "left" is more prone to this, but even the traditional "right", in its more extreme forms, shows examples of the "Splitters!" phenomenon*. The consequences of this general tendency toward disorganisation haven't always been bad in historical terms, I suppose. I've never been a moderate, but sliding into the middle-ground has often allowed for change at an evolutionary pace in some societies, which has led to net good effects within those societies.

However, such limited evolutionary change is increasingly problematic, I would argue, because it seems inherently myopic. Firstly, it is unable to look far beyond the borders of the place in which it occurs, leading to increasing exploitation of the people and resources of the wider world in order to support the "developed" lifestyles of the powerful. Secondly, it is unable, as a political process, to look to the future and observe just how unsustainable those such lifestyles are in the medium to long term.

Perhaps one reason environmentalism, as a movement, has tended to hold together better than traditional radical politics is precisely because it has been inherently practical as well as ideological. Concrete goals can be recognised as positive by the vast majority of people involved with or sympathetic to the cause. It has perhaps not been as necessary to place emphasis on doctrine as a basis for action. The problem is that we're entering a situation where, without significant policy changes on the governmental and international levels, the value of nearly all the victories won will be severely limited by the impact of climate change. Discussion of the politics of environmentalism seems likely to become more central and significant as time goes on. I can only hope that the failure of communication Ahab and I have managed here is just our own fault, rather than an example of anything more significant and depressing.

On a personal note. The accusation of "concern trolling" seems misplaced. A concern troll is one who opposes a position and disingenuously expresses concerns about it in order to undermine it. I am, like Smoke, a Green voter and supporter and, while I will likely never describe myself as "committed" to a political party ever again, I can't see any realistic prospect of shifting my support in the foreseeable future. This may not qualify me for membership of any Green movement, but it is sufficient to satisfy me, at least, that I'm not indulging in concern trolling.

I find the insinuation of racism simply unworthy of public comment.

*Although this is complicated and compounded by the Highlander "there can be only one" phenomenon that besets parties half of whose membership envisage themselves as future dictators.
posted by howfar at 3:55 AM on May 26, 2012


And yet you find it worthy of memail demanding that I explain privately. You may not want to discuss it publicly. But given the tone of that memail, I'll elucidate upon what I've said right here, thanks.

Racism.

This was a post quite explicitly dedicated to memorializing the deaths of those who died protecting natural ecosystems and wildlife. In the first paragraph, at the end of the first (video) link, four of the six individuals mentioned are of non-European ethnicity. Two are Indian. The film maker has an Indian name and this is given in the post. The foundation behind the video link is Indian. That foundation is named Sanctuary Asia.

The second paragraph is focused on the work and death of Chut Wutty, a Cambodian forest and wildlife activist. Explicit in the content of the links is the fact that his work (like that of Chico Mendes or Ken Sarowiwa) involved attempting to protect the rights of minority and indigenous ethnic groups within the forests they have always depended on. He was killed for photographing illegal logging operations and (seemingly) the processing of methamphetamine via the use of "yellow vine".

The third paragraph is focused on the work of an Australian wildlife ranger and documentary film maker who made a successful film, and then used the proceeds to launch a foundation to support the work of wildlife rangers in conflict zones, and the families of (overwhelmingly African and Asian) wildlife rangers killed or severely injured in the line of duty. The foundation is mentioned in the video link, on the wikipedia page, and in one of my comments. The foundation is directly linked to in the thread by primalux.

Into that context you jumped and in a series of increasing disingenuous and aggressive comments focused primarily on two phrases.

One of those - in many variations - is very common in Indian languages and cultures, eg.s "Mother Earth", "Great Mother", "Mother Life", or even just "Divine Mother" used with reference to the earth.

You may not have known that, and that's fine. But I find it impossible to believe that you missed the Indian names involved and the background of Sanctuary Asia. The only way you might have achieved that spectacular failure would have been through not even reading the first paragraph of the post beyond the words "Mother Earth", and through not watching or reading the links contained in that first paragraph. So (just in case) I pointed out the context of that phrase. Directly. To you. In the thread.

It made no difference to your choice to continue with your offensive against those words, and your increasingly strident demands that I and others engage with you in a discussion not about the deaths of non-European wildlife activists and rangers (ie the clear and obvious topic of the post, from the first paragraph to the last), but about your vision of how the internal politics of the environment movement should work.

And frankly that smacks of racism to me. You claim to be a green voter, and yet relatively conventional (and culturally appropriate) phrasing by non-European environmentalists is much more significant and offensive to you (and worth fighting harder over) than their lives and deaths.

Concern Trolling

With respect to concern trolling, lets look at each of your comments..

Your first comment in this thread expresses concern about "reckless vandalism" etc., and then states how little is being achieved through current strategies and tactics. It suggests instead we appeal to people's greed. Even though that too will be useless.

Your second comment moves from an attack on another phrase you seem to hate; through an attack on (a tiny portion) of one of the most intelligent, articulate, and on topic comments in this thread; moves back to the suggestion that you are of course deeply concerned; then once again attacks the movement as a whole. Final paragraph in that comment - more concern, but then a characterization of the movement as "a bunch of holy minded yoghurt knitters" and an attack on the video that led the post.

Third comment. Attack on me calling you out for the sophistry involved in focusing so heavily on the phrasing of tiny portions of the post rather than discussing its content, an appeal to your own wisdom in these matters, more concern that "there's an urgency and importance to saving what we have", but then another attack on environmentalist strategies and tactics.

Fourth comment. "If we're not going to talk about the issues raised by the things you presented, I've no idea why you'd choose to post them here rather than your own blog." (Gotta say I almost laughed out loud at the unconscious irony in that one, mate. Read the bit under "Racism" above if you don't get what I'm saying there.)

Fifth comment. Attack on me for calling you out on with regard to some of this nonsense, insistence that you're agreeing with Smoke's eminently reasonable perspective, but then a rhetorical question "there really isn't much hope for a viable popular movement, is there?"

Sixth comment. Just dripping with heartfelt concern. But then - "A concern troll is one who opposes a position and disingenuously expresses concerns about it in order to undermine it."

So.. you're not doing it well, but yes, you are distinctly swinging between disingenuous concern, and attacks upon (or sometimes slightly less aggressive attempts to undermine) environmentalist approaches in general. You are also attacking or undermining many of the more knowledgeable and credible commenters here.

And.. seriously? That's your definition there. It's pretty close to mine too. So I can't see what you're doing here as anything but concern trolling.

I'll leave you with this. If you're so convinced that it's all going to end horribly, if you don't believe it's worth organizing and working and fighting for a better outcome, if you're not willing to put something serious on the table in pursuit of that better tomorrow, and if you can't be bothered doing anything about it other than saying you're green (or voting green or whatever it is you claim to do), but you don't believe that's going to do any good, then why bother at all?

Why bother at all, howfar?
posted by Ahab at 11:57 AM on May 29, 2012


I've tried to re-read everything and unless I'm missing something, howfar refusing to accept or being critical of anthropomorphizing the Earth, no matter how traditional in Indian culture it is, and wanting to engage in discussion of particular points does not seem to me a valid basis for an accusation of racism.

Like, in Russian the word for "semen" and the word for "family" (семя and семья) are essentially the same, but I don't think I'd be expressing racism by criticizing this as an aspect of institutionalized patriarchy even though it's something inherent to the culture. (I mean, I might be totally wrong about that hypothesis as I'm not a linguist, have only the barest comprehension of Russian, and I'm not a scholar of Feminist Theory or Anthropology or whatever disciplines would apply, but I don't think that making the argument would be racist.)

But on the overall topic of the thread, it's a nice, beautiful video and the people it honors are worthy of honor, independent of all the political and social sentiments that might be disputed.
posted by XMLicious at 5:00 PM on May 29, 2012


BTW, pertinent thread from last year.
posted by XMLicious at 5:09 PM on May 29, 2012


Ahab, so your basic point is that my means of expression are uncongenial to you, because I like to make jokes and employ black humour. You consistently mischaracterise interested disagreement as "attacks".

You suggest, disingenuously, that you "called me out" for sophistry relating to my reading of the thread, when your actual claim of sophistry was about the initial point I made.

You claim, again disingenuously, that I'm cherry picking a few words from an Indian person, when what we're actually talking about is the words you chose to frame the post.

You use accusations of racism, concern trolling and sophistry to attempt to belittle and silence.

Stop being a whiner. Stop being a cry-baby. Get used to the fact that not everyone who expresses different opinions to you is a big bad meanie who wants to spoil that you see as your thread. You've grown increasingly offensive and tedious at the mildest provocation, and you're making yourself look very silly.
posted by howfar at 5:06 AM on May 30, 2012


Oh, and I was in a rush but this is just too funny.

'then a rhetorical question "there really isn't much hope for a viable popular movement, is there?"'

That's your representation of what I said...

What I said was, "If we can't discuss different perspectives without resorting to name calling, there really isn't much hope for a viable popular movement, is there?"

Jesus, that's some hilariously childish debating tactics right there, mate.

Do you think that I don't remember what I wrote, or that people reading your wildly self-serving analysis can't scroll up and take a look? It shows a lack of respect for everyone. Your massive self-regard is obscuring your view of reality.
posted by howfar at 5:57 AM on May 30, 2012


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