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kimberlysteeleFor many, nature has become Star Trek’s holodeck. Nature is an experience in a buffet placed before the modernite: just one more item in the array of choices in the “you only live once” mindset. In Kim Stanley Robinson’s sci fi novel Aurora, the denizens of a spaceship bound for a distant planet only enjoy their home planet via a holodeck simulation: there is something infinitely sad about contemplating their fate, and I pity those who would try to replicate it in my lifetime by marooning themselves on Mars. The attitude of a person who does not understand what they are missing by becoming a space colonist is one that I recognize from my own childhood. When I was growing up and throughout most of my adult life, I didn’t talk to any of the entities in my house, the tree spirits outside, or my car on purpose. Instead, it would accidentally happen in the form of talking to myself, which when stressed I did compulsively.
For my atheist contemporaries (this includes the Faithful-In-Name-Only Christians, Hindus, Muslims, and Jews), the wealthier they are, the more they tend to go the way of full-throttle materialism. When they are not inside their coastal, urban, climate-controlled townhomes or houses, they are in a fully-insured, dealership-detailed car on their way to another luxe, indoor space where they can consume to their heart’s content. Many of them have an intellectual admiration of the homespun arts but if they engage in anything so base, it is to showcase on a blog or on social media. Sustainability is a gesture and a virtue signal: it is done for show, not because one worries about a present or a future where there isn’t enough money. My atheist contemporaries hire it done. Lawn mowing, repairs, plumbing, and oftentimes, cooking is avoided in favor of hiring a team of professionals.
To the materialist atheist, wild spaces are museums to be preserved as a bulwark against human stupidity. When the materialist atheist has a tiny, momentary connection with wildness, it immediately churns the mud of cognitive dissonance. If they tune into the wild “frequency”, the resulting resonance ignites the outrage they have been trained all their lives to feel about wildness being destroyed by stupid humans. Anyone who has ever watched reruns of Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom is familiar with the plaintive mantra: “But time is running out for the poor black-footed ferret. His habitat is encroached upon by greedy poachers and water pollution…” As with any nag, the sensible child learns to tune out the whining, hypocritical, chastising parent. The fleeting moment of connection with nature becomes unpleasant because as modern materialists, we cannot live up to the ideal of leaving the Wild Kingdom untouched and pristine. As the atheist ages, the painful connections to Nature (which is doomed) become suppressed and buried. They become crystallized under layers that form a great ball of hate. This hatred cannot be rationally dealt with in the conscious mind. The black pearl rooted in the gut is utterly occulted. For a special subset of materialists — the childfree, vegan atheists — its dispatches bubble to the surface as a passionate hatred of all those who ruin “Nature”. There is an undeniable reality that nothing creates more pollution or displaces more wildlife than the creation of more human children, especially if those children are upper middle class First Worlders.
The atheist has a hard time touching the emotion of a sunset or the joy of emerging chartreuse leaves in springtime because contact threatens to release the anger underneath the fear it is all going away. There are several bandaids that get slapped over the teeming cauldron and misunderstanding of the glacial cycles in which we are mere participants: one is Progress, the idea that there are new unspoiled wildernesses waiting to be spoiled in deep space. Another is the rallying cry of “Somebody’s got to do something!” This bleating is most popular among the Extinction Rebellion crowd, who buy into the popular delusion that civilization is going to end within the next decade. Childfree vegan atheists conveniently blame the entire species extinction predicament on the unexamined choices of “breeders” and throw up their hands because there is no stopping them. They do have a point: medical techno-triumphalism is responsible for extending human life far beyond its past due date, and it is easy to make a moral lesson out of the hideous depravity of keeping a severely deformed baby alive into young childhood “because we love her”.
It hurts to connect with the fleeting beauty you are certain is going to be Apocalypsed in a few short years. Duncan Creary, who produced James Howard Kunstler’s podcast for a time, spoke eloquently about the anxiety he felt whenever he saw a small patch of wild space in the suburbs where he grew up. Like me, he knew it and all its fauna would soon be razed for the next phase of “development”.
Of course atheists are still drawn to wild spaces, where they plan picnics, outdoor weddings, or hiking. The upper middle class version of a hike involves jet travel to international locales such as Macchu Picchu or the Tibetan Plateau, because that enables them to indulge their exotic fetishism while showing off how much money they have. What they don’t do is talk to the trees, the buildings, the furniture, or the vehicles they travel in because that would mean they are crazy. When they force themselves into the wilderness museum in the form of a nature preserve, they take every measure to shut down their senses lest their connection with those spaces tear at their heartstrings. To blunt their antennae, they try not to go into the forest preserve alone (wouldn’t want to allow the trees or the wind to get an uninterrupted message in there!), they wear sunglasses, listen to music through headphones, whiz through quickly on their bikes, or drink heavily/get stoned.
I remember what this condition was like. There is no one remedy for it, though discursive meditation would be a hell of a good start; discursive meditation and being willing to talk to your toaster oven, who after all does work very hard on your behalf.
For my atheist contemporaries (this includes the Faithful-In-Name-Only Christians, Hindus, Muslims, and Jews), the wealthier they are, the more they tend to go the way of full-throttle materialism. When they are not inside their coastal, urban, climate-controlled townhomes or houses, they are in a fully-insured, dealership-detailed car on their way to another luxe, indoor space where they can consume to their heart’s content. Many of them have an intellectual admiration of the homespun arts but if they engage in anything so base, it is to showcase on a blog or on social media. Sustainability is a gesture and a virtue signal: it is done for show, not because one worries about a present or a future where there isn’t enough money. My atheist contemporaries hire it done. Lawn mowing, repairs, plumbing, and oftentimes, cooking is avoided in favor of hiring a team of professionals.
To the materialist atheist, wild spaces are museums to be preserved as a bulwark against human stupidity. When the materialist atheist has a tiny, momentary connection with wildness, it immediately churns the mud of cognitive dissonance. If they tune into the wild “frequency”, the resulting resonance ignites the outrage they have been trained all their lives to feel about wildness being destroyed by stupid humans. Anyone who has ever watched reruns of Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom is familiar with the plaintive mantra: “But time is running out for the poor black-footed ferret. His habitat is encroached upon by greedy poachers and water pollution…” As with any nag, the sensible child learns to tune out the whining, hypocritical, chastising parent. The fleeting moment of connection with nature becomes unpleasant because as modern materialists, we cannot live up to the ideal of leaving the Wild Kingdom untouched and pristine. As the atheist ages, the painful connections to Nature (which is doomed) become suppressed and buried. They become crystallized under layers that form a great ball of hate. This hatred cannot be rationally dealt with in the conscious mind. The black pearl rooted in the gut is utterly occulted. For a special subset of materialists — the childfree, vegan atheists — its dispatches bubble to the surface as a passionate hatred of all those who ruin “Nature”. There is an undeniable reality that nothing creates more pollution or displaces more wildlife than the creation of more human children, especially if those children are upper middle class First Worlders.
The atheist has a hard time touching the emotion of a sunset or the joy of emerging chartreuse leaves in springtime because contact threatens to release the anger underneath the fear it is all going away. There are several bandaids that get slapped over the teeming cauldron and misunderstanding of the glacial cycles in which we are mere participants: one is Progress, the idea that there are new unspoiled wildernesses waiting to be spoiled in deep space. Another is the rallying cry of “Somebody’s got to do something!” This bleating is most popular among the Extinction Rebellion crowd, who buy into the popular delusion that civilization is going to end within the next decade. Childfree vegan atheists conveniently blame the entire species extinction predicament on the unexamined choices of “breeders” and throw up their hands because there is no stopping them. They do have a point: medical techno-triumphalism is responsible for extending human life far beyond its past due date, and it is easy to make a moral lesson out of the hideous depravity of keeping a severely deformed baby alive into young childhood “because we love her”.
It hurts to connect with the fleeting beauty you are certain is going to be Apocalypsed in a few short years. Duncan Creary, who produced James Howard Kunstler’s podcast for a time, spoke eloquently about the anxiety he felt whenever he saw a small patch of wild space in the suburbs where he grew up. Like me, he knew it and all its fauna would soon be razed for the next phase of “development”.
Of course atheists are still drawn to wild spaces, where they plan picnics, outdoor weddings, or hiking. The upper middle class version of a hike involves jet travel to international locales such as Macchu Picchu or the Tibetan Plateau, because that enables them to indulge their exotic fetishism while showing off how much money they have. What they don’t do is talk to the trees, the buildings, the furniture, or the vehicles they travel in because that would mean they are crazy. When they force themselves into the wilderness museum in the form of a nature preserve, they take every measure to shut down their senses lest their connection with those spaces tear at their heartstrings. To blunt their antennae, they try not to go into the forest preserve alone (wouldn’t want to allow the trees or the wind to get an uninterrupted message in there!), they wear sunglasses, listen to music through headphones, whiz through quickly on their bikes, or drink heavily/get stoned.
I remember what this condition was like. There is no one remedy for it, though discursive meditation would be a hell of a good start; discursive meditation and being willing to talk to your toaster oven, who after all does work very hard on your behalf.
Re: Nature's audience
Date: 2021-05-14 04:03 am (UTC)Alright, but that's pretty much my point. Nature just IS, lacking in any real meaning or purpose, and I'm not complaining about that. But things like suburban sprawl, slash-and-burn agriculture, extermination of bison, etc, also just "ARE".
And I don't complain about those things either, because nature is of very little objective value to me. If we're going to be honest, most of the supposed value of nature is subjective, and based on superficial things that are pleasant to us, like visual aesthetics, the smell of a forest after thunderstorm, the way the whole system seems to thrive and organize under its own chaos, and for a few, the sight of a lioness killing a wildebeest.
But that isn't really connecting with nature or loving it (for itself). It's just spectating and self-medication. What we connect with here, and love, is ourselves.
We love ourselves, but do not truly love nature, because we spend the vast majority of our time doing things that distance ourselves from its painful aspects. I noticed nobody ever sought to get a good night's by sleeping outdoors in -20 degree weather, or getting harrassed by botflies or mosquitoes. Instead they prefer to sleep under more controlled conditions with a loved one. All we can do is love and connect with ourselves.
Re: Nature's audience
Date: 2021-05-14 04:22 am (UTC)When we cut to the chase, the kind of atheism you display here is for intellectually lazy ingrates. Lazy because the approach employs any number of thoughtstoppers like the narcissistic garbage of "What we connect with here, and love, is ourselves". I have no doubt you are in love with yourself!
The karma of ingratitude, which is the Way of this sort of atheism, is to get what you give. You hate nature with all its multitudinous, occulted reasons and processes and you think it and its animals are stupid. You have said as much. You are the caveman who throws a frustrated tantrum upon hearing the other caveman producing music with sticks and their voices. You hate complexity you aren't willing to attempt to understand. You prefer to admire yourself in the mirror. In return, anything you do that someone dumber than you fails to understand will be received with the same vanity, anger, obtuse misunderstanding, and violence. You will continue to be battered with these lessons until you choose to learn them, and the Universe does not care how many incarnations you take to learn. Good luck!
Re: Nature's audience
Date: 2021-05-14 07:26 pm (UTC)Atheism is a life philosophy. As such, it can be lived under responsibly, or... less so. In my view, the highest and best expression of atheism is to "see with eyes unclouded". That means being able to pull aside all the human layers of assumption that we all gather around us unavoidably, as part of living with a human brain, and observing what **is**. I believe that you believe that you are doing this already. But - there's a Part 2.
As in, *why* does it matter to be able to "see with eyes unclouded"? For what purpose? I think that atheism is pretty clear about this as well - in order that one may analyze the world more completely and comprehensively, in order to solve specific problems of existence. So here's my question to you. What problem are you solving, with your observation that - if you allow me to paraphrase - "Nature sucks and we shouldn't care about it, we should shrug our shoulders and just destroy it as fast as we can, that's the better way to live"? You suggest that doing this will improve our personal lives somehow. Uh... really? Could you, uh. Defend that in a court of law? Or with a straight face, in person, to just about any other human being?
Again, as one atheist to another: I don't think you've thought about this as deeply or as *logically* as you think you have. Let me propose a counter-argument.
I, as a human being, enjoy eating food. This is because without food, I will starve to death over the course of about a month to six weeks, with indescribable suffering in the process, and if the phenomenon of foodlessness is wide-spread, will likely be either the perpetrator or the victim of cannibalism during that time. Or maybe both. For reasons I hope I don't have to go into detail on, I'd strongly prefer not to experience this.
I have worked logically through all the other aspects of my life and have determined that none of them - absolutely none of them - are more important, for the enjoyable continuation of my own life, than continuous access to nutritive food.
Where does my food come from? Currently, it comes roughly 40% from a grocery store shelf and 50% from a local farmer's market. The remaining 10% comes from a restaurant or fast food setting and I can go without it (and could lose a few pounds in doing so, so no big deal).
The 40% from the grocery store relies not only on just-in-time fossil-fuel-intensive shipments from trucks and ships and planes, but is heavily based on industrial agriculture. I encourage you to read up on its practices, particularly the uses and effects of glyphosate. Needless to say industrial agriculture does not respect Nature in the slightest - the glyphosate spraying which has increased dramatically in recent years has led to immense insect die-offs, noticeable even by the common person who lives in nearby suburbs. Less mosquitos and mayflies - it's great, right? Progress, right??! But the bees which pollinate the local fruit trees have died off in the same numbers... and this isn't even touching the reverberations of taking out the entire bottom of the food chain. First birds, then frogs, then small mammals, then large mammals... sure hope all that industrial agriculture is indefinitely sustainable! Our brash disrespect of the natural world and its ways is all but determined to leave us few alternatives, should it ever fail us...
The 50% which comes from the farmer's market is a bit different. All of it is grown at a distance from me which could be bridged in a day by a horse and wagon, should the oil ever be inconveniently unavailable. The organic methods the farmers use are focused around stewardship of their land - low or no usage of fossil fuels, and the same living ground can be used year after year to grow a huge variety of products. Many farmers also keep livestock, or live next to farmers that do, and use that as their fertilizer. On top of that, it contains vastly more nutrients than the grocery store food, and tastes SO much better...! But the most important aspect is that, almost no matter what happens in our world, the farms will still be able to produce food for the forseeable future. Also, their existence is not aggressively killing off the world around them. I consider them an example of respecting Nature - not sentimentalizing it, not trying to keep it trapped under amber, but being conscious of it and doing their best to work with, rather than against, it. In short, working wisely with Reality and its constraints. And it is not merely pleasurable, but my **absolute duty**, to support them within our current financial system as much as I possibly can, to ensure that they remain and hopefully expand their operations.
The only thing keeping me from going 100% at the farmer's market is cost - they are still considered a "luxury" option by our culture - and also, a learning curve. From 2015 - 2020 I ate almost every single meal at a restaurant. This year, I decided to act upon my own logical observations, and change the way I personally live. Since January my family and I have been moving slowly, but inexorably, towards a way of life which might actually protect us from the starvation I would prefer we not experience. I have learned how to cook, and how to stock a pantry, and am planning to learn how to preserve food too.(I have also planted my first garden this year, which is going well, but harvest is not for another few months, and there is quite a learning curve there as well.) We live with family, and are strict with our finances (lots of Goodwill and library books!) in order to afford this lifestyle. I am actively looking about for a community that shares my values, and which can help protect us against those that do not. This isn't always pleasurable... but it is deeply, deeply meaningful.
I am doing all this, I believe, because I DO respect Nature. I respect its ways red in tooth and claw. I respect that I am not separate, that I am not special. That God will not save me from myself. That I very well might both kill and be killed in my day. That if I do not judiciously use the full faculties of my human intelligence which I have been granted by my DNA, that my children have little chance of surviving Nature's tests. And that no matter my emotional opinion on that, it is simply The Way That It Is. There is no time to whine - no time to lament - no time for sentiment. There is only a great Filter, looming closer to us every single day.
And therefore it seems to me, that in my pursuit of the extremely logical goal of me and my family's long-term survival, that the most important thing I can possibly do is to keep ahold of my own emotional control. We must move, as quickly as is reasonably possible, towards a way of life that we can sustain in the face of what may come. We must work with others - that means getting along with others. We must gain skills that our abstracted modern upbringings did not teach us (my father just told me that my lettuce is dying because I didn't heap up the earth around it to properly retain the water I am pouring on it. The more you know!). We must make smart choices while we still have the resources to make them. And we must do it step by step, with a heart which is at peace, and a mind which is not at war with itself, or we will make no progress at all, until it is too late.
So therefore, I'll repeat to you: Please, meditate on all this, and try to locate the source of your own emotion. I sense in your words that you are stuck. You are aware, on some level, that the life you live is a steaming pile of [retracted for Kimberly's blog], but you cannot see any way to escape it. Your mind cannot conceive of one. So you are trying as hard as you can to accept it. But your own heart - dare I say your soul - cannot bear it. You cannot bear that you live in a time and a society where everything beautiful and meaningful and reliable is being taken away from you. So you cling to the idea that "comfort" and "loving oneself" can somehow make up for their tremendous loss. But it can't - it can't. It can only numb you to the pain for a while... and not even do that very well.
I'll tell you one last thing. I am the only atheist I have ever met who has been able to face the inevitability of death calmly. At first this was a sop to my pride; then it was rather interesting; finally, it became deeply concerning to me. I read up on the statistics and realized that unless instructed otherwise at gunpoint, the vast majority of human beings have always practiced some form of religion or spirituality. I realized, in short, that spirituality is Nature. My atheism was the oddity - the thing that was just useful enough to express in a small percentage of the population (a similar example is reproduction by rape), but which can never be a majority, because outside of that narrow expression, it does not increase human flourishing. And in the midst of the incredible mess that was 2020, I finally understood why on a personal level. When suffering is happening to you, it is not enough to say "Hmm. I see that I am suffering. How interesting!" Your very soul will be dismantled, because this phrase cannot engage or manage your emotions, and they will destroy you from the inside. Most people find true emotional relief only in meaning, and for humans the well of meaning springs from spiritual practice. Only there, will most people find the calm that they need to carry on, and to face the challenges of their age with dignity.
This next part will not make sense to you, so take it as a separate comment, but in the isolation and darkness of late 2020, I remembered that I had done a lot of spiritual work before... in my previous life. I have been constantly using the techniques I learned then, unconsciously, to keep myself calm and productive in the face of all the challenges I have faced thus far. Atheism has been my way of side-stepping toxic spirituality, which is certainly the majority of what is practiced nowadays! This realization, though **deeply** weird, made every part of my life fall perfectly into place. I am now picking back up the regular spiritual practices I once did - and yes, it is exactly like I am re-reading, refreshing my memory, though I never once before came across the texts I am referencing in this life. I do not call on gods or spirits - I stick to my close observations of Nature, and refer to the elements in their place - so technically, I am as much an atheist as I ever was. But I understand now that there is more to life than what our five senses can prove. I will probably have many more decades to live on Earth, and I must figure out how to most correctly use them, and to use correctly the boons my soul has gathered up for itself as well. Out of that duty, I must tell you - and in time, all the other atheists I am acquainted with as well - that unthinking atheism is a mistake. It will not bring you happiness. It will not save what you love. And it will not protect you from Nature.
Whether you take my point or not, I hope that you will at least take time to think deeply about your own relationship to Nature, and use logic to get to the bottom of what truly **matters** to you. And that you will consider shopping at your local farmer's market once in a while, finances depending. All upside, no downside... meditate on it!
Re: Nature's audience
Date: 2021-05-16 07:40 pm (UTC)Re: Nature's audience
Date: 2021-05-16 08:37 pm (UTC)Re: Nature's audience
Date: 2021-05-18 05:10 pm (UTC)