Home on the range

 

Picture from _{http://www.wildnatureimages.com/Buffalo%203%20YNP.htm}

A unique symbol of the American West, the buffalo, has appeared on money, paintings, in stories and legend as the United States expanded west.  From a range that once covered most the US, today’s buffalo graze in limited numbers in isolated sections, protected by conservationists that do not want them totally disappear.  A small group roams freely in Yellowstone National Park across the states of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho; however, once they cross outside the park boundaries they are targeted as a danger to local livestock. 

Wintertime can be dangerous for the buffalo.  In an online article by Suzanne Goldenberg, the U.S. environmental correspondent for the English paper the Guardian, she notes that buffalo that leave the park can be killed.  This year almost 400 buffalo have been captured as they went out of the park in search of food.  In 2008, 1600 were captured and killed because they would not stay in the park.  Ranchers fear that the herd carries brucellosis, a disease known to causes cows to abort their calves. http://gu.com/p/2mqye  A portion of the herd is known to carry the disease but so are the local elk.  Since no proven case of transmission of brucellosis from buffalo to cattle has occurred, it is only fear that it might that is leading to the death of wandering buffalo.  Killing the buffalo that leave the park borders would seem to be the ultimate example of radical exclusion.  In the mechanistic worldview of local ranchers, the cow is seen as the more valuable replacement cog over the buffalo.  The potential threat of brucellosis is eliminated by killing the wanderers in spite of the lack of a scientific basis.

Aldo Leopold in Ecocentrism:The Land Ethic, (141) identified a need to recognize that animals as part of a land ethic “affirm their right to continued existence, and at least in spots, their continued existence in a natural state.”  The buffalo have been in Yellowstone for thousands of years.  Leopold identified that anthropocentrism was not good for long term survival of the land.  I think that the buffalo in Yellowstone Park should not be shot but be tagged, tracked and allowed to roam on government lands.  Much of the land in the west is government land shared for a variety of uses including cattle grazing.  The buffalo should be free to roam like the elk and deer.  If there is an outbreak of brucellosis that occurs that can be tracked back to the buffalo that is the time to look at other methods of buffalo management.

Historically the economic benefit of the buffalo has diminished over time leading to their decline in numbers.  Once a critical source of food, tools, and shelter for the Indians then a source for meat, hides and robes for the settlers it is now a potential alternative source of low fat meat for consumers willing to pay a premium price.  The west has long been known as a cattleman’s land, a hegemony that protects the cow and may lead to the death of any animal that might be seen as a threat.  A change in ethics may be required before more people agree that the continued existence of the buffalo has intrinsic value and is important for their own sake not just because we want them around to eat them. Then maybe the buffalo of Yellowstone will be free to roam the back country of the west.  Perhaps a campaign as a symbol of the west, a reminder of self-sufficiency and freedom would help in their survival.

Facts about the Buffalo in Yellowstone

http://www.nps.gov/yell/naturescience/bisonqa.htm

Guardian article

http://gu.com/p/2mqye

Buffalo pictures

_{http://www.wildnatureimages.com/Buffalo%203%20YNP.htm}

“Outsmarting” Mother Nature

one thing i have already learned from this class that i already did not know, or rather notice, is the fact that we all refer to nature as feminine.  Nature is called “Mother Nature”, we giver her this respectful name of mother, yet we disrespect nature so much by destroying it and trampling all over it.  another way we disrespect it is by referring to her as dumb or unintelligent like its something to “beat” or conquer like its a game.

In this video clip we can see examples of all this.  This is a commercial from the tampon company Tampax from their line of tampons, Tampax Pearl.  They have recently started a series of television commercials called “Outsmart Mother Nature”.  They claim their tampons, when applied, allow the woman to be able to continue along with her normal busy and demanding life.  It is understood that when a woman is on her monthly period she is unable to do certain things or wear certain outfits, due to the hygiene products used.  But when using Tampax’s Pearl, the woman fools mother nature and does not let her slow down her life.

In this one fourty six second video we can tell that Tampax tries to make mother nature look boring, obnoxious, and proud of her “monthly gift”.  we also see that as soon at mother nature gets there and talks to the woman, that the man suddenly looks as if he looses intrest in her, but she pushes him down and tells mother nature that she has a Pearl, referring to the product.  Mother nature takes offense and is now “outsmarted”.  We make this commercial as a way to show humans that we have beaten her, that we are on top.  An example is when the woman first says “i have a peral” mother nature claims she made them, and the woman says “not this one”.  making it look like we are better than mother nature and that we created things she did not.

we as humans may occupy the world and think it belongs to us, but mother nature still has us in check, whether we think it or not.

-nicholas petrey

The Circle of Life.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Po_jA5jE_X0

Metaphors and dualisms make up every aspect of our lives, whether we realize it or not. Much of the time we don’t recognize when they are in use though, because we have become so used to their presence in our everyday lives that they are merely just a part of the norm. However, they are still there and still influence our actions, thinking, and reasoning every day working as a conceptual system. One primary example is “The Lion Metaphor.” A naturalistic fallacy would say our society tells us not to act like animals, yet we selectively appeal to certain animal behaviors to legitimate our own values. In this case, humans have compared themselves to lions using ideas such as “killing animals for food is a necessary part of human life no different than a lion”.

In The Lion King, Mufasa leads Simba in a pouncing lesson. He states beforehand how the Circle of Life allows antelope to eat grass, and lions to eat antelope…because “our bodies become the grass, and the antelope eat the grass…so we all become a part of the circle of life.” Humans use these same ideas to kill and eat animals, believing that it’s a part of the circle of life and crucial for our survival. Peterson says “Recognition of the huge range of ways that diverse individuals and cultures understand, value, and live in nature can help us view our own culture’s attitudes and practices in a critical light, showing us that what we see as “inevitable” or indeed “natural” may in fact be humanly constructed, changeable, even arbitrary”(341). We have come up with these ideas on our own, full heartedly believing that everything is “natural” and it’s just the “way of life”. It is time the human race stops trying to find excuses to cover up the way we work and hiding behind so called “truths”. Metaphors and dualisms have become less of something we use to better explain situations, and more of something we use to justify our actions as to give them a positive light. As Nietzche pointed at…what the society counts as “truth” is nothing but an exercise of power over humans and Nature.

-Elisabeth McClain

Feminism Misrepresented

One of the main queries people have about feminism today is where it all went wrong. My answer: It didn’t, and the movement has held up surprisingly well after being subjected to a 200-year smear campaign.

Photo: http://femlegaltheory.blogspot.com/

The first wave of the feminist movement gained momentum in the late nineteenth century with the goal of granting women the right to vote. The beginning of Women’s suffrage also saw the beginnings of the Antifeminist movement, which focused on feminism as the scapegoat for a number of social issues including, but not limited to: divorce rates, crime and homosexuality.  

Antifeminism has flourished in the Internet Age, as sites like jesus-is-savior.com and ladiesagainstfeminism.com attempt to redefine feminism as a coordinated attempt by women to undermine the family unit and defy their Biblical designations.

The attack on feminism employs the most extreme form of dualism, second only to the abortion debate.  Today we are unable to regard feminism without wondering whether it’s simply an outlet for the hatred of men.

Ladiesagainstfeminism.com states that they are antifeminist because they, “love femininity and are delighted to share the beauties of the womanly virtues with women all over the world.” This dualism implies that feminism is not only about male oppression, but about the rejection of the feminine. How has a political movement aimed at promoting equality become so misrepresented?

The article “Feminism is Evil! on jesus-is-savior.com attempts to equate feminism with heathenism by claiming that “it is IMPOSSIBLE for a wife to obey God if she doesn’t obey her husband, because God commands every wife to obey her husband.” This statement presents the subjectivity of women to men as the natural hierarchy. The same article then goes on to say that, “This is not to say that women are inferior to men, they certainly are not. Jesus said that His Father was “greater” than He (John 14:28); yet this did NOT make Jesus inferior in any way.”

A quote by Marilyn Frye as cited in Val Plumwood’s Feminism and the Mastery of Nature:

“For efficient subordination, what’s wanted is that the structure not only not appear to be a cultural artifact kept in place by human decision or custom, but that it appear natural, that it appear to be a quite direct consequence of the facts about the beast which are beyond the scope of human manipulation or revision.” (41)

Jesus-is-savior.com turns to that which is “beyond the scope of human manipulation or revision” in an attempt to justify (or avoid justifying) its outdated opinions.

http://www.ladiesagainstfeminism.com/

http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Evils%20in%20America/Feminism/feminism_is_evil.htm (some offensive imagery)