The Ecological Crisis - Research Paper Example

o The Ecological Crisis Archeological speculation has proven the early Man’s deep connection with nature. The environment has been and still remains a central means of sustenance for mankind. Humanity’s dwelling on Earth is sourced by the natural cycles of the world. Indigenous cultures have understood the importance of a stable ecology more fully in comparison to other Western cultures (Abram, 94). . Where various Western cultures mistook the wild regions of the Americas as waste regions, the truth was that these lands had been inhabited for thousands of years in harmony with the natural system of ecology. The people hunted animals, fished, herded cattle, and grew food. Hence, nature enabled Man’s survival. Modern years have witnessed an increasingly great divide between nature and mankind in part due to a rational development of language that seems to have made its indigenous roots indistinguishable. So the transformation in our relationship with nature throughout history is marked by a development in newer modes of communication and expression. As mankind made its progress towards civilization, he distanced himself from his primitive roots that sought everything from nature. And they developed language so much to erase its historical roots in the natural context. Hence, although language traces its origination from animism, it cannot be returned to its original form because human developments over the years have contributed to changes that cannot be reverted back to basic pictorial communication. Philosophers have sought to explain the downfall of nature and the human being’s alienation of ecological world around us. Starting from Greek thinkers till the present times, philosophers have attempted to find the reasons for Man’s isolation is his links with nature. It is thought that Man’s changing ideas regarding the world including his emphasis on non-sensorial realm resulted in society’s mistrust of sensory experience thus increasing the distance between Man and nature. The gap between Man and nature is considered to have caused by the mental landscape and context that was created by civilizations in order to harbor the separation of Man from nature. Two of the oldest civilizations that led towards separation are the Hebrew and the Greek civilizations. The Hebrew civilization, according to Abram, planted the seeds of spirituality and religiosity as a dominant concept over nature (95). The Greek civilization on the other hand promoted ideas and philosophy thereby raising the divide that eventually led to the estrangement of Man from his instinctive relation with the natural habitat. These factors, including Man’s intellectual and spiritual development through civilization’s evolution gradually resulted in human beings’ detachment with the natural surroundings. Man embarked on the way of development, invention, and great civilization all of which evolved enhancement of one’s faculty of rationality and reasoning to make communication more convenient. Consequently, early writings which took the form of pictures (of animals, plants, and birds) turned into sophisticated and precise writings involving the stand-alone alphabet that would collectively demonstrate a concept. Before the combination of Hebraic teachings and Greek philosophies in the New Testament of Christianity, the two civilizations already shared a similar intellectual sense of inanimate environment. The Hebraic and Greek civilizations were different in the sense of their origin and situation around specific areas and time. However, both civilizations were greatly informed by writings which mediated their knowledge and communication, a similarity which they both shared. The collection of alphabets was a seminal tool in advancing communication through writing. Writing greatly facilitated the development of human language as it provided a medium for storage and disposal of language. Like language, writing is closely related to the human community with its creation originating from within and between the human communities. Between the human communities, the animate world was crucial in providing a bridge between the human world and the one beyond it. The world is a spectacular ground full of inspirational scenes. With all its natural habitats, it also contains naturally carved mountains and streams of water drawing calligraphies onto the earth and huge grasslands and landscapes occupying a line work of their own. The flight which a group of birds take in the air mimics a similar script as that of joined hand writing on paper but with a more airy and flowy characteristic. Leaf eating insects feeding on leaves often create a similar artifact as a manmade hieroglyphic tabloid. Furthermore, animal foot prints and other marks left important trails that revealed the track taken by animals, which was used by hunters to hunt animals. Human, therefore, have drawn great inspiration from their surrounding environment in order to develop a mode of communication. It was nature, which spurred humans to develop a method of writing which was later developed to an extent that it lost its natural roots. The connection between human and non-human therefore exists throughout history when the early humans learnt to distinguish between traces of clues and other marks. The Chinese alphabets in particular are very illustrative in their design and combine animate and inanimate scripts in their writings. Chinese words written in their traditional script represents the various natural marks such as veins engraved in wood and stone, strokes of stars and constellations in the sky, and other natural designs drawn on the skin and shells of animals and plants. The first writings were therefore greatly inspired from nature where natural line works pressed over softer earth or mud drew prints and other marks. With the discoveries, Man learnt how to trace other line works, marks, and traces in order to track down animal prints either to influence one’s own power or to accept the Other being’s power. The early Man attached some form of magical powers with animate and inanimate objects. So, ancient writings are full of mysterious carvings and expressions that have various meanings hidden within them. Cave drawings from various cultures have shown drawings of animals, lightning bolts, birds, and so on. Similar carvings are also common on rocks and canyon walls apart from caves. These inscriptions on rocks and other surfaces demonstrated earlier forms of writings and a mode of communication that reveals to the modern world how deeply connected the earlier Man was with nature. The drawings mainly depict shapes, animals, birds, and other lines from the non-human world. Early writing was in fact more pictorial and symbolical in its representation than modern alphabetical writing composed of letters. The writing nevertheless served the same purpose which was to support communication and information dissemination by providing a mode of expression. The pictographic system of writing remains one of the earliest known forms of writing and expression. In ancient Egypt, hieroglyphics were commonly used as a system of writing. The hieroglyphics were unique in their usage of symbols of birds, animals, humans, reptiles and plants. The hieroglyphics took the natural elements of the world more seriously in their writings and representations of the natural world. Archeologists have found various sites where the stones were covered with pictorial writings representing different symbols of animals and plants. These writings have been found in China as well as Mesoamerica. Scholars named these pictorial representations, “ideograms” because they did not refer to the actual picture they represented but the specific ideas behind those entities. Hence, those drawings and ideograms in writing represented their particular qualities for example a jaguar drawn with its feet off the ground would signify speed. Stars such as the sun and moon would represent light or brightness. Similarly a sun rising behind a tree would represent east (Abram, 97). Thus, writing in the form of picture actually represented not those objects drawn over the surface but the ideas behind those entities. Hence, these ideograms represented meaning for communication by taking their inspiration from natural entities for the qualities they portrayed. The connection between Man and nature has therefore covered the emergence of language and writing. All evidences of early writings suggest their link with natural objects and entities that worked to represent their inherent qualities such as speed, agility, directions, and so on. Another central aspect of pictorial writings and hieroglyphs is that they made use of visionary senses rather than vocal or any other sense in order to form images of objects. Most of these signs involved non-human objects derived from nature represented in their original forms in order to portray ideas. Despite a pictogram’s limit on representing the worldly and non-human objects and ideas, language can still trace its pictorial origins. Today, even abstract ideas are expressed by means of art and human sensory gestures. Technology has taken great inspiration from natural phenomena to introduce devices and gadgets that read human gestures to run a specific action. Abstract ideas like concepts of ‘belief’ are also well represented through paintings and other forms of art such as films, dance, and so on. All of these can be classified as a mode of communication and a way of expression. As such, art and technology greatly draws its motivation from natural objects and processes. Even in such modern times, these disciplines reflect closeness with nature as they depict concepts inspired from nature. So, even present forms of communication can be related with their predecessors in terms of their natural influences. Language and the alphabet is therefore an artifact of Man’s involvement with nature, an activity without which perhaps we may not have ways of written expression. Language has come a long way over the course of millions of years and has evolved to erase its natural links that can be traced to the days of cave writings and pictograms. The speculations and studies made by the modern Man shows that he is not indifferent to the past and possibly hope to reconcile his relationship with nature to mitigate the ecological crisis. Animals and birds can indicate the most evident form of vocal communication that use variations in sound frequencies to communicate messages. After studies were made by present archeologists, it was revealed that the first signs of human communication including writings on various locations, caves, rocks, and stones. Nature and the ecosystem has provided great inspiration to human beings to create, imitate or simulate natural phenomena. The invention of planes can be attributed to its close resemblance with the natural bird flying in the sky. The early humans must have been greatly intrigued by the creature’s ability to take a flight in the sky and return to ground simply by spreading its wings and maneuvering them to handle thrust. Early humans have even tried to mimic the wings though without success. The modern invention of planes can be understood as a manifestation of this wish to fly which was greatly motivated by a bird’s flight. So, the modern man also looks up to nature for inspiration and has realized many of the natural processes beyond flight. Works Cited Abram, David. “Animism and the Alphabet.” Ways of Reading: An Anthology for Writers. 9th ed. Ed. David Bartholomae and Anthony Petrosky. Bedford/St.Martin’s, 2011. 24-69. Print. Read More