Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
aesthetic may simply signify that its appreciation requires a degree of knowledge
and/or training that most people have, to date, proven uninterested or maladroit at
acquiring. Or such appreciation may be more widely felt but rarely articulated. In
either case, lack of human interest, talent, or clear articulation do not prove such
beauty to be absent or unattainable. They merely show its appreciation (or articu-
lation) to be rare among members of our current societies - much as appreciation
of literature was rare during the Middle Ages or the Renaissance and appreciation
of Fourier transformations, Hamiltonian geometry, and fractals non-existent. Our
current cultural status may be such that most people can do no better than respond
to the sensory impact of an individual plant, animal, or landscape. This is not an
ideal situation, of course, inasmuch as many people will rave about the “beauty”
of highly invaded landscapes that are nothing but ecological kitsch - such as typify,
say, most of lowland Hawaii. However, even this aesthetic appreciation is a tre-
mendous advance over that available in the West in, say, the Middle Ages, when
wild landscapes were viewed with fear (Oelschlaeger, 1991) and a relatively small
contingent of plants and animals were valued for strictly utilitarian purposes. It is
ironic, of course, that many educated people today consider knowledge of art or
literature a de rigueur sign of sophistication while at the same time so many of
them are the equivalent of ignorant hayseeds when it comes to appreciating the
beauty of the evolved biosphere upon which their lives depend. But, then, irony is
hardly a novel discovery in the human condition, and one presumes this situation
will improve as human understanding and aesthetics continue to develop and be
better expressed.
It will occur to many readers that concern for loss of beauty will sound a pretty
trivial concern compared to more “practical” issues such as ecological degrada-
tion and economic loss. And at some level that may be true. But I would caution
against unthinking recourse to the philosophy of economism, which attempts to
reduce so much of human life to mere economic concerns and to ignore or
dismiss those facets of experience that are not so readily reduced. We humans
inveterately view ourselves as exceptional beings, often to the point of denying
our creaturehood and evolutionary history, while clinging to some inchoate
notion of semi-divinity. While most of this exceptionalist thinking is misguided,
I would suggest that two features that truly are remarkable human attributes -
possibly, but not necessarily, unique in our evolved biosphere - are our predilec-
tion for ethics and our strong response to beauty. It is these features - not
language, tool-making, opposable thumbs, or bipedal gait - that so clearly demar-
cate human life from that of our fellow animals and which have historically
served to remove us from Thomas Hobbes' pessimistic vision. They provide
meaning to our lives and serve to lift them from the realm of mere selfish,
resource-grubbing existence. Under those circumstances, I think that loss of
beauty is not a concern we can afford to lightly dismiss, even if the rather abstract
beauty under attack should not yet be widely appreciated across our species.
Hence, I suggest that in allowing our native ecosystems to be carelessly vandalized
by alien introductions we ensure the aesthetic and spiritual impoverishment of
ourselves and future generations.
