The word Nature- tell me why it shouldn’t be banned.

[two sheds]

That's just marketing bollocks though. Advertising ruins language generally, not just that word.

Yep we should also be banning the words 'love' and 'friendship' and 'special offer'

 

[bimble]

Yep we should also be banning the words 'love' and 'friendship' and 'special offer'

The use of the word Love to sell you things, burgers, cars, has been really intense and constant the past few years have you noticed. Strange. That is a thread for another day tho.

 

[JimW]

Romantic love was only invented by Provencal troubadors as a marketing gimmick in the first place.

 

[JimW]

Not sure that's true but it's a good line I recall.

 

[Kevbad the Bad]

I think we should ban all words and just grunt and gesticulate. (a bit like a Friday night).

 

[bimble]

Romantic love was only invented by Provencal troubadors as a marketing gimmick in the first place.

It was, just cos it rhymed well with above.

 

[two sheds]

The use of the word Love to sell you things, burgers, cars, has been really intense and constant the past few years have you noticed. Strange. That is a thread for another day tho.

Indeed:

 

[fishfinger]

It was, just cos it rhymed well with above.

The French adore Le Piat d'Or - pure poetry.

 

[krtek a houby]

I think we should ban all words and just grunt and gesticulate. (a bit like a Friday night).

It's only natural

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

William Cronon wrote about the construction of nature (particularly 'wilderness') as a contrast to the human-influenced world, and how that duality necessarily involves the erasure of indigenous people's lived experiences. Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature.


The irony of this is that human history is a history of taming nature, with the domestication of wild cats being a good example. Although with cats we never know whether they saw us as a good stable source of food and helped to kickstart their own domestication.

Did he try to get to get it published in nature?

 

[Cid]

bimble ’s cat doing a lot of work here.

So all I have to say for now is that she should rename them Metapaws.

 

[ItWillNeverWork]

I think Nature as we use it is very close to the Picturesque, a very modern and posh person romantic and disconnected sort of notion. Seems to me that for most of human history the idea that the environment in which we have to eat and stay warm / avoid predators with big teeth etc is in any way pretty would just be mad, but for us now, when people talk about Nature , it definitely has that flavour of prettiness / purity imo.

I’m sure even our earliest ancestors must have had moments of awe looking at a star filled sky or a beautiful sunset though. Maybe even more so, being that they didn’t have much else to look at.

It wouldn’t surprise me if there was an evolutionary advantage to finding beauty in the world.

 

[purves grundy]

One problem is that using ‘nature’ to refer to pure, undisturbed ecosystems rests on a negative definition based on the absence of humanity as a whole, as an undifferentiated blob. No class forces, no place for history, no insight into what needs to change to create an ecologically compatible society. Once we accept that it’s natural and not necessarily a bad thing to interact with the non-human then we can think more rationally and scientifically about how we do that, and why we do it in such a fucked up way at present, rather than just ‘preserving nature’.

 

[CNT36]

I’m sure even our earliest ancestors must have had moments of awe looking at a star filled sky or a beautiful sunset though. Maybe even more so, being that they didn’t have much else to look at.

It wouldn’t surprise me if there was an evolutionary advantage to finding beauty in the world.

I read a book along these lines. Human Cosmos by Jo Marchant. She's done a lecture on it available on the Royal Institution youtube as well. Starts of in the olden days and charts how technology has altered out relationship with the night sky.