Naturetainment

I don’t see what’s wrong with nature as entertainment. If we’re not going to use it, see it, or touch it, what’s the point of having it? If I have a shirt that I haven’t worn in three years shoved in the very back of the bottom drawer, why do I keep it? I should just give it to some poor person. Maybe we should just give all of our unused nature to Canada.

That was at least a little bit sarcastic. Just a little. But I do wonder: what is the point of nature if we’re not going to do anything with it? To a certain extent, I think that people should be able to go where they want, and do what they want. Kind of like bears do, or wolves, or bunnies. I don’t think that we should go out and traipse all over the habitat of the endangered wild purple-spotted buffalo spider or anything, but really-—why not build a few walkways to see the mud pits at Yellowstone? We don’t have to be able to go all over kingdom come to use the land; maybe even just seeing the perimeter or watching things from a distance would be good enough.

The ability to see something and visit it is part of what makes a thing “ours.” We, as Americans, do not define things that we cannot see as ours—that’s why, for the restoration of the star-spangled banner from Fort McHenry, the scientists left it in full view of the public. Only the places that we can visit and touch become part of America. Who cares who owns the North Pole? We’re never going to go there. The moon belongs to no one but the astronauts who have been there, or who have at least been in space.

Nature as entertainment is an idea inherent, I think, to the human race. We see this not only in America, but also in nations like France, where the reproductions of the cave paintings at Lascaux are more French than the real ones inside the cave. The real cave belongs only to scientists, not Frenchmen. While keeping things like that off-limits except to the scientific community is one way to foster an international perspective on important aspects of our heritage, I don’t think that would work for things like national parks. As a nation of consumers, we feel the need to partake in things for which we contribute tax dollars. Otherwise, it’s just so much pork barrel spending that doesn’t even benefit a minor part of a congressman’s constituency.

Owning and enjoying something does not mean that we have to go in and tear it up. We can enjoy it, the same way we enjoy a day on the ocean. Not everything, contrary to what the media would have us believe, is about finding pleasure in demolishing things. Sometimes, it’s about seeing something one time that can change a person's perspective. How do we know how important we are in the grand scheme of things without knowing that one day, we might see a thousand-year-old tree? Or a volcano that is possible of obliterating everything within miles?

And as (Disney’s) Pocahontas says, “You can own the earth, and still / All you own is earth until / You can paint with all the colors / Of the wind.”