09 February 2006

Of man himself

We view nature according to our desires. We draw links between our desires and the land we live on... the environment that sustains us. We imagine our living spaces and design them to suit our desires... to suit our needs of the hour. We are caught in our own ego-centric, narcissistic sense of beauty and function. And, we tailor our environment to fit this imagination... this delusion... this man-made reality. And, to hell with the environment! The environment is there to serve us, after all.

Of course, there’s a scientific reason to all this. An anthropological one too. A cultural one. A historical one. An economic one. And, oh yes, a political one. Yes, there are reasons galore to justify how man sees nature; and what man does with it. It’s all in the name of progress. We all believe that things are going to get better and better... and that, technology is the basis of this progress. That’s why we’ve celebrated industrialisation – the producer of chemicals and everything synthetic. Not to mention a nuclear, or some other esoteric, utopia which is the answer to our present-day angst-ridden fears.

Our lives are no longer dependent on nature and divine guidance. They are now guided by reason, science and technology – the works of man himself.

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