Cant Argue With That - Tumblr Posts

Jay is me because I too,am a weird little freak that’s obsessive about things and also men

I got my Masters and PhD where Leopold taught, I went to his Shack twice a year, I worked in his archives, I've read his letters and journals, I've studied under his biographer, my Masters was partially about him, my PhD is structured around one of his speeches. I feel like I have the Credentials to have Refined Feelings about Leopold

I hate this passage.

Setting aside "alone" ("Only I, the pure and noble white male university scientist can see this pain, unlike the uncultured masses")...

If you have decided that you live in "a world of wounds" then you have already decided the world is damned. If you are looking for wounds, you will always find them. Things like climate change and ecosystem destruction and extinction are "wounds" that can never be "healed." New ways of being, like peregrine falcons on skyscrapers or novel ecosystems can only be seen as "wounds." The metaphorical "body" will never be "whole." If, no matter what you do, the environment will always be damaged/flawed/corrupted, what's the point in even trying?

In Leopold's context, the only Correct ("healed") way for the natural world to exist is to restore it to its corresponding historic pre-settlement ecosystem, the state it was in prior to the "wounding." This is concretely and objectively impossible. We've had 90+ years of ecological restoration as a science (NOT INVENTED BY LEOPOLD, DON'T LISTEN TO HIS PROPAGANDISTS) to firmly establish there is no magic time machine process to "heal" these "wounds." Instead, we can change spaces, help rebuild ecosystems into something new that may have things in common with the past.

I find it a much more useful framing to think in terms of change. There was never a moment in history where an ecosystem was static, things were always changing, they always will be changing. This is especially true in the Indigenous people-driven ecosystems Leopold is talking about here. His writings all assume that these ecosystems were static prior to settlement, the "whole, healthy body" in the metaphor. That "whole, healthy body" never existed in the first place.

This is why I like to thinking of us, environmentally-minded people taking action, as members in a very old community of beings who have made environmental change. Rather than metaphorically putting bandaids on Mother Earth's body that is separate from us, we can take actions as members in the community of ecosystems to help all of us thrive, together.

Blood of Zeus is another story of how Zeus can't keep it in his pants.

It's animated by the same group that did Castlevania tho it's fucking lit.

When life is going well but then your brain is like: yeah but what about that one thing that happened in 2013 and you're like:

CAN'T ARGUE WITH THAT