Critical Reflection- The Elephant in the Room
- Anthony Douglas Williams
Reading Natures has been enlightening, providing me with insights into abstract ideas and ways to conceptualise environmental issues of the Anthropocene. Bill McKibben’s ‘The End of Nature’ and the material from ‘Animal Worlds’ has inspired the birth of my e-concept, Dysanatomification, in how humans never thought they would “end nature” but have come to change the atmosphere through an addiction to ecologically damaging activity (Finch et al). McKibben asserts the idea that nature is not and never will be a separate sphere from humans, and that there are ethical and psychological consequences of inflicting environmental damage such as pollution, the emitting of fossil fuels and animal cruelty. With this idea and Timothy Morton’s notion of Transcorporeality and ‘thick time’, I was able to form an e-concept that explores the impact of human activity on animals (Morton, 2014). At the heart of my concept is the view that humans are not only contributing to animal extinction, but their anthropocentric egotism is also tampering with the genetic makeup of species. Ultimately, this human impact on a natural process like evolution declares McKibben’s theory that nature has gained the “permanent stamp of man” (Finch et al pp.1125).
Dysanatomification is the human-inflicted environmental damage of the maltreatment to the physical bodies of animals. A ramification of disordering the bodies of animals for material gain is that some species have become genetically modified, evolving differently due to the frequency of human disturbance. I have contextualised my concept with the environmental issue of ivory poaching and how elephants have begun to evolve tuskless as a result. Ever since I visited Chiang Mai in 2017, I developed a sentient connection with elephants. It was a humid afternoon and we decided to take a trip to the sanctuary near our accommodation. While people were offering watermelon pieces to the beautiful creatures, my attention was diverted to the majestic being strutting toward me. My hand brushed its trunk while I looked into its eyes. I let out a soft “hello there” while he swished his tail from side to side. I stared into his eyes, where I could see wisdom, curiosity, and some sadness from his traumatic past. We shared a gentle encounter, which happened to resemble a staring match. Then it happened. I began to cry an unstoppable pool of tears. Five years later and I still remember the feeling. It was a certain awe and familiarity. But as I continued to cry, he raised his trunk towards my shoulder and tamely embraced me. I always knew that elephants were sensitive creatures, however that experience has shaped my perceptions of the natural world and of the Anthropocene.
Attached to this is my coined term of “Frozen Faunal Empathy”. This is the idea that even though humans are wired with a degree of empathy for animals and express it on a surface level through responses of admiration or pity, it must ‘defrost’ to take real action. In the Anthropocene Epoch, human needs are placed above animal lives which can be seen through the persistence of animal cruelty, poaching for fashion and animal testing. I was deeply inspired in Week 3, when the lecture material and readings discussed the concept of Extinction and how humankind constantly changes the biological balance. Humans have disturbed the species so much, that elephants have begun to evolve tuskless. Thus, I have formed an e-concept that can be applied to the wider ecological world. This course has shaped my view on nature in a powerful way, reopening portals of empathy and curiosity, exposing me to the elephant in the room; that humans and animals share a behavioural closeness that should be properly nurtured, avoiding anthropocentric mindsets.
Finch, R, Elder, J (1990) ‘Bill McKibben from The End of Nature’ in R. Finch and J. Elder (eds) The Norton Book of Nature Writing, New York, 1120-1129
Morton, T (2014), ‘Deconstruction and/as Ecology’ in Garrad, G (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Ecocriticism, Oxford University Press, 1-16
Elle Andreopoulos