Insect extinction
1 media/1-s2.0-S0006320719317823-gr1_thumb.jpg 2021-04-07T15:31:08-07:00 Sigi Jöttkandt 4115726eb75e75e43252a5cbfc72a780d0304d7d 30986 1 What we do to them and what they do for us plain 2021-04-07T15:31:08-07:00 Sigi Jöttkandt 4115726eb75e75e43252a5cbfc72a780d0304d7dThis page is referenced by:
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2021-04-06T17:34:25-07:00
The power of a word
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Concept creation and the way we see the world
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2021-04-18T04:22:41-07:00
As the plant blindness photo essay suggests, language shapes our perception of our world and those who inhabit it. The nuances of words shape the nuances of thought. 'Landscape' and 'scenery' conjure images of pleasantly undulating hills and fluffy clouds. 'City', meanwhile, is a montage of asphalt, overflowing bins, agitated cars and rat-like hoards of pigeons. Our language certainly does push plants to the periphery but my research establishes that it has a similar effect on other non-human beings.
Derrida suggests the word "animal" is inherently problematic as it bundles up all that is non-human under one category, equating insects with birds, lions with fish, mice with alpacas. We require new ways of seeing, alternative perspectives that acknowledge interspecific differences. A nuanced view of a nuanced world.
Insects
They buzz, they flutter, they tickle our necks and creep down our backs. They scurry into the cracks in the walls and play hide-and-seek in our shoes. They reveal only a glimpse of their lives, and that glimpse is bizarre. Alien. Somehow terrifying. It makes us shiver and reach for the swatter or the spray, the guillotine or the poison. The giants of the world are threatened by little winged smudges and many-legged dots.
In Scientists' Warning to Humanity on Insect Extinctions, Cardoso et al establish that though our world is home to over five million different insect species, many are facing extinction and the vast majority have not been classified. They are steadily dying and we do not know their names.
I cannot claim that the problem is solely linguistic. Our way of life, our enormous population, our ever-increasing demands of the Earth do not make us good terrestrial flatmates. But language does have a role to play. We cannot distinguish between the harmful and the benign when our only descriptor is 'bug'. We cannot perceive the necessity of the insect world when we shy aware from a 'creepy-crawly'.
We need new ideas, and new words with which to clothe them.
