The bear not the woods
Reading ‘Micro-Landscapes of the Anthropocene’, this notion of humans ‘rightfully’ positioned at the centre of the world is quite a complex and ignorant viewpoint. An example of this apparent marginalisation between humans and nature is through the total blindless humans share towards the functionality and fundamental existence of plants.
There is no question that the majority of humans use plants for aesthetic purposes. When a person is in despair, we buy the “prettiest flowers”, when we are expecting visitors, we buy flowers and plants that aesthetically match our home interior, when we attend house warmings, indoor plants seem to be the popular present, why? Well, they represent high monetary value and aesthetic value.
However, as Prudence Gibson has so outstandingly pointed out, “humans will always see the bear not the woods”. It’s this idea of ‘plant blindless and ‘nature-culture’ from an anthropocentric perspective. The inability of humans to recognise the fundamental purpose of plants and their aliveness that will continue to marginalise the natural ecological world and human beings. Therefore, from this angle, it is without a doubt that ecological thinking enables humans to re-construct inherited ideas of our place in the world, and rather, learn to embrace and co-exist with other beings.