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Exploitation, survival, and beauty — a reflection

I have been made especially aware this last year of the relationship between exploitation, survival and beauty. The survival of the human species depends on the exploitation of our natural resources. We cannot survive without some form of exploitation. The question is how can we do this in a sustainable way — that is in a way that allows nature to keep giving us the things that we need to stay alive. But nature itself is busy exploiting resources for it to stay alive. The birds are exploiting the fruit and the insects that the trees are giving. The insects are exploiting what the trees are giving. Trees are exploiting the food that the soil gives, the energy that the sun gives, and the carbon dioxide that the air gives. The soil is exploiting the organisms that come from the leaves that fall off the trees. So the first lesson in exploitation is to realize that everything in the world is doing it. In other words, to put it simply, everyone is using everyone else to survive. Our survival is inextricably linked with the survival of everything else. Everyone desperately needs everyone else to survive. This sounds like a recipe for complete disaster, because we are all feeding off each other. And indeed it could be if we don’t realize that the whole thing depends on the principle of give and take. Nature gives, we take. And if we take more than nature can give we are on the road to disaster. The difference between us and nature is that nature never takes more than it can give. Left to itself it will always live sustainably. We have to learn from nature so we too can live sustainably.

So where does beauty come into this?

Beauty in nature cannot be separated from survival. Nature is beautiful in order to survive. What is beautiful for us is survival for nature. The beauty of a bird call is nothing else, Darwin tells us, but the declaration of a territory. We wonder at the beautiful lines of a cheetah, or an eagle, as it streaks towards its prey. But at the end of the chase there is a death. The cheetah does not run in order to look beautiful, it runs in order to kill something. So it is with everything in nature. From the beautiful coat of a leopard to the beautiful wings of a butterfly, to the beautiful calls of a bird. Survival is at the heart of it. Now someone once said that the birds sing far more than Darwin would allow. In other words they sing to sound beautiful, not to survive. Well, that’s what we would like to believe. And I am not going to deny myself the appreciation of the beauty of nature apart from the need to survive. But at the same time I cannot deny that survival is inextricably bound up with it. What is beautiful for me is survival for another.

So here is my punchline. When we look at a strelitzia flower we see beauty. When the seed picker looks at it she sees survival. We don’t need it in the way she needs it. She cannot afford the luxury of thinking about streliztia as a thing of beauty. We can. The question whether she is threatening the survival of the entire ecosystem by harvesting the seed is another one. It is not the one I am asking here, though it is obviously a pertinent one. I am asking whether our need for beauty trumps her need for survival. I am asking us, simply, to ask ourselves this question.

Tony Balcomb (7/04/23)