Jim,
        All values are anthropo- and my response implicitly (perhaps you
missed it) supported your already-well-expressed point that we can only
think like humans. And we can only imagine any mountain or anything else
thinking like a human, because thought itself is human, i.e., anthropo-
        I really don't see the point of debating whether integrity is to be
desired over dissolution. The point is that the metaphor helps us see beyond
mindless development and articulate shared values about the integrity of
life and ecosystems, etc.
-Tc
Anthony R. S. Chiaviello, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Professional Writing
Department of English
University of Houston-Downtown
One Main Street
Houston, TX 77002-0001
713.221.8520 / 713.868.3979
"Question Reality"

> ----------
> From:         Jim Tantillo[SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent:         Friday, November 09, 2001 7:11 AM
> To:   [log in to unmask]
> Subject:      Re: thinking like a mountain . . . not.
>
> Hi everyone,
> Tony wrote:
> >
> >         If a mountain thinks like a human (which is all we can do), then
> it
> >would prefer integrity to steady erosion, no?
>
> I think this statement illustrates one of the main problems with
> 'thinking like a mountain.'  If the idea behind thinking like a
> mountain (or like whatever) is largely to adopt a radically non-human
> or nonanthropocentric perspective, then how can we deign to speak for
> the mountain and say that it prefers "integrity" to steady erosion?
> Integrity is a human value; how do we know that in a radically
> mountaincentric system of value, all of our human values aren't
> turned on their head?  If all we are doing is merely exporting
> anthropocentric values (albeit heavily tinged with ecocentric
> flavor), then why bother with the trope of thinking like entities
> that don't think?  We have a hard enough time as humans thinking.
>
> Point being, in a radically non-human system of "value," i.e. within
> the context of geological and evolutionary history, it seems to me
> that death and destruction, erosion and extinction, are the core
> eco-and-mountain-centric values that nature "prefers."  It is we
> humans who seek to preserve nature in a snapshot of time.  If we take
> the time to conceive of a radically non-human system of eco-value
> (I'm not sure we can really do this) or anti-value, then I think we
> can more clearly see the problem with us as humans trying to imagine
> what is in nature's best "interest."  I'm not sure nature has an
> "interest."  We have interests, and one of them is a state of the
> environment that is healthy and works for us and for all the other
> critters and life forms out there that we value.  Otherwise, I think
> from a radically non-human, evolutionary perspective, anything we can
> do to hasten the destruction of the environment as WE know it has got
> to be a good thing, in evolutionary and geologic terms . . .  which
> really would be radically nonanthropocentric.
>
> Jim T.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> >My point is that by picturing
> >the integrity of a mountain, and what kind of change threatens its
> >ecosystems, we can take positive steps to prevent its commercialization
> and
> >denuding of trees, for example.
> >
> >         I don't think the metaphor stands up to the deconstructive
> critique
> >you offer, but then it really doesn't have to. It's best function is to
> help
> >humans realize that we need those mountains to do their own work, not as
> ski
> >slopes, resorts, or tree farms.
> >-Tc
> >Anthony R. S. Chiaviello, Ph.D.
> >Assistant Professor, Professional Writing
> >Department of English
> >University of Houston-Downtown
> >One Main Street
> >Houston, TX 77002-0001
> >713.221.8520 / 713.868.3979
> >"Question Reality"
> >
> >  > ----------
>