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Metamorphosis: The Human Superpower
Civilization is a ‘defense against nature’. This is Camille Paglia’s central premise, but her focus tends more toward natural disasters than to the actual animal kingdom. ‘Civilized man’, she writes, ‘conceals from himself the extent of his subordination to nature. The grandeur of culture, the consolation of religion absorb his attention and win his faith. But let nature shrug, and all is in ruin. Fire, flood, lightning, tornado, hurricane, volcano, earthquake — anywhere at any time’.
Civilization is also a defence against nature’s agents: i.e. animals. As civilizations advance, biodiversity decreases. A farm, by urban standards, is biodiverse, but in comparison with pre-agricultural habitats, there is a dearth of biodiversity. In the inner-cities it is even worse. A modern urbanite might see only other humans, the occasional pet and, perhaps, a pigeon.
Clearly, we can live without high levels of biodiversity, but this doesn’t mean there aren’t consequences for it. Specieal scarcity is like light pollution which obscures our view of the stars, it shrinks our imagination and isolates us from existence.
