UHP399 Gardens & Machines

After going through all my posts, I realized I never posted this so sorry for messing up the order of the blog!

In the articles of the Eduardo Kac reading, he talks about biotechnology. One of the ideas he mentions is “the possibility that a private company can legally own the international right to genetic sequences with the reader was born.” This confused me because, from my point of view, it sounds like they would be able to actually own people. Right after this human cloning was brought up. So, if possible, a company could own one person, then in theory they could clone that person, and thus own all of their workers. That means not having to pay them anything and in the long run saving a large amount of money because of not having to pay salaries. Another way this could be taken is that a company could build their own army, if they were powerful enough to do so. I know that this is far fetched, but that is what I thought of.

When La Mettrie was mentioned Kac brought up that La Mettrie was the first person to suggest that primates could acquire a human language and proposed how to achieve it. The example that Kac showed was Koko, the gorilla that talks to others through Sign Language. This was significant because Koko expressed a whole range of emotions, human emotions. Kac also stated that this was a novel event because gorillas do not communicate to each other like this in the wild. We get new insight on what gorillas think and get more information about gorillas as a result of this endeavor. However, will this grow into a pet market, a new pet available that communicates with you? I mean there are markets out there for doggy furniture, clothes, and transportation. It would just be a new market in which you can talk to your pets. This could also be brought up with Alba, the GFP bunny, the bunny that glows underneath a black light. At first it was very new and very controversial. However, now there actually is a market for animals that glow underneath a black light. Along with the GFP bunny, there are now fish, pigs, dogs, and mice. The GFP fish even sold in Wal-Marts around the country. The fish are called Glofish and the pigs are called Noels. The fact that this originally started out as an art project; just as Koko started out as a science project, and is now a worldwide market is puzzling because it is so controversial. Even though talking pets do not have a market, largely I believe on the fact that only apes have been able to communicate back and for the most part parents don’t want apes in the house, with time it can become a booming market just like the pets that glow under a black light.

With Eduardo Kac’s project titled Move 36, I was very moved. I thought that it was interesting to mark the event in which the machine beat the man, in the way that he did. The chessboard was made of sand and of dark dirt. The piece that made the final move is a plant. All of the materials used are completely natural and they are describing an event when machine conquered a natural object, man. The plant’s genome was incorporated with a new gene that translates into “I think therefore I am.” I think that this implies that because the machine beat the man, that the machine has proven its worth to everyone. In addition, because the plant was mutated for the installation, it represents the machine’s ability to overcome nature in a different way. This way is changing the plant’s core foundations, like how the machine beat the human’s core foundation, his intellect.

Questions:

1. Will having pets that communicate you people become a market?

2. In the beginning of the second article Kac mentions that art changes the way you look at things, does it?

3. Does making a bunny glow under a black light count as art?

The article The American Lawn, wrote by Georges Teyssot, talks about lawns: from the history of them, to where the name came from, and what is happening to them today. This article is ten years old, but it does bring up some key topics. One of the first things that Teyssot mentions is the comparison between human beauty and that of a lawn. This comparison relies mainly on the idea that “The perfect lawn, like the fatless body, is an ideal difficult to attain.” I had never thought of this comparison before and I find it interesting and I wonder how they thought of it in the first place. This is true if you think about it. Having the perfect body means putting a numerous amount of hours into working out, eating healthy, and staying on a demanding schedule to do those things along with everything else that has to be done by the end of the day. If that is tweaked a little, then you get the same thing from a lawn: putting a numerous amount of hours into taking care of the lawn, putting a large amount of money into fertilizers and de-weeders, and having to stay on a constant schedule to have your lawn in tip-top shape.

Another topic that Teyssot brought up was the idea of “freedom lawns”. “Freedom lawns” are lawns where all plants have the right to grow. That means weeds are welcome. This was brought up when he was discussing unkempt lawns. From this topic I got the feeling that if you don’t mow your lawn, then you are breaking the mold/ not doing what everyone else does. Teyssot said that this was targeting the “industrial complex” that has a grip on America. By not mowing your lawn you are trying to reestablish “environmental harmony”. From what I understand “industrial complex” is doing what is expected, aka following the crowd, and “environmental harmony” is trying to go back to when we just let nature be.

When Teyssot was talking about using sheep as gardeners and mowers, this made me wonder if there was a struggle between going natural and not going natural for lawn care. Seeing as everyone is trying to ‘go green’ would most people be willing to do this? I mean having a sheep do the yard work means not spending money on repairs for the mower, the cost of gas, and you get a new pet out of the deal. I mean President Woodrow Wilson used sheep and goats to take care of the White House lawn.

At the end of the article the idea of not having to lock your doors, not having fences, and not having hedges separate properties, was very foreign to me. I can’t imagine a world without those things. It would be interesting to see, but strange because I have never had to deal with that. I mean I have lived in places without fences or hedges, but not locking my door is completely out of my comfort zone. However, the fact that people would trust their neighbors enough to not lock their doors is very whimsical.

Questions:

1. Is the comparison between beauty and lawn a strong one or is there a better one out there?

2. Where did he get the name “freedom lawn”?

3. Teyssot mentioned how by mowing certain ways you can get woven and planted patterns in your yard, does this mean earth is a canvas waiting to be drawn on?

4. What happened to page 23?

In the book by Elizabeth Kolbert, Field Notes from a Catastrophe, she talks about global warming. In the preface of her book she said one think that struck a cord in me. She said that she wants everyone to read the book, “Not only those who follow the latest news about the climate but also those who prefer to skip over it.” It struck a cord in me because I never realize that there are probably a lot of people who believe that if they ignore what it is going on it will go away. I mean global warming signs are everywhere, just read all the examples given in her book, and yet people are still ignoring them. One of the most powerful people in the world ignored them, the President of the United States. When President Bush was elected, I did not really care all that much. I didn’t follow the news about him, what his policies were, or even what he was doing in office. It was because I was young and I couldn’t go anything about it. Now looking back, I wish that I had because I was shocked, when reading the chapters, at what he did in office that dealt with global warming. The main thing that bugged me the most was the fact that the US emits 25% of the world’s greenhouse gases and yet we were doing nothing to stop it or reduce the amount of emissions being released. The rest of the world is trying to help, but the US refuses, according to Chapter 8. I mean even the Soviet Bloc decreased there emission levels after the 1992 Earth Summit, the US did not.

Another thing that surprised me was how long global warming has been studied. From Chapter 2, Kolbert states that has been studied since 1859, by John Tyndall. I happen to like his comparison between a dam and the Earth’s Atmosphere. It was a new way to look at what is usually compared to a greenhouse. I think that both of them work quite well at describing what is going on. Another person that was mentioned was Svante Arrhenius. The think that seemed odd was his quote, “live under a warmer sky.” By the sounds of it, it was if he was happy. Warm refers to nice weather, like a positive. However, the globe warming us is not something that is positive. Konrad Steffen, a Professor of Geography at the University of Colorado and director of Swiss Camp, was someone she interviewed about global warming. The stories that Kolbert told about her time there we very vivid and informative. I found that the notation of seeing history in an ice core was strange and interesting as well.

In the other article that we read, Robert Henson’s The Rough Guide to Climate Change, he talks about countries and global warming and how people interact between the two. In the beginning I enjoyed how he talked about how the issue of global warming started to become important during the 1950’s and that it lost its hold until the 1990’s because we had bigger fish to fry during that time. I kind of though that it was only an issue in the 90’s because it started popping up everywhere by that time, not that it was just put on the back-burner. When he brought up how the skeptics and industry fight back, I thought that the quote by William Gray, Colorado State University, was interesting. I remember how the hype was about the Millennium and I am a little upset that he thought that it would be a similar thing. The Millennium was just a rollover of the date, global warming is bigger because it affects everyone and it has a more lasting effect and it will still be an issue 15-20 years done the road. When Henson said, “the alarm bells couldn’t go on ringing forever,” it was a new issue that was brought to my attention. Ever since the start of the 2000’s I feel like global warming or saving the environment has always been somewhere on the news. It seems like now the bells are ringing forever because everyone wants to go green. Just watch the commercials out there now; almost every big name product is going green to save the planet.  

Questions:

1. Back when global warming was first being investigated no one really cared, however now everyone does. When did our feelings change about caring?

2. With the glaciers melting/disappearing, are more people traveling to go see the remaining ones?

3. Will people start to lose interest in going green because the bells have been ringing for so long?            

The exhibit, Hard Rain: Late Works of Mary Hambleton, was works of art that Mary created that reflected life during cancer. All of her pieces were aesthetically pleasing. They had good flow, unity through common colors, and strong geometric shapes. After viewing the pieces closely I could tell how much time and effort was put into them. The shire complexity of the works was astounding. You could actually see all the layers placed on top of one another. I stood staring at one of the works trying to figure out how she made the lines look sunken in and then realized that she either carved away some of the paint or put multiple layers on the outer edges to create that depth. I was awed at how much she was able to get done while fighting her cancer. A few of her pieces I was drawn more to than others.

The first one that caught my eye went by the name Untitled. This piece had a black background and had curved lines in the middle. At the top of the page appeared to be a moon. In the upper right, lower right, and left middle were bright red dots. Now, from far away the only interesting thing was the high contrast between the bright red dots, off white lines, and pitch-black background. However, when you move in closer and tilt your head to the right, the white curved lines form the shape of a dove midflight. This piece could mean/represent multiple things, but one sticks out the most in my mind. I think that this represents how if we just look at things for face value it will be aesthetically pleasing, but when we look closer we see something completely different. At first the curvy lines exhibit playfulness and happiness, but underneath it is the dove. To me the dove in flight shows that she is on the way to peace, accepting what is happening. She is wearing a mask to show that all is well, but if you look closely, then you see that it is a lie. She is working hard to get to that point, but was not there.

The other piece that caught my eye was Offering Red that was made in 2004. This one looks like a present with a strip of heavily textured wood to the right. The “present” has a maroon/red paint job with 4 thin, navy blue lines that go vertically down it. The “bow” is a pile of little blocks that are a vibrant red. The textured part to the right is black with green and yellow dry brushing over it. I see this piece as saying: with good things, bad things are close behind. The “present” is a gift, a good thing and the textured part is bad because it is distorted, hiding/not showing its true self. In addition, the green dry brushing is contrasting strongly to the red gift. The contrast means that there is a conflict between the two and the greatest conflict known is good vs. bad. I see the black texture as after the gift because we read left to right, thus we look at objects the same way. So, due to the design of the painting it is the last thing we see.

Overall, all of Mary Hambleton’s works make me think on a deeper level because I want to know what the meaning behind it is. Knowing that she did these pieces when she had cancer has made me think along the lines of being near death.

Questions:

            Does she work with geometric shapes due to her pieces having so much meaning, causing more contrast? (simple vs. deep and complex vs. shallow)

            What does the “bow” from Offering Red mean, if it means anything at all?

            Did she favor dark colors because she was going through a dark time in her life or because they were her favorite colors and she wanted to cheer herself up?

I have the H1N1 virus. I will not be coming to class for a week. If you could email me any of the homework I would greatly appreciate it.

Brandi

I would like to do the MILK project.

      In Edwin Nye’s article titled “Can We Define “Technology”?” he discussed many interesting ideas about the evolution of technology. Nye opened with the idea that technology and human nature are inseparable. He talked about how certain tools were created for survival: building shelters, killing large animals, and controlling fire. Where as, others were created to conquer: knifes, guns, and other items that commit warfare and murder. Right after that he stated,  “The tool often exists before the problem to be solved.” I find that statement very true. I often find myself trying to figure out what an item is meant to do and what it can be used for before realizing that it can fix a certain problem that has been puzzling me. Sometimes I even have the tool fix something that it is not meant too, but works perfectly fine for. It just reinforces the idea that every tool has multiple uses even if those uses were not thought of during the designing process. The next idea that Nye brought up was that tools are known through the body as much as they are known through the mind. He gave the example of kitchen utensils and how we know how to use them from observing others use them and remember the movement needed for them. I had not realized that before and now I am remembering all of the times that happened to me. A few that came to mind were riding a bike: I watched my sister ride, I tried it out, and I rode the bike.  Now, I remember without realizing it how to keep myself center, how sharp I can take a turn, and all the other things that deal with bikes. It is weird knowing that my body remembers all of it as soon as I sit on a bike. Later on in the article, Nye brought up the definition of technology. He brought up the idea that technology is more related to art than it is to science. I took that idea as art is created from a blank page, as is new technology: you have to come up with it from scratch and see what works along the way. Where as, science has half of the work already done because it has to follow certain ideas and methods and facts are already known about how things will work in specific conditions. Lastly, when Nye said that people are now starting to see that technology was shaped by gender it finally clicked and I understood why the woman robot was called the “Machine Man” in Metropolis. Around the time Metropolis came out the word technology was being used as a masculine word. So, even though it was a woman, it represented state of the art technology and thus was deemed manly.

            In Edwin Nye’s second article, titled “Does Technology Control Us?” he talked about technological determinism. He starts out with talking about two cultures that have turned their backs on certain technologies: the Japanese and the Amish. The Japanese gave up guns for cultural reason. Where as the Amish always weigh the technology’s impact on the community before accepting it or denying it. The one thing that came to mind when reading about this was that both of these cultures are deeply rooted in tradition and was it possible for an average person to close out technology without such a strong drive behind their decision. Later on he brings in North Africa giving up the wheel for use of transportation. With this one, their denying of the wheel was based off of it was not needed; it would be more effort trying to use it than it would be to just use camels. My thought process was based off of American giving up something because we were told to or asked to, could we do it or would we not be able to because we would not deem it important enough to give said item up. Another thing that Nye brought up was people see technology as natural. This confused me because nature, in my definition, deal with things that come from the earth and technology is not. Technology is an idea that can be used or not. Natural is part of nature, not man made, which is what technology is. After this he talks about Edward Tenner who talks about “the revenge of unintended consequences.” His main example is the computer. I had never thought of this before and it was interesting to see all of it come to light. I knew that people had medical issues from computer, but I never looked at people having to do more mundane tasks because secretaries were replaced with computers. Later Nye gets on the topic of due to technology work is split between multiple people. Everyone has a little piece of a bigger picture. That made me think that this might be why people don’t have pride in their work, they don’t work on the whole thing and thus they don’t see what their part did for it. As a result, they don’t feel proud of what they put into the project. The last main point he brought up was the idea that technologies developed more rapidly than society. His example for this was Marshall McLuhan. McLuhan had a large following when he talked about how communication had reshaped the way people saw the world. McLuhan also thought that electronic media was the central nervous system and thus it linked humanity together in a global network. Those statements made me think that as a result of easier communication it makes communication less personal. If you always talk to someone, then you take the conversation for granted and if we are all connected then we take talking to people in general for granted.

Questions:

            What did Cicero mean by the “second nature” that humans had the ability to create by transforming the environment?

            Can culture reasons overturn any/all forms of technology?

            Without culture to influence technology does it cease to be important?

         Metropolis was created in Germany in 1927. The movie is black and white and only sound is created from an organ in front of the screen. It was set in the future of 2026 where the workers are separated from the rich. The workers never see the upper class due to working underneath the city all day and they live underneath where they work.  The upper class doesn’t even recognize that the workers exist. That is until the leader’s son sees a worker woman who catches his attention. He goes down to the worker’s level to try and find her. To not get caught he switches with one of the workers, 11811. 11811 goes up to the upper class level to take his place and but gets distracted by the carefree life. The leader found out that his son when down to the worker’s level and sent a spy to get him back.  The spy catches 11811 though and sends him back to the working level. The leader’s son finally finds the girl he is looking for in a cave, she is the holy woman. At the same time the leader visits an old friend who is a scientist. The said scientist has made a “machine man” that can take the form of anyone. The leader and scientist find out about the holy woman, who gives the workers hope, and decide to have the “machine man” take her form, but first they must kidnap her. The leader’s son heads back to the worker’s home and at that moment the scientist takes the holy woman. The “machine man” takes her form and leads the workers into an uprising. She tricks the workers into destroying all the machines and thus proving that the workers hold the key to the city. Afterwards, she leaves them to go cause chaos in the city. The leader and the scientist and leader fight and the holy woman escapes and goes down to the worker’s level, that is now slowly becoming flooded from the machines braking down. Once down there she meets up with the leader’s son and they try to save the children, who were left there when their parents got caught up in the moment of the uprising. They all make it out alive by escaping through the airshafts. The workers then realize that they have killed their kids, not knowing that their children were saved, and storm the city to kill the “machine man” holy woman. They decided the fit punishment was to burn her. When they do, they realize that she was just made of metal and try to find the real holy woman. The scientist captured the real one again when she left the school, where the children were sent to, in order to find all the workers. He takes her to the top of a church where the leader’s son meets him in order to save her. The two fight for her life and in the end the scientist falls over the edge and dies. The whole city is happy that he survived and the workers and the leader come to an understanding with the help of the leader’s son.

            At the beginning of the movie we were told that many parts of the movie were taken for other films. While I watched it, I looked for what was taken. The title scroll was used in Star Wars, the words leaving the screen in a triangular motion in the middle of the screen. The upper classes’ gardens reminded me of Dr. Seuss’ settings in his books. The birds that were wondering the gardens were similar to those in Blade Runner. They symbolized the rich because only the upper class could have them. In addition, when the scientist took the girl to the top of the church; the one thing that came to mind was King Kong. The scientist was wearing black, hunched over, and waving his arms in the air just like King Kong did.

            One other thing that I noticed was that the main girl was either seen as the religious figure or a witch. In the beginning she was the innocent young lady that looked out for the weak and gave them hope for better times. The moment that the “machine man” took her place, her personality was the exact opposite. The thing that struck me as odd was that even though the workers knew her so well they could not tell that someone had taken her place and when they thought she had betrayed them they automatically tried to kill her. They said she was a witch even though they knew her as the saint. It was sad that they would turn on her so quickly. That made me start thinking why women in old movies were always portrayed was either the saint or the witch.

            I also began to wonder why they kept calling robot the “machine man” when it was a woman. The robot was clearly built to resemble the leader’s wife and yet it was titled a man. I think it was because in the late twenties men were seen as being the powerful sex and thus being able to transform into anyone was so powerful that only a man could do it. It might have been because calling it the “machine woman” would not seem as terrifying as the “machine man”. Having the title of a woman may present the machine as being weak or fragile.

Questions:

            What was the real reason for giving the woman robot the name of the “machine man”?

            What other movies took ideas from Metropolis?

            What were the symbols in the movie?

Chapter 6 of Cynthia Freeland’s book, But is it art?, is focused mainly around the idea of the meaning and interpretation of art. She also mentions the two main theories of art: the expression theory and the cognitive theory. Cynthia starts off by stating that all art communicates. To understand what it is saying takes knowledge: of its culture, of what the artist was going through, and of what was going on at that moment in time. Depending on what is taken from the artwork affects the interpretation that is created by the viewer. Cynthia brings in a painting of Francis Bacon, Triptych of 1973, to interpret. She informs the reader of what a few critics’ thought and then makes a strong statement that Bacon is the perfect example for both theories. From the expression theory he shows “emotions, so is like laughing or screaming.” From the cognitive theory he shows “complex thoughts, so it is similar to a language.” Cynthia then goes on to give more examples and more literal definitions of the two theories. The expression theory is based off of art communicating with the viewer mainly in the form of feelings or emotions. One of the greatest examples to describe this theory is abstract expressionism. Another one is music. The one main problem with this theory is that it is too narrow, it says that an artist can only create artworks that emit emotions. The cognitive theory is based off of art communicating with the viewer mainly in the form of enabling people to deal with reality, gives them knowledge. It is a place where people can come to terms with issues in their life’s and figure out a way to move on and grow.

I enjoyed reading this passage from her book. It made me realize that art can have more than one meaning behind it. An artist may begin a painting to express an idea, but it can evolve and emit a feeling in it as well. Before I thought that a painting had to be one or the other. It either had to only focus on a feeling or an idea. I can see that my “dislike” to Jackson Pollock’s work may be cause from my misunderstanding of him. A little like Bacon’s Triptych of 1973. When first hearing of the artwork I thought that he was dark and depressing. That he was only looking at the morbid part of life and nothing else. Once Cynthia started to bring in other critics’ ideas and other meanings, I learned that to truly understand an artwork you have to look at their key beliefs and what their past works came from. In addition, the main thing I learned was to take into account what the artist was going through. I would have never guessed that Bacon might be making the artwork to mourn the loss of his love. I forgot that real life experiences take form in an artwork. I also enjoyed the thought that Suzanne Langer made: the idea that art maybe another way of gaining knowledge without speaking. It made me realize that there are more ways of speaking other than actually saying words. When I usually look at an artwork I look at it quickly and move on. After reading Langer’s idea, I will now make an effort to truly look at an artwork and try to understand what the artist is trying to say. The cognitive theory was very insightful. Looking back, I now know that artworks do teach me new things. They teach me to appreciate true talent, that a smile is worth a thousand words (aka Mona Lisa’s smile), and that sometimes less is more in a painting.

Chapter 7 of Cynthia Freeland’s book, But is it art?, is about the reproductions and the originals of works of art.  She quotes Walter Benjamin when he talks about how the originals had an ‘aura’ about it and by having multiple reproductions of it, the copies don’t have the same ‘aura’ and therefore it loses some of the magic to it. Benjamin goes on to say that it is good to have the ‘aura’ gone because it makes the piece more personal and less untouchable. It makes the masses feel as if they are able to see it at a normal level and not on the pedestal that we put famous artworks on. He credits it to new media and he focused on cinema. Another person mentioned that agrees with Benjamin is Marshall McLuhan. McLuhan focused mainly on new ways of communicating with others, such as the television and Internet, and its impact on people, their culture. He said that television was more social and the Internet was more individual. In contrast, Baudrillard said that the new media created hyperrealism. Baudrillard stated that, “an audience is not simply absent-minded, but absent: lost in its own images.” That it made things beyond real. The examples given were getting married was only for the videos and photographs and Disneyland; that both of those things make everything seem perfect, picture perfect. They put you in a state of mind that allows you to think that nothing can go wrong and that everything is just right. Cynthia summed up this chapter by talking about how all art in the end will end up going from galleries and museums to the Internet, television, and other mainstream places.

The ‘aura’ of a work of art is what we described in class as the indescribable part that makes us like it. It is the part that draws us in and makes us want to look closer and makes us feel connected to the piece. In addition by not having the ‘aura’ it makes the piece less untouchable and more personal to the average viewer. In addition, during class we were talking about the negative impact that comes around as a result of having an artwork be given to the masses. It results in there being more copies of the artwork. When there are more copies out there it makes the original less noteworthy because you have seen it so many times before. You develop this expectation of the artwork that is not delivered when you see the original in person. There is a disappointment from not having it live up to what you believe it should be. I know this from experience. When I saw the Mona Lisa in person, I expected to be huge, breath taking, and awe inspiring, but it was tiny and the room was huge and there were so many people moving around that it made the picture seem even smaller due to all the masses pressing down on it. I knew that it should invoke a feeling on me, but all it really did was make me wonder when I could leave the suffocating room and why it was so important to art’s history. The expectations of the artworks are in a sense created by hyperrealism. I had seen the Mona Lisa so much that I expected it to perfect and it was not. I have even experienced being blown away and completely taken off guard; it was when I visited the Statue of David. Every time I had seen a picture of it, it seemed small and there was a leaf on him. So, when I did see it in person I was frozen in my spot. The statue was huge. It was about 20 ft tall and just overpowered you from the sheer size of it. It was monumental and taller than I ever expected it to be. There was also the fact that there was no leaf. That just made me blush. I believe that if you see a copy of an artwork too many times, then the original is no longer interesting and if you hardly see the copies, then the original will take your breath away. 

Three Questions:

Is there another way that art communicates with us other than the two theories she mentioned?

Do people, who come from different cultures, share the same appreciation for a single piece of art?

Seeing as abstract expressionism is the perfect example for the expression theory, what would be the perfect example for the cognitive theory?

Is it better to see a copy and have so many expectations put on the original or to never see the copy and hope to see the original one day and have it be breath taking?

Object 1

This is a picture of Blue Hole in Johnson City, Tennessee. This is meaningful to me because I visited it a few summers ago. I went with my sister and a few of her friends. While we were there we were going to jump into the hole via a rocky ledge that is hidden by the tree on the left side of the photo. Everyone but me jumped because I was too scared. This photo means a lot to me because not only does it show how something so simple as a waterfall can be breath taking, but also because it reminds me of my family. I was born in Johnson City, TN, and visiting it again showed me that you can always feel welcomed home even if you don’t remember living there. The place just seemed welcoming. The mountain air was fresh, soothing, and had a dampness to it due to the water being thrown back into the air because of the force of the waterfall. It seemed mystical due to it being set back from the path. It was secluded and felt as if it had never been touched by others, even though you could see otherwise (aka cigarette butts everywhere). 

Object 2

This is a picture of a redwood being cut down. This one makes me wonder why people like to destroy nature. This massive tree is being taken down because we want to, we want it gone, we want to control nature. I see nature as something that should be protected because it cannot protect itself and so that future generations can experience the same awe that we did.

The three question I have are: Do people feel the need to conquer nature just because they can? How much of nature should be protected? If we can live in harmony with nature, does that mean we will no longer harm it?