hello dave,
>science by many is part of this too. This has a lot of profound
>political implications, especially if you are in the business of
>producing goods using "icky" methods. Fortunately, cleaning
>one's house, sex, childbirth, rinsing the poop out of 1000
>diapers, and raising teenagers provides a partial cure.
good examples, but talking of diapers:
don't imagine you can change a man,
unless he's still in diapers.
denying, that anything from the above is absolutely natural,
ignores humans the way they are. people might LIKE to ignore it or
look way, but it's best expressed in a sentence by desmond morris
in "the human ape":
"today men might travel in spaceships, but for going to pee he
still needs to put down his trousers down like 1000 years before
and he's still a primate."
and he still digests his food (and he eats almost EVERYTHING),
but forgot it, when the flush toilet was introduced.
>> any opinions, how to steer against than trend without
>> getting angry with these people ?
>It is a political and a PR problem. The only way is to get
>people to touch and feel and smell what you are doing, to
>understand the nature of things.
yeah, but how to achieve it?. one of the things, that impressed
me most at my travels to other countries, was the way you
americans (or more exact: your rangers) teach your children about
wildlife, the animals and plants. in every european zoo and every
large exhibitions there are large signs: "TOUCHING PROHIBITED".
whenever i was in your national parks (also VERY good in quite
artificial areas like "SEAWORLD", and fantastic in your visitor
centers), i read signs : "PLEASE TOUCH" (exception rattlesnakes in
arizona ;-). children are shown lizards, slugs, spiders and they
were put in their hand. hell, i had more fun in seaworld about
all these excited and screaming children guided by teachers
and rangers, who explained them carefully all they should know
about the sea, than about all the basins. they put a starfish
into children's hand or they could pat the head of a dolphin or
they were asked to touch slimy seaweed. that is a VERY good way
to lead children to a thinking, that nature is not all that bad
and dangerous. really, your rangers do a VERY, VERY good job. my
congratulations! that's something americans really can be proud
of.
i imagine that something like that might be a good way to avoid
this distance to nature. some call it silly, unnatural and too
cunny, but to me it's a beginning. and the bad way is the
exaggerated clownish say-cheese-DISNEYLAND-style. holidays on the
farm are another way, they're cheap, they're really recreational
for the parents, but they don't "score" enough against a travel
abroad or to the sea.
some farms here have begun to create small "pet zoos" with farm
animals of the harmless kind: sheep, goats, small pigs and
sucklers, guinea pigs (a bit strange) and hens, gooses or ducks.
purpose: children from the city could see and touch them to a)
loose their fear of them and b) see, how their food is produced.
in that order ;-))
iirc it was john d'hondt, who wrote about his bad experiences.
maybe he's just too pessimistic. we're often invited to large
festivals with some of our experts for the awful lot of
questions, lab equipment and animals. we take the sheep to show a
shaving, our most tolerant a cow with an "artificial udder" to
let people "milk" her and things like a bycycle with a grainmill,
so that people have to sweat, if they want to take home a free
(no problem with THESE wheat prices) pound of flour. don't forget
the pony (for fun, that's easy) and the bull (that's the hardest
part, but EVERYONE WILL keep distance. watch for the
dressed-to-kill ladies on high heels and their special curiosity
!!! no joking !!)
the largest experimental farm from BASF is just 30 km away. and
once a year they open their farmdoors to the public. as one of
the big 10 players in agriculture they make use of their huge
possibilities and they really do their job to show life on a farm
very well with minimal advertising. 10.000 of yuppies and
disco-queens on a farm !
when children come back from a real farm holiday, some might
refuse to eat meat for some weeks, but to me that's also part of
the deal: they'll learn to respect creation and maybe will
consume their food more responsable than before. and don't be
afraid to give them some light work with the animals.
i can' see, why do you think all this to be a POLITICAL problem.
would you explain ?
klaus
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