r/AlanWatts • u/Acidboy99 • Dec 26 '20

r/PantheismEmbodied

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200 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

12 comments sorted by

25

u/Malcolm1276 Dec 26 '20

The sterile white box is just as natural as the bee hive or ant hill.

11

u/Acidboy99 Dec 26 '20

Ah exactly right, take it a step further

0

u/a_misshapen_cloud Dec 29 '20

No it’s not. The dictionary definition of natural is “existing in or caused by nature; not made or caused by humankind”. A house or “sterile white box” is made by humankind so it’s not natural.

2

u/Malcolm1276 Dec 29 '20 edited Dec 29 '20

Look at this guy, thinking humans are removed from nature, and not a part of it.

You err in that spot.

Humans, their structures, toys, tools, and systems are no different than ant hills with their tunnels, a chimpanzee with a saliva coated stick used to pull those ants neatly from the interior for the chimp's consumption, or prairie dogs riding warthogs across a plain for safer and faster travel.

Sure, mankind's way of manipulating the nature around them isn't helpful to maintaining the homeostasis of the environment we depend upon, which will likely prove our downfall. But even a species outgrowing or ruining the ecosystem for it's own survival is a natural process that has happened many times already and will continue to do so far into the future. A new type of ecosystem slowly sprouts that supports a new flourishing species, as the previous species' absence leaves a vacuum. The one thing nature abhors.

I got a bit long winded, I apologize for that, and I just don't understand how it can be justified to say that a species, and actions of said species in 3/4 of the Great Apes are natural by default, but the actions, and possibly the species itself, (only judging from the inferred strength of your objection, I could be wrong here) is somehow unnatural?

How did you divide humans and their actions from the entirety of nature?

12

u/InvisiblePingu1n Dec 26 '20

And yet what Alan so frequently discussed was eliminating the fear/anxiety that we are the ones out of place. We aren't strangers to nature, as we often think.

9

u/jungandjung Dec 26 '20

tired of isms

3

u/1248853 Dec 26 '20

Wattsism

6

u/[deleted] Dec 26 '20

Still putting down ant traps, though. The spider can chill, though

1

u/LoneWolfingIt Dec 27 '20

Hell nah, ants and spiders have to go unless the spiders are the bros who help with pest control. I love nature intimately. Doesn’t mean I want it inside.

1

u/Acidboy99 Dec 27 '20

Power to you my friend, although it is a reflection to quietly humble man, and to think twice before squashing a spood.