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""Surely you'd agree that animals have a "oneness" with nature that humans have lost?"

That concept seems to bounce round discussions of pre-monumental history all the time, not the bit about animals but the concept that we've lost something, lost our way, had a biblical fall, made a huge Copeic mistake.

Well I agree absolutely that crowding and concrete breed psychoses, and gardening is good for you, and modern life can be bad for us as it can engender unhealthy attitudes and we're not well equipped for it. And I agree that a simple rural life is probably what we're naturally designed for and the best thing for us.

But I get puzzled about the "oneness with nature" mullarkey. What evidence can there be that there was once such an attitude?
Civil-isation might have had bad side effects but that's not a reason to postulate a fall from a state of grace, unless there's evidence. Is Mr Cope under the influence of Christianity?

Nobody has the monopoly on clarity. I watched (from a high window) a young female alsation on heat and cavorting with a tiny terrier male yesterday and then later went to see a person making reeds for Irish pipes. He told me that the Irish church burnt traditional instruments - in favour of 'plain song'.

The high fells are a greeny-brown desert and they have been like that for a very long time. It is clear that we haven't evolved, in a biological sense, between then and now. Those that don't learn from their mistakes are condemned to repeat them - paraphrased. The hippies believed they were a significant mutation, for a year or so, but it was just a rearrangement (of hairstyles). As to 'harmony with nature' - with six billion people it's just not possible, with six million maybe. 'Chemical scum' is Hawking's take.

I personally have never subscribed to the 'one golden age' tripe that so many people seem to hark back on, nor do I suspect that Tombo believes this existed either. In fact he has clearly stated this to be the case.

This is such a common problem, especially on message boards like this. One person says something and the 'opposer' says something like "it sounds like you're saying that it was all once golden, ha ha how stupid" and then, even after a denial/correction from the original person, the 'opposer' keeps banging on about it and using as a way of trying to defeat the other's argument.

It doesn't seem to be a conscious descision to take this course of action, but once one person has repeated an 'accusation' like this a few times everyone else takes it up as a mantra without really knowing why. I think it comes through not reading and digesting a post or response properly before responding. Someone makes a point, you counter incorrectly, they correct your misinterpretation, you don't hear them .... frustration follows at both ends.

Tombo clearly stated that he did not mean that there was once an Edenic state of affairs.

I usually put it down to goldfish-syndrome, Redtopheadlineitis or something, but I am starting to think that it's just a sad symptom of this media. Is that a psyche change?

I fail to see why mental evolution should follow the same paths as physical evolution. If that were the case then surely by now the fittest minds would be dominating the planet, but one look at Ballyogan tells you different. Perhaps this doesn't happen because the truly enlightened know that breeding and humans shouldn't mix.

Is the fall of man limited to Christianity? If there was a Fall then it was the day one of us picked up a rock and hit his neighbour for not returning the goat he borrowed the week before to keep the grass short.

Jeez, I write some bollocks!

"But I get puzzled about the "oneness with nature" mullarkey. What evidence can there be that there was once such an attitude?"

It's a good question, and I'm going to answer:

We accept that our ancestors are different from us in ways that are measurable. One way to measure this difference is by comparing our 'developed' lifestyle and psychological/spiritual processes with people that even today continue to live a neolithic life.

In my mind, the most apparent and immediate difference is the observable relationship between the people and the land in which they live. In considering Australian aboriginal life (traditional), we can see that landforms are believed to be the marks of their ancestors. 'Dreamtime' and the landscape are woven together, indivisible, and existing together on differing levels of consciousness. Non more or less real than the other. This is a giant leap for the modern mind to make. Another example is the shamanic ability to become the animal that is hunted, in a very real and spiritual sense. This is a profound aspect of the linked psychology/spirituality between the ancient homo-sap and the land in which s/he LIVED with a capital LIVED. Anyone who spends a freat amount of time outdoors, relatively unshielded (in a psychological way moreso than physical) from the processes of growth, death and change apparent on every level of being and every second of life, can ONLY come to a point where the sense of 'belonging' occurs. In no way do I mean crystal-gazing and knitting muesli; I mean a fundamental baseline cognition of the struggle and changing balance of the processes of birth growth and death, and the interconnectedness of all. This has been approximated by modern humans more out of wishful thinking and an inherent belief in a 'golden age', or a golden state, like a cross between Dr Doolittle and Mrs Woo-Woo/Hiawatha, which in so so many ways has just assisted the dehumanising effect on tribes and peoples that still share a more than commensal relationship with the land on which they and their ancestors have nurtured, hunted, fished and picked.

'being at one' is, I think, crap. But not because I can't imagine or haven't felt part of the whole thing, a microcosm within a macrocosm, which I do. It's not until I felt the great nothingness, the umbra nihili thang, the complete sense of passive smiling agape (insert word for which there is no word) in the flow of time and decay, that I ever felt 'one', and it was spelled with a zer0 not an open mouthed 'O'.

As for evidence that there is such 'malarkey' as living at one with nature, we all eat food that's grown in the earth, we all walk on the earth, swim in and drink the water, posses within us the Elements, etc etc. I'd argue that nothing has changed other than our perceptions and the varying degrees of 'shielding' from necessary responsibility towards our environment. The experential gap is so wide between the factory worker and the ancestor that we have to look towards Amazonia, Irian Jaya, etc etc.

http://www.learn.co.uk/default.asp?WCI=Unit&WCU=26816

Perhaps check the link and argue the evidence AGAINST (i.e) the Sioux ever having experienced 'one-ness' with nature? Bearing in mind that 'one-ness with nature' meant living and dying by it, just as we do now, albeit once being immeasurably more aware of the process, and actually bearing the responsibility for poisoning the river etc.

On the one hand you:

"agree absolutely that crowding and concrete breed psychoses, and gardening is good for you, and modern life can be bad for us as it can engender unhealthy attitudes and we're not well equipped for it. And I agree that a simple rural life is probably what we're naturally designed for and the best thing for us."

On the other hand you mistrust:

"the concept that we've lost something, lost our way, had a biblical fall, made a huge Copeic mistake."

There's a massive contradiction inherent in what you're saying. If the "simple rural life is... the best thing for us" then "crowding and concrete" must, of necessity, be a loss. This is just simple logic.

I never postulated a golden age. The phrase "oneness with nature" was your terminology, not mine. I only bounced it back at ya! ;)