On May 8, 2008, at 4:13 PM, Chris Miller wrote:
Yes -- the dead and the dying.
And for whatever reason -- some of the creatures that feed on
carrion seem to
be rather ugly too --- vultures, hyenas etc.
Some parasites too -- like ticks, intestinal worms, leeches.
Yuck -- they're ugly --- bad ugly.
Ever look dispassionately at ears? They're weird convoluted tissue
flaps, hanging off the side of your head. We don't regard them as
ugly. But if someone had eyelids that dropped in folds and looked like
ears, we'd probably be startled or even grossed out. And, btw, our
genitals are not that spiffy looking, when you think about them. But,
for most of us, they are pleasant to apprehend.
Nature offers us many emotional occasions--sunsets, newborn babies,
gathering storm clouds, raging rapids and tranquil pools, animals big
and small with tooth and claw, lightning, offal and worms that eat
offal, sulphur springs, slugs, etc. etc.--none of which is beautiful
or ugly, good or bad, right or wrong.
There is no tragedy in nature, as there is no vindication or triumph.
The earth shifts and kills living things, stones are crushed, waves
speed ashore and strip the ground of all its coverage, fires burn
uncontrolled until the ground itself is black. And then life
continues, everywhere. Nature is not wrong for producing these things.
We may experience overwhelming feelings when we confront nature, when
we look upon the Aurora Borealis or an avalanche, fields of flowers to
the horizon and carnivores feeding on the slow members of the herd,
etc. These feelings come down, basically, to awe or repulsion, not
beauty or ugliness. Tics I hate, they make me cringe and recoil, but
they are not ugly. They're repellent, disgusting, horrifying even. A
blazing sunset, radiating beams through broken, burning salmon-colored
clouds, fills us with awe at the grandness of nature, which at that
moment is perceived as benign. But what happens a mere 30 minutes or
hour later, when the last rays of the sun have departed and the world
is wrapped in inky darkness? Fear and trepidation begin to rise in our
consciousness. The awe of delight at the sunset changes to the awe of
fear of nocturnal predators adapted to find their prey.
Beauty and ugliness are words we use to describe properties we have
extracted from "out there" and placed "in here," in a WoA, to permit
us to contemplate things that otherwise are terrifying or comforting.
There are only two emotions, or perhaps more precisely, only two proto-
emotions: fear and security. These are our raw, visceral reactions to
life, and they produce reactions like disgust at parasites or dung. In
tandem with them, we have appetites that move us and give us impetus
and motivation to behave in certain ways. Lastly, on top of the two
basic emotions and our appetites, we have developed a wide array of
social behaviors that are tied to them in amazingly subtle and nuanced
ways, which we refer to as "our feelings." They are our gut reactions
of security or insecurity in light of social behavior and social
customs or cultural artifacts.
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Michael Brady
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
