I don’t like this fashion trend one bit. I know it’s from Stephen Colbert’s absurd fear of bears on his show. I still don’t like it and I think Stephen Colbert is obnoxious most of the time.

Nonetheless, I’m troubled by the general fear of nature mindset that it perpetuates. I also think this fear justifies violence toward nonhuman animals.

Last week, a colleague of mine gave a presentation about the Writing Center to a Freshman Engineering class. She said the professor (or instructor, I don’t know) walked into class and released a Brown Recluse spider on the front desk. The students, of course, freaked out (apparently if you get bit, you might end up like this…you’re going to wish you didn’t look). He said, “this is a poisonous Brown Recluse spider, but don’t worry…”

And he smashed it.

I have no idea what this has to do with engineering. And though the students were freaked out, I don’t have to tell you that the spider obviously had a lot more to be scared of than any of them did.

I feel like I’m beginning to see more and more of this general contempt for nature everywhere I turn. This all makes me what to cite this great quote again.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 16th, 2007 at 4:27 pm and is filed under environmental injustice, identity. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will be moderated but will appear as soon as humanly possible.