I follow a Calvin and Hobbes twitter account because, like everyone else in the universe, I love the comic strip. This particular one had both Calvin and Hobbes staring at a sawn-off tree trunk and Calvin says:

“We seem to understand the value of oil, timber, minerals, and housing, but not the value of the beauty of nature, wildlife, solitude, and spiritual renewal.” 

This particular post has the words in a typed out font, not the usual hand lettering that the actual strip used. Watterson wrote those words, but not with the particular frame used in the post. The combination is someone else’s, not his. Nonetheless, the sentiment is genuine and struck me. 

I don’t know what Watterson’s particular beliefs were in the area of environmentalism/conservationism. The original started with Calvin saying,

“People keep talking about opening up more wilderness for development.”

The quote as posted neglected that part.  

What I do understand is that life is made up of trade-offs. If we are to have food, shelter, and clothing, it would be possible to do such in a fairly minimal state of unbalanced interference with nature, as long as we live in a subsistence level existence. Like every other animal, we would have to constantly forage and spend our time looking for ways to scrape together food, find shelter, and keep ourselves warm. Trees are still going to be cut down for shelter and, animals are still probably going to be killed for food and clothing. Those things would happen at lower levels though for the mere fact that much fewer of us would survive.  

The sentiment expressed in the post is essentially: Humans should respect and reverence nature more than they do. I’ll grant this is true in general. But it also strikes me that the people that can afford that sentiment, can only do so from an advanced state of development. The post expresses, to use the current term, a luxury belief; a belief that can only occur to those with abundance, who take for granted the societal levels that we’ve built up. 

For those living at a subsistence level, they’re only thought is: how can I get enough food to eat and keep myself clothed and safe from predators. They are not concerned with the “value of unspoiled beauty, wildlife, solitude, and spiritual renewal”, because they are too busy trying to keep themselves fed. They would, without thinking about such esoteric considerations as ‘the value of unspoiled beauty’, chop down a tree to make themselves a shelter; or kill animals for food and clothing. Spiritual renewal is a consideration that one can concern himself with only after he is sure his daily needs are met.  

No other animal could have such a capacity to group together, form civilizations and build interdependent networks of provision at all levels to provide this kind of abundance. Man is unique in this. His abilities mean that he was never going to remain at subsistence levels. He alone has the power to reflect on such things as beauty, solitude, and spiritual renewal. 

I’m assuming that Watterson wasn’t really suggesting humans try and return to such a state. I don’t think it’s possible, even if some would consider it desirable…. and I’m not really sure what kind of monstrous idiot would consider it desirable. I’m sure the post was meant to prompt us to consider that we’ve often moved into rapaciousness, rather than just taking care of our needs, or even provisioning for the future. As mentioned earlier, life is about trade-offs. Like it or not, our existence is going to have negative impacts. I don’t think the earth needs necessarily be negatively impacted, because we are also capable of great ingenuity and innovation. But the fact is that we have, often through greed and rapaciousness, externalized the costs to others and had a more severely negative impact than is necessary. That I agree with. There is a benefit to the unspoiled beauty of nature, wildlife, solitude, and spiritual renewal. So I’m all for considering ways in which we can minimize, or, hopefully, even reverse some of the more negative impacts we’ve had. We need to be good stewards of the planet as long as we’re here.