one of the thought principles that colonialism and white supremacy has left with us in the US is the idea that (white) humans are not animals, are in fact “above” animals, and are therefore not truly meant to be a participant in the ecosystem; the healthiest natural ecosystem is one in which we do NOT participate

This was used as justification for indigenous genocide; and in the present day, leaves us with an environmental movement that largely believes in “preserves” -- ie, large swaths of land “saved” by not allowing humans to perform their evolutionary role as a keystone species.

This is part of why some of our biggest invasive/pest problems in the US are game animals! Squirrel, feral boars, deer, etc. When you remove the top-level predators from an ecosystem including but not limited to humans game animals explode in population and do huge amounts of damage.

lmao why does plurk cross out random phrases when I’m talking about humans being animals. WE ARE, PLURK

Oh haha I bet it’s a text markup thing, that’s so funny-- discord does that to me sometimes too

lmao leave me alone plurk, i ain’t asking for text edits

This is a very different context but I’ve been on a big kick in recent years when writing porn of really leaning into characters’ awareness of themselves as creatures -- as animals with bodies.

and not in a dehumanizing objectifying way (although that can also be fun in the right context) but more like.....allowing themselves to really lean into how visceral a connection is is they’re sharing with another person, if that makes sense

ANYWAY when white people are like “humans usage only damages the pristine natural world, look at all the harm we’ve already caused” it’s very...man in a hotdog suit we’re all trying to find the guy who did this

I feel like there can be a tendency in fiction in certain circles to really distance the prose from the squishy realities of being a physical creature, but I feel like that’s the whole point a lot of the time haha

Yeah, that usage of reclaiming animal-ness makes sense to me too!

Sorry I interrupted your smart thoughts on forests this is all just very interesting as a larger issue of people wanting to distance themselves from their own animalness in different contexts 🙏

Haha, it’s all good, many different reasons to say “im just a liddol creature” as praxis lmao

the thing with game animal populations and humans as a keystone species hadn't really occurred to me, thank you for sharing it!

Yeah! The forester was talking about how game animals became a huge problem after the chestnut blight specifically, because that signaled the end of hunting/foraging as a regular everyday activity for everyone in the US. We’ve only been living in this particular chapter of food history for ~100 years, so the environmental shock is incredibly recent :0

Also on a very personal level, my pivot over the last few years from “I’m a vegetarian leftist who associates hunting with rich republicans and nothing more” to “shit oh shit we actually need a lot MORE people out hunting” has been a big moral shift to grapple with, hahaha

Humans as a keystone species is really gonna be sitting with me for a while

The framing for pretty much my entire life has been “humans are uncomplicatedly bad for the world and all ‘natural’ spaces would be better without us in it”

detachabletail: I was just about to ask about your relationship to hunting!

would "if buying meat, seek out game if at all possible" be a good way to go about it then?

breq: yeah, same!! Standard history texts don’t talk much about the throughline from “white settlers commit genocide and steal land from indigenous people with thousands of years of local land management knowledge” to “white settlers fuck up the environment and conclude, actually humans are bad for the natural world”

giantelks: oh like, in terms of personal ethics about meat eating? That’s kind of where I am, but with a lot of caveats! I do think it would be good if more people with the economic means to do so shifted their meat-eating from factory farms to game. But it’s obviously unfair to judge people who can’t, for financial/access reasons?

detachabletail: yeah, absolutely! just on a personal level.

I am very strongly not a “i think meat is morally wrong” vegetarian for a lot of reasons, more a “i think people with the economic means to do so should practice making more responsible choices with their food consumption whenever possible”, haha

ooh thanks for sharing this concept, my mind has expanded today

shirofuji: thank you all for letting me holler about plants on...every single secret platform lmao