Monday, September 4, 2006 |
00:52 - Crikey
http://timblair.net/ee/index.php/weblog/germaine_imagines/
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Apparently some people are using the death of Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin as a teaching moment, an excuse to harangue us all about our hubris toward the natural world that Irwin allegedly personified.
As though we don't get enough of that already. We can hardly turn around without Jeff Goldblum misquoting Einstein to say "the complete lack of humility before nature that's being displayed here is staggering", or whatever he was mumbling. Life will find a way, indeed: a way into your heart. How's that? Do we all have our one-liners ready to deploy?
Evidently the charge is that kids raised on Irwin are growing up with a cavalier disdain for nature and a feeling of man's lordship over it, and Irwin's death is supposed to be a poetic illustration that not even the man who led the charmed life while sticking his thumb up various venomous animals' butts on camera could last forever—the great symbol of man's dominion crashes to earth, and with it all our childlike delusions of power.
Well, tell that to the members of my site, who have been deluging the bulletin system and the recent uploads with tributes to Irwin and the appreciation for nature that he instilled in all of them. Rain-forest destroyers these people aren't.
Egad. Now it's not even enough that some popular hero be a conservationist, he has to be the right kind of conservationist. And apparently one that actually captures kids' imaginations, like Jurassic Park did for the paleontology departments of universities everywhere, is a big no-no. Too crass, don't ya know. Too brash. Too loud. Too... enjoyable.
At least this way Irwin's legend won't fade into obscurity; it'll just make a great story someday.
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