Some time late last Sunday night, I stumbled upon a fight discussion on Twitter. It turns out there are actually more threads to it than I’ve reproduced here, so if you’re really keen, do feel free to click through on individual tweets to see where it went. Here I’ve only reproduced the thread I read at the time. It starts with this:
Stand ready, lovers of Tasmania, the planet rapers are coming for our forests http://t.co/BBLEgBpR0j #politas #auspol #environment #climate
— Cassy O’Connor (@CassyOConnorMP) March 16, 2014
Living in Sydney, @davidau1, vituperating many thousands of miles from our landscape & wilderness, you wouldn’t have a clue .. #politas
— Cassy O’Connor (@CassyOConnorMP) March 16, 2014
poor use of the English language @CassyOConnorMP as @davidau1 did not vituperate in his tweet, your use of rape was more vituperous #politas
— Robfromtaroona (@Robfromtaroona) March 16, 2014
Ever stood in the aftermath of an old forest clearfell/burn @Robfromtaroona? @davidau1 That’s rape in my books & so 4 many others #politas
— Cassy O’Connor (@CassyOConnorMP) March 16, 2014
@CassyOConnorMP @Robfromtaroona @davidau1 Rape victims would probably not agree.
— AnnieLWells (@anniepinkstorm) March 16, 2014
@anniepinkstorm @Robfromtaroona @CassyOConnorMP @davidau1 Disrespectful toward those who have been raped.
— justsayingDMY (@justsayingDMY) March 16, 2014
I’m pretty sure this next tweet is the one I first noticed in my timeline:
Sadly, we can’t ask the countless, voiceless victims of industrial logging … @justsayingDMY @anniepinkstorm @Robfromtaroona @davidau1 2/2
— Cassy O’Connor (@CassyOConnorMP) March 16, 2014
Try asking the artisans who rely on the small amount of timber from areas previously logged that you now want locked up @CassyOConnorMP
— Robfromtaroona (@Robfromtaroona) March 16, 2014
@Robfromtaroona @CassyOConnorMP That’s a boom industry on whose back Tasmania can ride. Not.
— Inquisitive Elephant (@badpachy) March 16, 2014
@CassyOConnorMP @anniepinkstorm @Robfromtaroona @davidau1 Chances of you living in a dwelling that hasn’t used industrial logging, nil.
— justsayingDMY (@justsayingDMY) March 16, 2014
So you disagree with greens policy? @badpachy @CassyOConnorMP
— Robfromtaroona (@Robfromtaroona) March 16, 2014
At this point my stupidity got the better of me, and I decided to engage:
.@Robfromtaroona @CassyOConnorMP why are artisans more important than trees? why are trees more important than artisans? Any middle ground?
— Tim Serong (@tserong) March 16, 2014
Not suggesting artisans are more important, but if they can’t resource their primary resource there is a problem @tserong @CassyOConnorMP
— Robfromtaroona (@Robfromtaroona) March 16, 2014
@Robfromtaroona @CassyOConnorMP true. Twitter is a poor medium for nuanced discussion…
— Tim Serong (@tserong) March 16, 2014
On reflection, that’s not too terrible an ending. But this exchange go me thinking about the words we use. Various ancient cultures had a notion that words had power; that to name a thing would cause it to come into existence. So I tried this myself today. I said, in the most solemn voice I could manage, “there is a bacon cheeseburger on the corner of my desk”. Alas, it didn’t work. I was stuck with my linux.conf.au 2014 lanyard, my headset, sunglasses, a stapler, some Ceph and HP stickers, a stack of SUSE post-it notes and a pile of folded up Tasmanian state election propaganda I’ve been meaning to set fire to.
Perhaps I’m not as adept as the ancients at manipulating reality. Perhaps “bacon cheeseburger” isn’t actually a word of power. Or perhaps that notion was simply never meant to be taken literally. Maybe it was more that the words we use frame the way we think. More disturbingly, that the words we use put walls up around the way we are able to think.
Cassy O’Connor said “rape”, which I (with the benefit of never having actually been raped; apparently it helps to be a reasonably sized, allegedly scary looking, bearded white male) took to be a rather evocative analogy for the violence that can be wrought upon forests. But, she was shot down for this usage, because it was seen to be “disrespectful toward those who have been raped”.
Rob from Taroona seems to be referring to forests as “resources”, and while it’s apparent he understands that there’s a balance to be struck between the existence of forests and our use of them, for me the term “resource” is problematic. Dig up “resource” in a dictionary if you still have one (or just go the lazy approach), and it tends to be defined along the lines of “something that one uses to achieve an objective”.
I can’t bring myself to see forests that way. Rather I see timber as a resource, and trees as life forms.
And I wonder to what extent the words I choose to describe things trap my thinking inside little mental boxes.