I'll take a quick moment to differentiate this from cairn
stacking (which can look exactly the same) but serves the purpose of
signaling where a path is located, which is perfectly acceptable.
Cairn stacking is minimally destructive to the natural environment
and can even bring a net decrease in environmental destruction by
keeping people on the trail while allowing them an opportunity to
experience a natural environment. Also, some cultures will stack
rocks on the outskirts of town to signify the beginning of a journey
and the intent to return, and since those cultures are much older
than I am, I'm not going to tell them it's wrong.
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| Who built it better, nature or man? (Near Ama Dablam, Sagarmatha National Park, Nepal) -Photo By Ariel Gardiner |
But in the event someone is stacking rocks with no practical or cultural purpose I just don't understand it. In Nepal I saw a fellow tourist trekker stacking rocks and asked him why he was doing it. He told me he didn't know. I guess I'm not the only one who doesn't understand it. Someone else once explained that it was an homage to nature and its beauty. I hate that explanation. Because what the stacker actually did was take some nature, which was perfectly fine, already constructed in its natural way, rocks lying here and there based on the individual journey of molecules across time, and rearranged it in some human way. It comes off as pretentious and ignorant that man, especially while acknowledging and attempting to appreciate that something called nature exists, chooses to modify what nature had already done when it arranged the rocks in the first place. Do these people believe they can arrange rocks more naturally than nature? If I was nature I'd probably be pretty pissed that some dude came along and started messing with my arrangement, not honored that he made a monument to me out of me. I was just fine before man came along, and I didn't request a monument.
Moreover,
the result of stacking rocks will not help others appreciate nature,
the apparent objective. I will concede that the stack of rocks is
more noticeable than rocks not stacked. So it does attract attention
to the rocks. However, while composed of nature, the stack does not
send a message about nature, it delivers a message about
humanity. The reason the stack is noticeable is that it is an unusual
arrangement for rocks, a decidedly unnatural arrangement. Perhaps it
will be interpreted as an attempt to overcome gravity, or man's
ability to create and organize from the established environment.
Viewers
who have come to this outdoorsy place to appreciate nature will only
appreciate nature, like really appreciate it, if it is still in its
natural undisturbed form. I mean, a concrete building, or a hydrogen bomb for
that matter, is made of natural things that man has rearranged in
some specific way. But those things do not invoke an appreciation of
nature. Stacked rocks are a similar, though very slight, step away
from nature, not toward. If man wishes to pay homage to nature,
it should do so by learning to live in harmony with nature, not
fucking with it.
I
do realize that so far I have differentiated between humanity and
nature as if they were different things. However, the evolution and
current state of humanity could be considered a part of nature and
therefore human nature, including all its apparent faults like
genocide, environmental destruction, Fox News, and yes, rock
stacking, could logically be considered a subset of nature. After
all, beavers cut down trees and dam rivers to build their houses, but
a beaver's actions must be considered natural, right?
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| Another monument to humanity’s destruction of the environment? (Near Corniglia, Italy) - Photo by Ariel Gardiner |
I
suppose that is the big philosophical question here: Is every human
action regardless of intent or consequences justified as natural? Is
human nature, erm, natural? My answer: No. Not always. Natural?
Unnatural? Plato spent a lot of time trying trying to categorize
human activity into these two groups. So what can philosopher Ari the
Great contribute to the conversation? Probably nothing that hasn’t
already been better phrased by someone else. But here’s my take:
I
believe that the universe is composed of natural laws which regulate
and balance all things physical like energy, matter, waves,
particles, forces, as well as things that may appear to extend beyond
the physical like life, consciousness, emotions, health, ecology,
economics, time, etc. These laws are only partially understood
by humans, but we are still subjected to them. Through observation
and experimentation, both scientific and anecdotal, we have begun to
understand these laws and from them we have derived many
technological advancements.
It’s
impossible to violate these laws of nature like human laws can be
violated; people should not be murdered, yet sometimes they are.
Instead, in nature, actions create offsetting or balancing reactions,
much like Newton's third law: For every action, there is an equal
and opposite reaction. However, this applies to more than just
objects in motion. It applies to energy, matter, waves,
particles, forces, as well as things like life, consciousness,
emotions, health, ecology, economics, and time. Stop me if you’ve
read this list before.
As
humans have developed cognition, consciousness, and the free will to
create these initial actions. As nature would have it, we have also
simultaneously developed the faculty to determine whether an action
is natural or not. Nature is always clever and balanced like that.
That faculty is how we feel once we observe the reaction. For
example, when an unjust murder is committed there is an
equivalent reaction. There is pain felt by the victim, as well as
within those close to the victim. There is also pain felt by the
murderer in most cases. Societies have observed these painful
reactions and almost all have concluded murder is wrong, or
unnatural. In this way we can say that natural actions are moral
actions, those which do not create painful reactions, and conversely
unnatural actions are those which cause painful reactions.
One
of humanity’s biggest problem today is that via globalization it is
often removed from these observations, particularly in the fields of
ecology and economics, and thus often has difficulty matching it’s
actions to consequences. If you, because it happened far away, you
didn’t witness the environmental destruction that allowed you to
eat that cheeseburger, how do you know which actions to avoid?
But
humanity will feel it. Humanity is already feeling it. It is the law
of nature. As humans continue to destroy other forms of life, it will
become impossible to sustain human life. That is when the nations’
leaders, who are currently far removed from the consequence of their
actions, will finally feel it. Everything will remain in balance.
As
for stacking rocks (because we did get a little sidetracked didn't we), it
still feels like an ever so slight destruction, an attempt to feed
the ego or fill a void rather than an appreciation of anything,
particularly not nature and it’s beautiful laws of balance.
Yes,
balance.
Hmmm.
Wait.
Perhaps
that's what these rock stackers were trying to teach me along.
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| (Cliffs of Moher, Ireland) Photo by Ariel Gardiner |
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