What’s with Ozymandias?

Roman-era historian Diodorus Siculus, who described a statue of Ozymandias, more commonly known as Rameses II (possibly the pharaoh referred to in the Book of Exodus). Diodorus reports the inscription on the statue, which he claims was the largest in Egypt, as follows: “King of Kings Ozymandias am I. If any want to know how great I am and where I lie, let him outdo me in my work.” (The statue and its inscription do not survive, and were not seen by Shelley; his inspiration for  [the sonnet]  “Ozymandias” was verbal rather than visual.)  http://www.poetryfoundation.org/learning/guide/238972   View Shelley’s sonnet here.

This paper is a commentary on the book; Keeping the Wild:  Against the Domestication of Earth

The book is Edited by George Wuerthner, Eileen Crist, and Tom Butler. Published by the Foundation for Deep Ecology in collaboration with Island Press, 2014, Washington D.C.

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Interesting information on the work of Chet Bowers

 

“Bowers specifically develops arguments around consumer identity and the commoditization of cultural commons as the root of our contemporary conceptual crisis. He argues for the redevelopment of a plural cultural commons to replace consumerism and the cultivation of ecological intelligence in place of destructive linguistic patterns. While this premise may sound simple, or even trite, Bowers provides a detailed and critical rationale for why we must avoid widespread ecological collapse and how we might actually go about making the transition to sustainability, particularly as teachers in formal classroom settings.”

 

C. A. Bowers’ The Way Forward: Educational Reforms that Focus on the Cultural Commons and the Linguistic Roots of the Ecological/Cultural Crises: A Review By Clare Hintz

 

http://www.jsedimensions.org/wordpress/content/c-a-bowers-the-way-forward-educational-reforms-that-focus-on-the-cultural-commons-and-the-linguistic-roots-of-the-ecologicalcultural-crises-a-review_2012_06/

 

The following are some of the most controversial claims made by Human Centred Conservationists:

 

1)         The Anthropocene has arrived and humans are now de facto planetary managers;

2)         If ‘pristine wilderness’ ever existed, it is all gone now; moreover, focusing on wilderness preservation has poorly served the conservation movement;

3)         Nature is highly resilient, not fragile;

4)         To succeed, conservation must serve human aspirations, primarily regarding economic growth and development;

5)         Maintaining ‘ecosystem services,’ not preventing human-caused extinction, should be conservation’s primary goal;

6)         Conservation should emphasize better management of the domesticated, ‘working landscape’ rather than efforts to establish new, strictly protected natural areas.

7)         Conservationists should not critique capitalism but rather should partner with corporations to achieve better results.

 

Tom Butler comments:

“These ideas, individually and collectively, are worthy of close inspection; respectful debate; and in view of the editors, vigorous rebuttal.”

 

Vigorous rebuttal is my primary objective in this post and future posts.