The Mammoth Tale
Few passages capture the bane of consumerism like this one does. It is from the novella, The Tusks of Extinction by Ray Nayler.
The premise of the book is an intriguing one.
The wooly mammoth is being resurrected – being cross bred from the genetic remains frozen in the Siberian Tundra with the Asian elephants (because they are gentler than African elephants).
Thus, begins the tale of a doctor whose life was hacked from him moments after he uploaded his thoughts and knowledge to the web. This man, Dr Damira, was a passionate naturalist, a man who studied the African elephants and their ways. He fought for their conservation but failed. This is set in a future where the last of the elephants no longer roam the Earth.
The resurrected mammoths in Siberia are facing difficulty thriving in the wild. They have all been bred in captivity, and do not understand how to survive the demands of living by themselves, caring for each other, and forging paths so they can forage and live through the cruel winters. They are thus being killed by poachers in a cry that reminds scientists of how the elephants were all killed off one by one.
In an attempt to give them a chance at life, the doctor’s consciousness is uploaded to a mammoth – a matriarch by the name of Damira.
Bane of Consumerism
There are several aspects of this novella that can appeal to us, but one in particular stood out to me, and that was how our consumerist culture alienates us from the natural world. For we buy things, we want things, we accumulate, we hoard – who is it hurting? I am earning and I am buying. It is all helping the economy is it not?
Extract:
In offices-a tusk in a case, beautifully carved, transformed into a world of its own, worked by human hands into a chain of elephants walking trunk to tail. Beautiful, lifeless elephants carved from the destruction of an elephant, hacked into what had once been a part of a body, a tooth, a tool. A part of a life.
“Among the skyscrapers, there were also older places-little streets of cramped shops, survivors from another Hong Kong. Marginalia that had been missed by the eraser of progress. And there, in the shop windows, so crammed with clever things, there it was. My eyes found it over and over again. Ivory. Ivory jewelry, ivory stamps used to sign decrees that were meaningless now, ivory game pieces of every kind. Ivory turned into useless gewgaws, dripping with the blood in my home. It could be carved into any lovely shape they wished, but all of it began in killing. No-more than that all of it began in killing that took place far away. That took place somewhere the people who thought of ivory as a material could not see. Killing that took place in an extraction zone.
I remember the horror I felt when I first learnt that certain types of leather were obtained from the skin of crocodiles and were thus priced higher.
Cities like Hong Kong and New York and London at the center, vortexes into which the currents of trade accelerated, into which goods from all over the world were pulled. Places where things became materials. Where things became commodities.
Many of us rarely stop to think of the source of all the things we use as part of our daily lives. In all honesty it is overwhelming to do so. How does the kidney bean come to be in its packet in the grocery store? Once we start down that road though, what about the almond flour, the diamond ring, the leather handbag, the silk scarf, the perfume, the spice, the watch, the gold ring, the ceramic jug? Everything has its tale, its journey, its place in the human chain of wants and needs.
What Can We Do?
In reality, we cannot give in to an almost paralyzing analysis of source-to-table for everything we consume. Is there economic exploitation along the way, unscrupulous practices, inhumane treatments? Would we be happy to know it all and make informed decisions – yes, (I am hoping that humans have enough humanity to make the right choices if we do), but can we do so? Not always.
I spent a pleasurable few hours at the mall the other day, and found my fellow human beings doing the same. Glancing around at the happy faces of those of my fellow humans that morning, I did not see malice or greed – I simply saw folks at a mall on a rainy week-end.
I like that mass production has made life easier, the jobs it has created, alleviating entire nations from poverty. I like that poor children can have new clothes, and that horizons have expanded thanks to the general prosperity of nations. I do not, however, like the ever-increasing pressure to produce and consume more.
Is the economy to be weighed against the Earth’s resources at every step in the mall? Or just more more meaningful consumption? I do not know.
Nourish-n-Cherish 