If a tree falls in a ditch does a celebrity chef hear it?
The question of whether a tree makes a sound if it falls in a forest with no one there to hear it is usually ascribed to the philosopher cleric Bishop George Berkeley, better known in mathematical circles for his attack on fluxions as 'the ghosts of departed quantities'. Apparently he never said it. But I was reminded of it on seeing one of BBC News' entertainingly bad headlines.It read: 'It felt personal': Si King on avoiding Sycamore Gap tree felling site until now
For those not familiar with his work, King was one half of The Hairy Bikers, a likeable pair of TV chefs. We are told of King's visit to the site as if it were the location of a massacre: 'He takes several deep breaths, steeling himself, then walks slowly up to the stump.'
In case you have somehow missed the story, in 2023 a pair of idiots cut down an attractive tree that nestled in a wide ditch alongside Hadrian's Wall near Haltwhistle. It had endless news coverage, first of the vandalism itself, and then of the subsequent trial and conviction of those accused of cutting it down. (At which, incidentally, they were given sentences of four years and three months, which seems suspiciously harsh, given significantly shorter sentences handed out for
worse crimes of GBH, sexual assault and more.)
There is no doubt it was a pretty tree in a nice location. But there are estimated to be around 3 billion trees in the UK. Sycamores are not rare or endangered. It's a shame it was cut down - but I can neither understand why it was in the headlines for so long, nor why people get so emotional about it. I love trees. Cutting it down made the view less pleasant. But so does every bit of graffiti I see from the train, for example. The media need to get a better sense of proportion. This kind of excessive coverage is simply not justified.
Image (the actual Sycamore Gap tree before felling) from Unsplash+ by Jonny Gios.
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Another book I'd recommend would be The Ascent of Humanity by Charles Eisenstein. He's critiquing the foundations of our culture, i.e. the discourse of unlimited growth/progress and the way we use technology and culture to try and control and exploit nature, and the increasingly obvious detrimental impact this worldview and approach is having on the world and humanity. Here's a quote from his book that more eloquently expresses the point I was trying to make above:
"Hunter-gatherers...were animists who believed in the unique sacred spirit of each animal, plant, object and process...a tree was not a tree, but a distinct individual. If it is just a tree, one among a whole forest of trees, it is no great matter to chop it down. Nothing unique is being removed from the world. But if we see it as a unique individual, sacred and irreplaceable, then we would chop it down only with great circumspection. We might, as many indigenous peoples do, meditate and pray before committing an act of such enormity"
I think most people would agree that criminal sentences rarely feel like they have a true relationship to the crime, so making a comparison feels meaningless in a way (not directed at you, but more a general thought). Weil also has some very interesting thoughts on that topic. Have you read the Need for Roots?