A Cliche, but a Good One: Mother Earth and All Her Protective Sons
to be assimilated by agriculture-based civilizations despite greater
strength and understanding of military strategies. Surely enough, no
country in this modern world is completely based on animal husbandry,
and all of the major powers all have strong agricultural backgrounds
and production capabilities. A Han Chinese or any other members of
agriculture-based civilizations should be happily considering this
point as a matter of fact. The strength of human capability to
produce resources not naturally allotted by Mother Earth may be the
most basic quality that distinguish it from mere beasts.
But having such a self-righteous attitude belies one of the greatest
faults of agriculture-based civilizations. In their quests to
continue expansion, in population, societal organization, technology,
industry, etc., it does not and refuses to believe that there could be
a limit to such forward progress. Technology, so far at least, has
broken through pretty much all barriers to continued sophistication
and enlargement of these civilizations (if they are not completely
destroyed by others) and their constituents continue to have the
optimism that with better and better technology, the inexhaustible
resources of Mother Earth will continue to serve human expansionism.
The book thinks otherwise. On the Mongolian steppes, the wolves and
the herders have long acted as two protectors of natural balances, two
soldiers sent by Mother Earth, decimating grass-harming wild goats
while keeping each other's numbers in check so that no side can
dominate the landscape. For the well-armed migrant from agricultural
China, such an arrangement is obviously not optimal. Why not kill or
domesticate all wild goats that compete for limited grass with
livestock and eliminate all wolves that can potentially harm the
livestock. Weaponry technology has already developed to such a point
today that even if humans are outsmarted by the wolves in strategy,
the wolves still cannot escape concerted human effort to eliminate it.
Of course, the Mongolians will not do that. They say they fear
negative consequences from Mother Earth if they are to harm the wolves
more than ordered from the Above. But, from a much more scientific
point of view, their willingness to continue acting as the grassland's
guardians ALONGSIDE the wolves make logical sense. Think in this way,
when the grassland is completely rid of wild goats and wolves, who
will be there to check the continued expansion of humans? An increase
in herding population means that the number of livestocks supporting
it must also increase, eventually causing overgrazing that destroys
the grassland.
It would be great if humans can suppress their desire for expansion
for the good of the grassland, but unfortunately, human civilization
does not work that way. Humans have too long been influenced by
agriculture-based civilization's ideology of continued expansion as
progress, as bright future, and as optimism. Lack of such progress
means stagnancy, economic malaise, and ultimately, demise at the hands
of other civilizations. One of the book's main underlying theme is
the dismay of the herders in being ruled by agriculturalists strongly
holding onto such a way of thinking.
In the book, under the background of Cultural Revolution, the herders
are stripped of their rights to honor the wolves and the grassland
(labelled "feudalistic animism" by the Red Guards), and their efforts
to protect the wolves from getting killed for valuable pelts are
thwarted. The political analogy is clear. The fate of the herders
are pretty much the same as that of the wolves: assimilate (wolves
into dogs, herders into farmers) or perish. Holding onto powers of
political, economic, and military control, the only thing that can
stop the agriculturalists from executing such a plan is themselves.
So we imagine a grassland without wolves, without strong
independent-minded nomadic-herders hanging onto traditional values of
protecting the grassland, only a bunch of farmer-turned-herders to
raise livestock for the consumption of the increasing masses. Yes,
the bloody century-long conflict between wolves and humans will come
to an end, but the bloody one-sided massacre of Mother Earth by the
agriculturalists would just have began. Farmers are not natives of
the grassland; they do not understand when Mother Earth has weakened,
and they surely will not stop adding more livestock until the land
turns into semi-desert.
It's simple economics. A guest in a house would not care for the
house if he does not have to pay for any damages. He will maximize
the utility in the short-term, completely ignoring long-term problems.
The master of the house, in this case, the nomadic-herders, have long
gone away and will not come back. I hate to sound like an
environmentalist at the end, but maybe, just maybe, the
agriculture-based, highly sophisticated civilizations can learn
something about protecting Mother Nature from their nomadic-herder
brother subjugated through quiet cultural wars?
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