“Two Cheers for Nature” by David P. Barash

1.) David Barash writes a quality essay on nature and what we as humans are miss understanding about it. Throughout the world people have common miss conceptions that nature or what is “natural” is always beautiful. Barash wants people to realize that nature isn’t always beautiful. He challenges this lie, this false advertisement, with the existence  of disease, natural disasters and everything negative that mother nature can throw at us. He wants people to actually think about what is natural. He refers to all of those who are so high on themselves for eating all natural food products or working hard on athletics. He isn’t saying it is a bad thing that humans enjoy doing those things but simply trying to get them to realize that those acts are exactly natural. This is what he wishes to complicate.

2.)  When discussing the BP oil spill he mentions that a crazy amount of people freaked out about what was happening. He mentions that really the only thing discussed was what we could do in compensation for the mistake we made, but what Barash thinks we should have been discussing is the fact that it was a natural mistake. Oil is a natural thing, and most people forget this. This goes to help his main idea because it shows people often forget what natural is. We have the wrong idea and Barash is opening our minds to this.

3.) We as humans always feel the need to intervene with nature. When we seem something we do not like we often times, step in and stop the negative aspect of nature from happening. In Annie Dillard’s case she witnesses an unfortunate occurrence where a little frog is eaten by a large bug. But she understands that this is a natural occurrence. She says, “it’s rough out there, and chancy,” and goes on to talk about how we should all realize these things happen. This of course goes to support Barash’s claim even more.

4.) Barash explains how we as humans have a better understanding of our actions and instincts. Which he compares to other animals of the planet and explains that this is how we are different. In the wild animals live to survive, they fight to survive and they fight to thrive. This is their natural instinct. We as humans don’t exactly fight to survive. We are at the top of the food chain aren’t we? So his point is how natural are we actually. Should we be fighting like animals? Our actions in the way we choose to live aren’t natural. We do things to please our needs, in the wild there aren’t luxuries. We as humans have luxuries, and they are completely unnatural in this world, but may people think that they are. If we were to live “naturally” our world as we know would be completely different.

5.) The main purpose for Barash’s essay is to get us to realize that we are not natural. Our lives consist of unnatural acts. Mother nature is natural. Something that isn’t control, something that lives through instinct. We have instinct but we also have luxuries, luxuries that wouldn’t exist normally.