Kenilworth
New member
Again, I must tackle this topic from the standpoint of one living in rural America. My outlook on cave conservation is influenced by my outlook on land conservation, which is necessarily influenced by my surroundings and experiences. I live in a rural area under threat of the complete loss of community, and explore caves in this and other rural areas in similar or worse conditions. Here, perhaps more than in the most mechanized megalopolis, is the easy evidence that we exploit whatever we value, but defend what we love. This gives rise to my concerns about the desire for growth of institutionalized caving that is expressed constantly by the institutions. For love of the cave is no precondition for love of caving, and the caving institutions I am aware of approach conservation as a learned chore, not as a natural response to affection.
The caves in these places have been exposed to little caver traffic. They have entered into my affection as the hills and streams and pastures have. But unlike the hills and streams and pastures, many of them are largely intact. I think about them constantly, and as many questions as I have about what I might still find in them, I have an equal number about how to best take care of them. I have not always answered these questions properly, and, in my impatience, I have sometimes ignored my own answers. While my carelessness has caused some unnecessary destruction, I have made improvements and am nearing a sort of balance that I feel is defensible, based on my best understanding of the individual caves under my influence. While I would never insist that my standards are the best ones, I do insist that no ethical standards can exist without much thought, patience, and affection. Do I think that a growing ?caving community? would equal an increase in thought, patience, and affection? No.
But would a decrease in caving be as disastrous culturally as an increase would be ecologically (and spiritually, and culturally)? Aricooperdavis evidently believes so.
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In arguing that the stagnation of caving would be an unwelcome development, Aricooperdavis cites three areas that might be negatively impacted: 1. The financial concerns of cave-related trades/commerce. 2. Overall human happiness levels. 3. Scientific potential.
It is impossible to deny that a decrease of cavers would mean a decrease in gear sales. Probably some shops would have to close, and some more would have to adapt their inventories. This matter of livelihood is not a trivial one, and for anyone to lose their business is of course a clear negative. I can only respond that the threat to individual businesses catering to cavers is real and imminent, no matter what happens to caver populations.
I cannot see, on the other hand, that the stagnation of recreational caving would have a lot of impact on commercial caving. In fact, in the absence of active clubs, many new, tourist-type cavers with a casual or occasional interest could have their need for spelean adventure met by professional services. If online searches directed potential cavers to guided experiences instead of clubs or cave locations, perhaps business would increase while traffic in other caves would decrease. This is all highly speculative of course. I don?t know enough about the matter to safely predict the behavior of spelean consumers, but I don?t see any reason to count professional caving as a loss.
Overall human happiness levels. This argument is borne of the conflation of quality with quantity that is the basis of much rhetoric from ?progressive? cultural statisticians. It is a popular lie that everyone has a right to everything, with no concern given to responsibility. I have not proposed taking anything away from anyone, and I will not; this is a discussion of a slowly (but hopefully not too slowly) diminishing institution. But that it is diminishing seems to me proof that it should diminish, for what is the alternative? To prop up an institution is pointless if the threat to its existence is disinterest. We today are more disinterested in the natural world than any group of people in history. We are unsurpassingly apathetic and ignorant, and our bodies are weaker and more useless than ever before. And we are distracted my innumerable material baubles.
Should we make efforts to fight this apathy? To reconnect people to the land? Yes. Should we do it through caving? No. Caves are not an ideal place for newcomers to the planet. To claim that a world where institutionalized caving has become dormant would be a sadder world is to ignore the question of quality, to underestimate the cavers who would continue to maintain vibrant communities, and to give precedence to the hypothetical ?rights? of current non-cavers.
A loss of scientific potential, if taken to mean opportunities for academic science, is something that doesn?t deserve mourning. The science of universities is not married to the world it studies. Science that serves no purpose but to fill quotas of publishable papers or student theses is, in a cave environment, simply exploitation. But if taken to mean the learning that comes from affection, from fascination, from a desire to understand and care for, the loss of ?caving? will have little impact on scientific potential. There will always be interested and intelligent people exploring caves, asking questions, and answering them. And these questions will be easier to ask and to answer if the landscapes that inspire them are intact.
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I believe that a stagnation of Caving, even one leading to extinction, would be a net positive. There will never be an end to cave exploration. No sorts of regulations or clubs or politics will ever dictate the activities of a significant number of cave explorers who will be bound by nothing more than their character, abilities, and initiative. These people already exist, and there could be more of them. The absence of institutionalized caving would free the caver to find motivation and inspiration from within himself and his real, physical, immediate community, untainted by formulaic practice and an oversimplified ?conservation ethic?. Without recreational caving organizations, it would be revealed that ego, competition, narcissism, and the faux counterculture of caving were responsible for much more than an acceptable amount of wear on places the contestants were not worthy of. If Caving continues to stagnate, a few things will be lost. A few dollars. Some tourists won?t know what they?re missing, A few human legacies will be more quickly forgotten. A few inconsequential studies will remain undone. It is a matter of personal values, but I reckon that alongside even a small chance of regaining and preserving a principled reciprocity with our lands, these losses are gladly sufferable.
The caves in these places have been exposed to little caver traffic. They have entered into my affection as the hills and streams and pastures have. But unlike the hills and streams and pastures, many of them are largely intact. I think about them constantly, and as many questions as I have about what I might still find in them, I have an equal number about how to best take care of them. I have not always answered these questions properly, and, in my impatience, I have sometimes ignored my own answers. While my carelessness has caused some unnecessary destruction, I have made improvements and am nearing a sort of balance that I feel is defensible, based on my best understanding of the individual caves under my influence. While I would never insist that my standards are the best ones, I do insist that no ethical standards can exist without much thought, patience, and affection. Do I think that a growing ?caving community? would equal an increase in thought, patience, and affection? No.
But would a decrease in caving be as disastrous culturally as an increase would be ecologically (and spiritually, and culturally)? Aricooperdavis evidently believes so.
--
In arguing that the stagnation of caving would be an unwelcome development, Aricooperdavis cites three areas that might be negatively impacted: 1. The financial concerns of cave-related trades/commerce. 2. Overall human happiness levels. 3. Scientific potential.
It is impossible to deny that a decrease of cavers would mean a decrease in gear sales. Probably some shops would have to close, and some more would have to adapt their inventories. This matter of livelihood is not a trivial one, and for anyone to lose their business is of course a clear negative. I can only respond that the threat to individual businesses catering to cavers is real and imminent, no matter what happens to caver populations.
I cannot see, on the other hand, that the stagnation of recreational caving would have a lot of impact on commercial caving. In fact, in the absence of active clubs, many new, tourist-type cavers with a casual or occasional interest could have their need for spelean adventure met by professional services. If online searches directed potential cavers to guided experiences instead of clubs or cave locations, perhaps business would increase while traffic in other caves would decrease. This is all highly speculative of course. I don?t know enough about the matter to safely predict the behavior of spelean consumers, but I don?t see any reason to count professional caving as a loss.
Overall human happiness levels. This argument is borne of the conflation of quality with quantity that is the basis of much rhetoric from ?progressive? cultural statisticians. It is a popular lie that everyone has a right to everything, with no concern given to responsibility. I have not proposed taking anything away from anyone, and I will not; this is a discussion of a slowly (but hopefully not too slowly) diminishing institution. But that it is diminishing seems to me proof that it should diminish, for what is the alternative? To prop up an institution is pointless if the threat to its existence is disinterest. We today are more disinterested in the natural world than any group of people in history. We are unsurpassingly apathetic and ignorant, and our bodies are weaker and more useless than ever before. And we are distracted my innumerable material baubles.
Should we make efforts to fight this apathy? To reconnect people to the land? Yes. Should we do it through caving? No. Caves are not an ideal place for newcomers to the planet. To claim that a world where institutionalized caving has become dormant would be a sadder world is to ignore the question of quality, to underestimate the cavers who would continue to maintain vibrant communities, and to give precedence to the hypothetical ?rights? of current non-cavers.
A loss of scientific potential, if taken to mean opportunities for academic science, is something that doesn?t deserve mourning. The science of universities is not married to the world it studies. Science that serves no purpose but to fill quotas of publishable papers or student theses is, in a cave environment, simply exploitation. But if taken to mean the learning that comes from affection, from fascination, from a desire to understand and care for, the loss of ?caving? will have little impact on scientific potential. There will always be interested and intelligent people exploring caves, asking questions, and answering them. And these questions will be easier to ask and to answer if the landscapes that inspire them are intact.
--
I believe that a stagnation of Caving, even one leading to extinction, would be a net positive. There will never be an end to cave exploration. No sorts of regulations or clubs or politics will ever dictate the activities of a significant number of cave explorers who will be bound by nothing more than their character, abilities, and initiative. These people already exist, and there could be more of them. The absence of institutionalized caving would free the caver to find motivation and inspiration from within himself and his real, physical, immediate community, untainted by formulaic practice and an oversimplified ?conservation ethic?. Without recreational caving organizations, it would be revealed that ego, competition, narcissism, and the faux counterculture of caving were responsible for much more than an acceptable amount of wear on places the contestants were not worthy of. If Caving continues to stagnate, a few things will be lost. A few dollars. Some tourists won?t know what they?re missing, A few human legacies will be more quickly forgotten. A few inconsequential studies will remain undone. It is a matter of personal values, but I reckon that alongside even a small chance of regaining and preserving a principled reciprocity with our lands, these losses are gladly sufferable.
