Manufactured Landscapes

Just before leaving town for some time away, I saw Manufactured Landscapes, a documentary about Edward Burtynksy’s photographs of the human exploitation of the planet. The movie was so-so: Burtynsky was rather full of himself, so the filmmaker could have used some distance, but the themes were wide. We’re the only animal that has no sense of balance: we live wantonly. While the culturally dominant view of nature is as a competition, this view is woefully ignorant of all the many forms of cooperation manifested in the natural world. And in our destructive, unsustainable frenzy to chop, mine, burn, eat, & scour, we are so incredibly out of balance that the tipping point, to return a phrase, seems imminent.

Reading David Harvey’s Brief History of Neoliberalism, so the film’s concentration on China (endless factories producing consumer junk, toxic dumps recycling electronic garbage, and the Ozymandian Three Gorges Dam) was a propos. There’s hardly a finer example of neoliberalism’s authoritarian essence.

Alas, poor China. For the people and culture of Tibet, for those in Darfur, Burma, and Zimbabwe, whose leaders are all propped up by Beijing, and for the millions of Chinese themselves debased by the currupt dictatorship of the Party, next year's Olympics are anathema. Shame on all who participate, and all who profit.