This was another sketch commenting on our education system. Instead of a celebration of life, nature and the universe, it was a study of dead specimens. They were reduced to anatomical parts that required naming. Instead of the understanding of how they worked revealing a greater, more wonderful revelation, it merely reduced it down to something less than what it was. The sum of the parts was less than the whole. It was a chore to be learnt rather than a joy to be appreciated.
Biology should be a celebration – not a misery. It’s a wonder!
This was a simple drawing of what had been a much more intricate pencil drawing. I shall have to hunt those drawings out!
This was a very quick sketch . The original was a pencil drawing that was much more developed. It was a comment on our society. It represented people lost in the meaninglessness of the society, floundering around in search of meaning and purpose and drowning in the pointlessness. Desperate mental tendrils were being fired out like grappling hooks – looking for purchase, for something to cling on to, for some substance worthy of living for.
I can’t help thinking that things have progressed and become even worse since 1971 when Pete drew this. We are now heavily into celebrity culture and the shallowness is all too clear. Where is the purpose, meaning and substance?
We are being distracted with mindless entertainment and converted into consumer units to be bled dry. Too many mindless sheep for me. The cartoon takes on even more relevance.
There’s a beautiful world out there. Science should help us learn how it works and make it even better.
All too often science is used for profit and serves only to create a dustbin out of beauty.
Scientists should be life-affirming, enhancing and promoting wonder. That is what science is about.
There’s a beautiful world out there. We have to look after it – not turn it into a rubbish dump.
Our Zoology course was a disaster. We had a huge mass of facts to learn and regurgitate. Instead of a celebration of life it was a boring memory test. Instead of piercing the awe and wonder of living specimens it was a tedious analysis of dead bodies. We had to learn diagnostic features and categorise everything.
It ran counter to our love of the living world.
Pete summed it up with this cartoon.
Science should we about wonder, awe and mystery. It should be fun and fulfilling. It is the most exciting subject ever.
Back in the sixties we really believed that we were part of a generation who had woken up to the horrors that our society was creating with its warmongering, hatred, environmental destruction, xenophobia, racism and pollution. We believed we could find a new way forward where money wasn’t the main thing; where we could live more freely and happily in a simpler fashion in harmony with nature.
It proved a short-lived dream. The establishment machine rolled over us and sucked us in. It made profit out of every aspect we stood for and sucked it dry. The ideals were sold back to us as fashion. The machine rolls on crushing all before it.
Back in 1971 Pete was envisioning that new birth into a bright new future away from the drudgery and pollution of the past.
It was a brave new world out there and love was the answer. We were setting off to explore.
The capitalist system runs on profit and depends on growth. There are always shortcuts. Legislation is circumvented. All that matters is the bottom line.
In the process nature takes second place. The environment is trashed for quick bucks and the planet suffers.
We are all part of that unique biosphere. Our numbers are out of control. Our activities are changing the climate. Our pollution levels, habitat destruction and expansion are killing wild-life at an alarming rate. We are trashing the planet. In the course of that we will end up wiping ourselves out. We are part of that biosphere and cannot live outside it. What fools we are.
If we wish to prevent Pete’s vision of the future (from 1971) becoming a reality we have to use our intelligence and take measures to put things right. I suggest:
All of that is possible. We just need to have the correct priorities.
