December 11, 2003
Despite recent talk about the end of nature, rare, pristine wilderness stilll means something in Tasmania. People there are deeply disturbed about the way their landscape is being so fundamentally altered by commerce that it now reflects economics.

The photo is of artist Ron Brooks' solo protest against old-growth forest logging in Federation Square, Melbourne. Link courtesy of Tasmanian Times.
Wilderness becomes a resource. What is outside the market has no value as the worth of wilderness is not recognized by use and exchange value. What is not so recognized by the domination of nature is remandered as junk.
In Greek mythology, the Styx was the river of Hades that the souls of the dead had to cross on their journey from the realm of the living. It was a sacred river, and by its name even the gods took their most solemn oaths.
Not so Tasmanian politicians.
More on the clearfelling logging issue in Tasmania can be found at Public Opinion The Tasmanian forestry industry is exempt from laws that might check its excesses. The industry is not only systematically destroying Tasmania's temperate forest ecosystems, it is also poisoning the very fabric of Tasmania's democratic politics and life.
So we can talk about about the self-destruction of the (economic) Enlightenment. Since the economic enlighteners in Tasmania do not accomodate reflection on this recidivist element, so Enlightenment seals its own fate.
Just thought I'd throw a bit of Adorno and Horkheimer's Dialectic of Enlightenment into the mix.
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