19
the forests, the air, the water, the soils. Even the final remarkable days of Van Gogh’s
life; having just painted one of his greatest (arguably unfinished) works, “Tree
Roots,” at Auvers-sur-Oise, just north of Paris, which, he wrote to his brother Theo,
the artist hoped would “express something of life’s struggle”
17
; however, he would
shoot himself that very night, and die two days later, July 29, 1890.
But when it comes to seeing a koala burn to death, and Syrian infants dying in
refugee camps, there is no more of that comfort from novels and museum exhibitions. Rather, the very state of near emotional paralysis in which most animal rights/
liberation and other nonviolence activists and ecological ethicists have been trapped
for centuries.
17 See “A Clue to van Gogh’s Final Days Is Found in His Last Painting,” by Nina Siegal, The
New York Times, July 28, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/28/arts/design/vincent-vangogh-tree-roots.html?smid=em-share
Fig. 2.2 Transitional Countryside, Central Texas. (Photo © M.C. Tobias)
2.2 The Extinction Debates
the forests, the air, the water, the soils. Even the final remarkable days of Van Gogh’s
life; having just painted one of his greatest (arguably unfinished) works, “Tree
Roots,” at Auvers-sur-Oise, just north of Paris, which, he wrote to his brother Theo,
the artist hoped would “express something of life’s struggle”
17
; however, he would
shoot himself that very night, and die two days later, July 29, 1890.
But when it comes to seeing a koala burn to death, and Syrian infants dying in
refugee camps, there is no more of that comfort from novels and museum exhibitions. Rather, the very state of near emotional paralysis in which most animal rights/
liberation and other nonviolence activists and ecological ethicists have been trapped
for centuries.
17 See “A Clue to van Gogh’s Final Days Is Found in His Last Painting,” by Nina Siegal, The
New York Times, July 28, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/28/arts/design/vincent-vangogh-tree-roots.html?smid=em-share
Fig. 2.2 Transitional Countryside, Central Texas. (Photo © M.C. Tobias)
2.2 The Extinction Debates