Birding and hunting are so diametrically opposite of each other that I’m halfway to arguing that they are a dialectical unity.
I learned this because I was researching binoculars, and the reviews diverge quite notably depending on whether you need them for birding or for hunting.
Birding is passive, open-ended, meditative, grounding, appreciative of what you observe through the optics. The purpose of the optics is to separate yourself from the bird, to disturb it as little as possible, to respect it and admire its creation. The bird is not yours, it is not property but a living being. You only have it for a fleeting moment, for as long as the bird decides.
Hunting is violent, purpose-driven, premeditated, anxiety-inducing, contemptuous of what you observe through the optics. The purpose of the optics is to bring you closer to the animal, to ultimately end its life, destroy it. The animal is made into your property, objectified and commodified.
Is this horseshoe theory?
This is a good post, like a really good post. I’ll be thinking about this one for a while.
A while back I was contemplating getting into shooting, when I had the realization that shooting is, obviously, a sport pretty closely tied to hunting. My idea was that, as a would-be revolutionary, it would be a good idea to have some knowhow around guns without having to join an imperialist military, and shooting has a lot of the same benefits as any other sport to boot. When I realized that I would be sharing facilities with hunters, I felt too conflicted to go through with it.
“how do you do, fellow hunters?”
Your idea sounds cool to me, still. I think you should give it a try one day. I doubt every person there will be into hunting.
At the very least, you can film some random objects getting shot and upload it to Youtube or something!
I mean who doesn’t like to see a bunch of glass and soda bottles explode?
This is a really good observation I’d never even thought of.
It kind of reminds me of my experience working in conservation. Almost the only people involved were empathetic young people who earnestly wanted to try to help save the world, and then older rednecks who wanted just enough nature to support the animals they wanted to kill. As one of the former group, it was almost always really disconcerting to talk to the hunters and realize that we were nominally working towards the same goal except that they were looking to add one extra step at the end (murder)
Reminds me of the Nintendo Wii game about hunting birds sponsored by a bird conservation organisation.
Ha, yeah exactly! Makes for strange bedfellows
Birding and hunting are so diametrically opposite of each other that I’m halfway to arguing that they are a dialectical unity
Interesting idea, I’m guessing the dialectics are played out in how they’re designed, produced and marketed, the militarization of the outdoors is a definite trend in western countries; 9 out of 10 bushcraft, nature, hiking or camping items has to be as tacti-cool as possible to attract right-wing guerilla larpers and I know for a fact the need to design items around tacti-cool (Snag Points/UV degradation) actively lowers their utility and longevity
Solidly designed equipment tends not to look “deadly cool” but the “lethal gaze” sells
There are several angles to consider it. You are getting somewhere with that.
My rough idea is that there are at least two dialectics involved.
The first dialectic is between (hu)man and nature. Man is alienated from nature from the moment that civilization begins. Then birding and hunting express two strategies to resolve back to the actual unity, man and nature. For birding, the strategy is to dissolve man into nature, by means of immersion and ego suppression. For hunting, the strategy is to dissolve nature into man, by means of consumption and by appropriation as property.
The second dialectic is the classic one between use-value and exchange-value. Birding conceives nature as use-value, hunting conceives nature as exchange-value.
I mean they both involve trying to get a better look at something far off in the distance.
Although I didn’t know some binoculars are better for certain tasks.
The tasks are similar, the difference is in the evaluation. A hunter will rave about how they’re able to “bag one more” if they upgrade to the larger objective size that lets in more light for dusk.
And don’t get me started how the term “glassing” (ie, looking through optics) is an immediate tell that the person is a hunter. The whole “sport” seems to be drenched in silly masculine terminology.
What if your hunting birds though
no gulag. Straight into the bird feeder
