Keeping your eye on Koalas

In the Olympus optical zoom binoculars advertisement we see a man surrounded by a majestic landscape with a koala bear attached to his head. The koala looks upset and ready to bring some kind of violence upon the man who’s only defence from the imminent koala attack is his trusty binoculars that are creating a barrier between him and the all too enthusiastic animal. In truthfulness, it looks more like the extent of the koala’s violence will be limited to vociferous hugging, but nevertheless, this is a classic representation of the culture/nature dualism. In it we can see how nature is aesthetically pleasing and something of wonder to marvel at, but this marvelling must be done from afar because nature is also out of control and dangerous to the safety of man (culture). And through the use of culture (the binoculars), man can safely enjoy nature without being subject to all of the dreadfulness that comes with the beauty. In essence, although nature has aesthetic value, we must always use some kind of culturally approved tool in order to separate culture from nature. If there is no barrier between culture and nature, then nature will surely bring havoc upon and possibly destroy culture.

The advertisement never fails to sell the viewer on the aesthetic power of nature. Everything about nature is pretty to look at in this picture; from the broad cliffs, to the lush canopy, to even the more friendly than required koala. Everything is beautiful to the beholder. Indeed, who would not want to gaze upon such beauty as depicted in this scenery, but there is danger. Nature is not cultured and therefore it is dangerous. This is how Olympus sells the binoculars by trading on the culture/nature dualism. Nature is this wonderful thing that is desirable to see and enjoy, but if you, from the realm of culture, get too close you will be in danger. It is all well and good to want to see this wild nature stuff, but you need protection from its savagery and this protection comes in the form of Olympus brand binoculars.

The binoculars are the epitome of culture as they let the noble man marvel at his wild and unkempt surroundings from a position of safety. Here is this person with his culturally created things, such as his backpack, on this quest to view nature, but if he does not have this one essential culturally created thing (the binoculars) he could face serious peril. This is a good sale. It is an established culture/nature dynamic that human beings need culturally created things such as tents, jackets, sleeping bags and backpacks in order to brave the wilds of nature. This has already been established and traded upon. What Olympus is doing here is just building on the already established culture/nature dualism that people need things in order to survive in nature, by adding their thing to the list of essentials for survival in nature. They know the viewer already understands that nature can be perilous without the right equipment and they are letting them know that if they want to really see all this beauty, the only way to do it without the possibility of getting mauled is by using their binoculars.

The advertisement also implies that these binoculars get you closer to nature than is even ultimately desirable. They are so good at getting you close to nature that it will be uncomfortable. This again speaks to the notion that nature will induce discomfort, because there is a distinct line between culture and nature. A line that you, being part of culture do not want to cross, but do want to get as close to as possible and these binoculars facilitate that. So what they are saying is that these binoculars do such a great job that you will feel like you have crossed the culture/nature barrier to the side of nature with all of its unkempt wildness, but without actually doing so. You will still be safe and sound behind your cultural shield.

It is a powerful message that imbues not only the item, but also the place with value and thereby appropriates the value of the place (the beautiful wilderness) to the item in question. This speaks to the notion that advertisements such as this one are “an important devise imparting meaning to products… which can be thought of as the language of consumption.” (Sack 1988: pg. 643). In turn, this means that products such as these binoculars become a “powerful and pervasive place-building processes in the modern world. By purchasing or consuming products, people participate in the construction of their everyday environment.” (Sack 1988: pg. 643). This is key to understanding how these binoculars make this place into a reality for the would be consumer. Essentially this place (nature) can only exist because of these binoculars. It is the use of them that creates this nature, by letting you observe it in its full beauty.

This vision of culture/nature could be tied in with Mary Louise Pratt’s “Imperial Eyes”. Essentially the man with the binoculars is much like one of the travel writers of the 18^th and 19^th century undertaking the arduous task of going out and observing nature. Tools such as binoculars were standard for travel writers like Linnaeus and Wallace of that era. Indeed, they are an excellent tool for someone who wishes to document nature. So this advertisement really harkens back to the imagery of that time when noble Europeans would endure this harsh, but beautiful nature with only a few tools and supplies to document their travels and keep them safe from danger.

One could envision those travel writers to not be all that different from this man, even in objective. After all, it does seem as if he wants to carefully catalogue this koala, but things had gotten out of hand. The advertisement is in a way selling the binoculars as a tool that, would be naturalists employ, because it is so good that it is professional grade. The fact is that in his surroundings there is no culture other than the tools he possess and his person. He appears to be alone on this trek trough this dangerous koala infested wilderness and will probably want to document his journey. This is an almost perfect adaptation of the classic image of the travel writers and Olympus is using that image to give us even more of a sense that this is a man who needs his tools to do the job he is doing out on his wilderness trek. Without the cultural tools, like the Olympus binoculars, he would not be able to observe and document the mighty beasts he sees, such as the koala.

Although travel and contemporary authors painstakingly documented ecosystems throughout time, there is this sense when dealing with the envisioning of nature that it is somehow above the notion of human history. William Cronon wisely noted “ideal nature is essentially without history as we know it.” (Cronon 1993: pg. 10) As if nature has always existed and human beings are something new that came along, outside of nature, that can either be a force of disturbance or observance. And when this nature is disturbed by humans (within all histories), it becomes less than ideal. Clearly, this advertisement is not only trading on that notion, but banking on the desirability of the less invasive choice.

I think it is interesting to note the depiction of the koala. Koalas are know to be one of the most passive and friendly wild animals on the planet. They move like sloths and have an even more languid disposition. These are characteristics that are hardly threatening to human beings. Yet if one looks closely at the expression on this particular koala’s face it is decidedly malevolent. At best it can be described as desperate to grab a hold of the poor man fending him off with the binoculars. The koala, in fact, looks obsessed with trying to bring about some kind of unpleasantness to the poor man.

This of course paints the man wielding the binoculars as the victim. He would be the victim of nature if not for his binoculars. That fact gets at the politics of culture/natures such as these. Nature, no matter how pretty, is always the malevolent force in need of control and subduing by culture. If you do not have the means to subdue this unyielding force of nature it is best to keep your distance. The implication is that the realms of culture and nature must be kept distinct and at a safe distance because of the destructive nature of the latter. Humans and culture can not live in symbiosis with nature because the relationship is antagonistic and culture an object of refinement that can fall prey to the lawlessness of nature.

Embedded deep in this line of thinking is the perceived inherent differences between the realm of human beings and nature. I feel like this is one of the ultimate failings of mankind; a failure to understand that he is not fundamentally different than the rest of the inhabitants of this planet. This fact is essential to the creation of the culture/nature dualism. If we are to take any steps to defeating the dualism we must understand that “although human beings posses capacities that distinguish them from other animals, these do not render them different in kind: all the ways in which humanity differs from the rest of nature have to do with the specific modes in which humans do what other animals also do.” (Soper 1995: pg. 321). I believe that this statement is an undeniable truth that must be recognized if any progress is to be made.

The whole concept of culture being better than nature is based on a flawed system of logic. It is created by those who would use nature for their own benefit and those who are not gaining benefits from this culture/nature divide should distance themselves from those who employ the dualism. Sadly though, most people seem to buy into it much in the way they breathe air; without thought or consent. Just as this here man looks to needs a cultural tool such as these binoculars to enjoy what he views as nature, people seem to need the crutch of the culture/nature dualism to properly identify themselves in the world they live in. They seem incapable of establishing an identity without creating a dualism that has them as being the higher order. This is, in part, because human beings use this dualism as a way to see themselves. Throughout history this has been the case; “Self-identification… must be interpreted in its authenticity, that is, in terms of the existential relation between subjects and the constitution of a meaningful world.” (Friedman 1992: pg. 856).

But deconstructing this dualism does not mean an end to humanity as we know it. Indeed, “recognizing the culturally constructed character of our own knowledge is thus quite different from a claim that the world does not exist, or that people invented it merely as an idea in their heads.” (Cronon 1993: pg. 15) All it is saying is that human beings have imbued not only nature, but ourselves in juxtaposition to nature, with specific characteristics that we take as being endemic to culture and nature. I am not entirely sure if there will ever come a day when the realization that this is a completely flawed way of viewing the world will ever dawn on humanity or will it simply never be registered by the human consciousness. I believe that these dualisms must end if we are ever to fix the things that are wrong in our society and world as a whole. For this to happen we must see that “nature is… no more than we think it is.” (Cronon 1993: pg. 15).

These binoculars being sold in this advertisement perhaps represent a great deal more than is first pictured on the surface. Just as they narrow the scope of vision and focus in on one specific thing in the environment so does the dualism of culture/nature narrow humanity’s view of the world that we inhabit. Through our figurative binoculars we reduce our scope of vision to good & bad, oppressor & oppressed, and so on. In this picture we have the violent chaos of nature being fended off by the altruistic goodness of culture. Not to say that nature does not have its place, but it is a place that stands below culture and must be held at arms length away so as not to irrevocably poison culture. Nature is to be observed and controlled by culture and these binoculars are but another tool to facilitate that ideal.

References:

Cronon, William, The Uses Of Environmental History. Forest History Society and American Society for Environmental History, Environmental History Review, Vol. 17, No. 3, Autumn, 1993.

Friedman, Jonathan, The Past in the Future: History and the Politics of Identity. American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 94, No. 4, December, 1992.

Pratt, Mary Louise, Imperial Eyes: travel writing and transculturation. Routledge, pages 1-70, 1993.

Sack, Robert D, The Consumer's World: Place as Context. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 78, No. 4, December, 1988.

Soper, Kate, Feminism and Ecology: Realism and Rhetoric in the Discourses of Nature. Science, Technology, & Human Values, Vol. 20, No. 3, Summer, 1995.