What I have learned about optimal outcomes regarding what
environment a child is reared in, I’ve seen what’s best is richness,
complexity. A child read a lot of books at night, a child whose parents use
diverse vocabularies, provide varied toys of multiple functions – a world a
child can maneuver through and manipulate, with differing roads, where they can
fail and succeed: these are ideal. And by what method? I believe what
complexity and richness offers is neurological / psychological (cognitive,
mental…) stimulation; the brain and soul require stimulation. Stimulation to
the brain is growth; richness, complexity – these qualities are the right
proper mix of nourishment; water and sun; protein, carbohydrate and fat.
I highlight the metaphysical soul along with the physical
brain because I want to extend this fact into an argument for what I believe is
morally necessary: the preservation of our natural world, of animal and plant
species (as many as possible), of topographies and climes, of languages and
cultures. These make up the sustenance for our souls which become malnourished
in their absence. To see a malnourished soul, imagine the neglected child with
his blank affect and benumbed heart, the poor ones who have difficulty
performing the simplest of socially connecting acts, such as smiling and
maintaining eye contact. To conceive of a life lived lacking the dynamic
structures and arrangements of Adam and Eve’s habitat (or something akin) think
only of what our prisons offer as penultimate punishment (what is qualified as
harshest next to the capital kind; what, less than death, is most stern?):
ISOLATION. Put another way: Sensory deprivation.
The case for environmental conservation and the case for
supporting the arts are made by pleading for nothing less than the continued
growth and thriving of humankind. We can survive without these things, but
reminded of the prisoner kept alone in a dark, dank and quiet cell, begs the
question: Would it be worth it?
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