As an aspiring environmental engineer, I find this metaphor and the existing perversion of nature for callous doublespeak is a bother.
There is this mythology that humans have conquered nature and placed themselves at the pinnacle of the food chain and ascended or some crap like that. I think it’s an inferiority complex and a way to separate people from nature as much as possible to deny our connection back to living in closer harmony with natural processes that are less efficient or would require too much social cohesion which the government cannot allow for reasons of control.
Anyway, this is the Known meta-metaphor for most of the animal kingdom allegory stems from.
I’ll never forget when someone close to me in what I hope were Cross words began spouting off about a “natural order” to things. Very misguided.
November 2, 2025