Who's there?

In "Religion of Trees" today we had a long discussion about pronouns. It was in the context of our class "community agreement," but overlapped with Robin Wall Kimmerer's suggestion that to "stop the age of extinction" we should stop using "it" for living things, encountered last week, and the way today's text, David Haberman's People Trees: Worship of Trees in Northern India, begins:

What is a tree? Or perhaps we could ask: Who is a tree? The difference between these two interrogatives is signicant and—one might add—culturally determined. The first typically signies an inanimate object or a “thing,” whereas the latter signies an animate being or a “person.” The difference between these two, therefore, involves a boundary issue: how or if to demarcate the animate and inanimate, sentient and nonsentient, human and nonhuman, or person and nonperson. Much is at stake in thinking about the nature of these distinctions. (7)

Two in the class use Kimmerer's suggested ki/kin for plants already, but others defended it, which could be used, they insisted, with respect. As various views were voiced, ideas deepened and changed. Using a new word could seem contrived - or signal the need for new ways of thinking and feeling. It objectified trees - or protected the treeness of trees from invidious anthropomorphism. All were committed to finding ways to refer to trees "with respect" but it became clear this couldn't be accomplished just with a word. (I proposed a hand gesture.) Whether referring to ki or it, do we use who or what? (One can imagine both "what is ki?" and "who is it?") And we haven't even begun to wrestle with ways of naming plant sentience and behavior, and the affect we bring to this, yearning for a cure for species loneliness or convinced we are condemned to it.

We decided it best to keep the conversation about how to use human language for trees going, to be mindful of our usage, whatever each of us chose to use. But absent from our conversation were any trees, of course. Next week we'll go down to the Lang courtyard trees. 

When in doubt, ask?