A contemplation from the carport (about trees)

Clint Eastwood as Walt Kowalski in the 2008 film Gran Torino

A contemplation from the carport (about trees)

By Hendrik van der Breggen

I am a retired philosophy professor who, during the summer months, spends a lot of time in the carport. It’s a shaded place with comfortable patio furniture. I smoke my pipe as I watch passersby, and as I contemplate the world’s goings-on. Before I set out my most recent contemplation, I have a confession.

Confession

When someone, whether out for a stroll or delivering flyers, oversteps the boundaries of the sidewalk (even innocently to admire our beautiful weeping willow tree or my wife’s lovely flower garden), I must suppress an urge to shout.

Shout what, you ask?

This: “Get off my lawn!”

And then I have to suppress a covetous thought about how nice our carport would look with a freshly polished Gran Torino.

On that note, let’s get serious.

Contemplation

Recently in a small town in Quebec, trees have been given various rights, including the right to life. “A tree is like a human being,” said the mayor of Terrasse-Vaudreuil. This, it seems to me, is a big mistake.

Don’t get me wrong. I love trees—I really do. Joyce Kilmer’s poem “Trees” speaks the language of my heart. In fact, my heart still aches over the majestic 30-year-old-and-30-foot-tall cedar our neighbour chopped down two years ago. Our neighbour’s tree provided beauty and privacy. But they wanted a parking spot for their second mini-monster truck.

I planted three cedars (on our property) to replace the beauty and privacy provided by our neighbour’s late tree, but I probably won’t be alive to see our cedars mature.

Trees are beautiful and good for us. As an online article points out, “trees are essential infrastructure, helping reduce heat, improve air quality, manage water, and protect biodiversity.” Yes, trees should be protected and stewarded wisely. I love the idea of caring for trees and understanding their value for us in terms of health and aesthetics.

But give them rights like human beings? Not only the right to life, according to the Universal Declaration of the Rights of the Tree, but also the right to natural growth, the right to integrity, and the right to regeneration? Again, it seems to me, this is a big mistake.

Why is it a big mistake?

I have two reasons.

Reason 1

My first reason is religious. I am a Christian. In the beginning God calls the creation good but only very good when humans are created. I believe that in all of creation, only human beings are made in the image of God. This is what grants us and grounds our right to life, etc.

But if we elevate trees, which are not made in God’s image, to the status associated with bearing God’s image, it seems to me that we falsely equate our special status as image-bearers of God to beings that are not image-bearers of God. In effect, we thereby lower our God-given special status.

Or we might be elevating a non-image-bearer in some sort of idolatrous fashion. Either way, it seems to me, the effect is that our discernment of what’s theologically special gets twisted.

Treating a tree “like a human being” blocks our view not only of the forest, but also of the moral-theological landscape.

Reason 2

My second reason is secular but consistent with my religious reason. And I think it should be acceptable to humanists who are atheists or agnostics.

By treating and judging trees to be exceptionally important like humans (i.e., bearers of fundamental rights), we in effect make humans not exceptionally important.

Let me explain. The yard around our house (and carport) has a dozen or so trees. By giving them the right to life, etc., it may seem (at first glance) that I am making them as important as me. But it actually means that I am not as important—exceptionally important—as I used to be.

Think of it this way: If I have a beautiful diamond the size of a marble (i.e., the little glass ball used in the game called marbles) and I then add a dozen actual marbles, and if I judge the diamond and the marbles all to be equally valuable, then the actual value of my diamond gets lost. In a game of marbles in which my opponent knocks my diamond out of the ring and gets to keep it, even though I won the game by knocking out and getting to keep all the rest of the marbles, I still won. Yeah, right.

I submit that claiming trees are as valuable as people has the unintended consequence (but consequence nonetheless) that people are as valuable as trees—which is in effect to bring down our value.

Enter Gad Saad

I recently read Gad Saad’s latest book Suicidal Empathy: Dying to be Kind. Professor Saad argues, rightly, I believe, that empathy is a virtue, but can be misguided. Too little empathy makes one a psychopath. Too much empathy makes one lose one’s sense of what’s truly important—to the point of destroying one’s self and others.

For example, according to Saad, too little empathy for immigrants is truly unkind, but too much empathy for immigrants makes us fail to realize that some (many?) immigrants wish to kill us. So Saad recommends better immigration procedures.

I think Saad’s thesis could apply to our discussion of tree rights. Our empathy toward trees, as in the case of the Quebec town, may be so misguided that we fail to realize that we are lowering our worth in our efforts to care for trees. This consequence may not be apparent right away (as has been the case with years of unchecked immigration), but it still looks like a real consequence—and not a step in a good direction.

Back to Clint Eastwood

All this talk about the rights of trees brings me back to thinking about my lawn. I love our trees, for sure, but I love our lawn, too. If I judge that grass has the right to life and if you walk on my lawn and thereby murder hundreds of blades of grass, is your walking on my lawn a good reason for me to shoot you?

Get off my lawn!

Hendrik van der Breggen, PhD, is a retired philosophy professor.