Exceptional, or just top-heavy?
This afternoon I went to see Headgear: The Natural History of Horns and Antlers at the Harvard Museum of Natural History.
Interesting exhibition – I was enjoying myself until I wandered into one of the other sections, a special exhibit called Climate Change: Our Global Experiment. I learned a couple of things – for example, there’s a great computer animation that explains Milankovich Cycles (“repetitive changes in the Earth’s orbit over thousands of years that effect global climate”).
But once I sat down in front of a film where viewers were asked to vote on policy decisions, the ideology lost me. For example, viewers were presented with the radical [sic] idea that, while it might cost us more in the short-term, supporting moves toward increased public transportation might be needed. Ok, I’m exaggerating the tone a bit, but the narrator popped public transportation into the conversation as though it were a radical new idea.
Oh my god, what’s next? Bicycles? Unsorting how we’ve sorted?
It got worse, though, at which point I left. The narrator began to speak about China’s contribution to climate change: CO2 output, dirty energy, etc. The solution? More of what sounded an awful lot like American exceptionalism. With total obliviousness of what China is doing on its own to clean up its environment (including in the building sector), the narrator suggested that “we” (America) have to engage in technology transfers and other similar strategies to “help” the Chinese move toward clean energy. Furthermore, “we” (Americans) need to make personal financial sacrifices to enable the Chinese to move toward the (American?) light. Hey, America: how about you figure out how to get over your own huge car dependence and suburban lifestyle first.
And why do we need to remain exceptional like this? So we can keep the globalized economy going. But maybe that’s part of the problem, not just a solution.
The toilets in the Science Center basement cheered me up, though – they’re not focused on American Exceptionalism, they just get the job done (saving water when flushing):
Water-saving dual function handle: pull up for low flush, push down for full flush (green coating on handle is bacteria repelling)
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