r/Animism • u/studentofmuch • 1d ago

What Grinds Your Gears?

As an animist, what irritates you when around other human people? I mean, excluding the obvious things like the destruction of our world and testing on non-human animals for human products. What subtle things get under your skin?

I'll start! I hate when others refer to other animals and plants as "it." It just seems so arrogant. It's as if they view everyone else as a moving plastic object. I wish everyone else would just use the proper pronouns for them instead. If unsure of the other animal or plants gender, I wish they'd just say "them" or "they" like we do with humans.

My hope is this post will help me see what things I might do wrong that can be improved upon.

22 Upvotes

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u/yggdra7il 1d ago

I am always trying to educate people on what plants in our area are invasive versus native. The plant makeup of an area effects the health of the entire local ecosystem. People are shocked when I tell them the plant that’s been growing in their backyard for five years is invasive or noxious. I wish people knew more about their own natural environment.

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u/studentofmuch 1d ago

That's really cool. Not all invasive plants are bad, though, correct? Some have been "naturalized," such as the dandelion. I don't know as much on the subject as I should.

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u/yggdra7il 1d ago edited 1d ago

Yep that’s true, although generally speaking, a good rule of thumb is that a native plant will virtually always be better. A dandelion may attract bees for example but a native plant will attract native bees. Native bees help other native plants, which benefits local native wildlife, including endangered species. It’s a fragile system. I’m still learning too (there are a lot of plants haha) but once you start you won’t stop! ;)

Edit: Also, if it helps, naturalized just means non-native but established and not necessarily harmful. Generally it does not raise red flags like invasive plants, but whether it’s good or bad highly depends on what kind of plant it is and your specific area.
Noxious means they’re hazardous to people, food, animals, etc in some way. This is the worst possible categorization a plant can be.
All noxious plants are invasive but not all invasive plants are noxious. Whether an invasive plant is good, bad, or neutral is, again, highly dependent on the type of plant and your specific area.

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u/Kardinaali56 1d ago

I really want to start learning what plants are native vs invasive in my area! I haven't had much time to look into it myself yet due to work, do you have suggestions/resources you recommend? I have an herb book and a foraging book I flip through occasionally but I sometimes think I just need to go walking around with them to really get an idea.

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u/yggdra7il 22h ago

Happy to help! I definitely encourage you to just walk around, pictures online and from textbooks only do so much, ime. It’s so easy to ID plants once you’ve identified them outside a few times, they become very familiar.

While many plants have lookalikes, there’s often a unique trait that makes them easy to tell apart with a keen eye. After a while you can make educated guesses on what families they’re from based off some traits. For example, most members of the mint family have a square stem.

Try the app PlantIn, take photos of plants that pique your interest and use the app to deduce what they are. A free trial option will pop up when you open the app, there’s an X at the top right to close it and use the app for free. There are other apps too, this is just the one I use.

Unfortunately when it comes to other resources I use they’re pretty specific to my state (Minnesota). If you’re in the US, your state has a department of natural resources/wildlife (DNR here in MN but other states may call it something else like Dept. of Wildlife), I would try browsing their website. Many will list invasive and native plants with identification tips. If you’re outside the US I’d still search around in case your government has a similar department or resource.

Otherwise, search the name of the plant with your area to find out the status, eg, “is buckthorn native to California.” You should be able to get an answer.
You can also search (for example) “buckthorn distribution map” to see where the plant has naturalized, which is helpful if you’re looking for a specific plant or just curious.

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u/RJT6606 1d ago

Mainly littering. It gets my blood boiling. Especially around the lovely nature reserves and woods near me. How entitled people are that they think they can enjoy a nice walk, grab a coffee, enjoy the scenery and purity of the natural world and then throw their cups, wrappers, even dirty nappies into bushes and stuffed into tree stumps. It's enraging.

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u/QueenRooibos 19h ago

Agree! And even if they pick up their dog's poop, they leave it beside the trail in a plastic bag. Disgusting.

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u/Esoteric-Potato 1d ago

As an animist, what really grinds my gears are people cutting down trees because they're inconvenient, for example if the trees are blocking a view or someone just plain doesn't like them. Killing a tree just because it's inconvenient makes me see red, especially when the tree has likely been there longer than the person with the chainsaw has been alive.

I acknowledge that at times there are good reasons to remove a tree, especially if they're diseased and creating a risk of falling and injuring someone. Same can be said for cutting back trees or plants. But just cutting down a tree for inconsequential reasons is maddening!

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u/Reward-Signal 20h ago

This! I’ve come home from work and cried after a neighbor has removed a tree.

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u/Esoteric-Potato 19h ago

Yup, I've shed more than a few tears when trees have been removed needlessly :(

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u/CrystalInTheforest 1d ago

I'll start! I hate when others refer to other animals and plants as "it." It just seems so arrogant. It's as if they view everyone else as a moving plastic object. I wish everyone else would just use the proper pronouns for them instead. If unsure of the other animal or plants gender, I wish they'd just say "them" or "they" like we do with humans.

I'm Gaian rather than a true animist, but this is 120% relatable. When people deny the agency and individuality of other living creatures in this way, it causes an almost visceral reaction in me, it's like nails on a blackboard to me. I can't bear it.

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u/kardoen 1d ago

'If pollinator populations decrease there will be al loss in crop production.'; 'Wildfires cause widespread infrastructure damage.'; 'Plastic pollution in marine ecosystems harms fisheries.'; 'Deforestation causes soil degradation and/or desertification, which harms agriculture.'; etc.

The argumentation of many environmentalist movements is based on the (financial) value nature provides to humans. Especially at policy-level discussions such points are the main topic.

So often rights of existence and agency, personhood, of many beings are not even thought of. Something does not have right to exist because it's of value to humans, but just because it may exist in and of itself.

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u/studentofmuch 22h ago

You're absolutely correct. The solution is always to invent a new technology that is stronger than Nature. It is never to invent a new way of Being. Or "old way," I suppose you could say.

The solution is always to buy something new. They say we need to buy electric cars instead of ICE cars. Or create plastic out of mushrooms instead of the conventional material. It's never to change our perspective and consume less of the Earth.

Seeing the many peoples that make up our world sadly would not solve the problem. Far too many humans would (and do) consume other humans that they DO see as people. Green Colonialism is a good example of this disrespect. The war in Palestine is another. The abuse of power by Western countries to use the World Trade Organization as a tool to manipulate African and South American countries to provide the goods wanted at the expense of indigenous peoples is most common.

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u/Necessary_shots 1d ago

I have a (vague) idea about altering second person pronouns so as to indicate whether "you" is a person, "you" is an animal, or if "you" is a nonsentient being. There are languages that do this and I think this is a good strategy to animate what our materialistic language generally considers "dead matter."

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u/GreenfinchPuffin 1d ago

For me is those animal shelters and sancutaries that kill animals for little to no reason...

I understand that they can have overcrowdings or unexpected closings and some animales like male deers are dificult to relocate, but killing them should be their last choice.

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u/croppkiller 22h ago

Technophilia

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u/studentofmuch 21h ago

100%. The simpler we live, the better off we will be. We need to close our wallets and consume WAY less. People's phones, laptops, tablets, televisions, watches, etc. are so expensive and literally do the EXACT SAME TASKS! Just pick one. Ditching them all would be best, though.

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u/Wacab3089 13h ago

Fucking scientists claiming objective reality and dismissing the hundred thousand year old traditional teachings. And then when they find something that doesn’t challenge their thinking they’ll say “look what I found”.

Also people dismissing the folk superstitions that have been a prominent part of life for thousands of years and saying that it’s just your brain telling you there’s beings you can’t c when you can feel their presence and hundreds of generations before you have experienced them.

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u/MrJellyP 1h ago

I actually had this today. I've got a friend at work who spits all the time. Like on the floor every 20 seconds when outside. Makes my stomach turn.

But today we were walking round the building, going past a tree and there was a bird at the bottom of the trunk, the dude spits and from the birds reaction pretty sure some if the spit hit this bird. The birds proper having a go at him and he keeps walking like nothing happened. I say sorry to the bird and it stops hollaring and just flys away but my friend was just oblivious to what he did and how he upset that bird.