The Danger of the Bear or Blind Idealism

If you consider yourself an outdoorsman or an environmentalist and have not heard the name Timothy Treadwell, you surely must have been living in a cave the past few years. A bear cave. Though with a new book-"The Grizzly Maze" by Nick Jans- and movie-"The Grizzly Man"- you most probably will hear of him soon enough.
In the mean time, a little history.
Mr. Treadwell, sometimes known as ‘The Bear Whisperer’ and a self professed guardian of the grizzly, unfortunately suffered the ultimate fate for his ideological beliefs. He spent many years in the Grizzly Maze area of Alaska’s Katmai National Park videotaping and ‘protecting’ the area’s grizzly population. His up close and personal style of relating to ‘his’ bears hooked the interest of ecoconscious groups such as The Sierra Club and the Great Bear Foundation. as well as Hollywood and television news magazines.
He would often film himself within feet of his wild friends, a distance many outdoorsman would consider idiotic and suicidal. He truly believed that the grizzly was misunderstood as a killer. He believed, instead, that man was the problem and saw himself as the bears protector. In his blind idealism he could see the danger to the bear, but not the danger from the bear. To show just how foolish his romanticism was, there is a piece of videotape where his doomed girlfriend, Amie Huguenard, is lying crouched just a few yards from a mother grizzly and her cub.
Mr. Treadwell believed he understood the grizzly, that he knew it on an intimate level. Well, you see, he was wrong. What he understood was his ideal of what this bear represented in his mind. He could easily see the beauty and the charm of the creature, but was blind to its inherent wild nature. He would recognize the danger to the bear but was naively ignorant of the danger from the beast.
And he, along with his companion, paid the ultimate price. In October of 2003 they were fatally mauled by a grizzly who was later shot and killed...Treadwell’s watch still ticking in its belly. The bear, itself, yet another victim of Mr. Treadwell’s skewed view of its nature.
This story has a purpose. It is to illustrate what I will call ‘The Danger of the Bear’.
‘The Danger of the Bear’ will be defined here as the idealizing of an issue where the dangers to the issue blind those invested to the dangers from the issue.
This condition is rampant in the ideology of the Left.
It is obvious in many issues today such as gay marriage, profiling, socialism, and social security, just to name a few.
But let us look closer at some of these issues to see just how it applies.
The Left views any disagreement with gay marriage as obviously coming from a homophobic Christian hillbilly. It has so idealized homosexuality, that to simply question this lifestyle is the ultimate sin against secularism. One is a homophobe or a gay hater for merely wondering about the ultimate influence that gay marriage will have on society. The Left would like us to believe there will be no effect. Only loving people finally gaining equality. They will not even discuss how it will change the way we teach about the family in public schools. Or what influence normalization will have upon our young people. Or what extra rights will have to be given the homosexual for wrongs they have endured in the past. Try to pose these questions in a Liberal environment, but please, don’t forget your Kevlar.
Profiling, too, is a protected ideal. There will be none. It is an attack on a specific race or creed. Do not dare even propose it or you are a racist or Islamophobe. Arab Muslim men must be protected from evil Allah hating Americans. It does not matter that terror is perpetrated by young Arab men. That to profile this group would obviously save lives. These things matter little to the mind of the Left.
Next we have socialism, the ultimate Leftist ideal. Every man and woman finally and fully equal. It is the Liberal Utopia. The secular Eden. It is the ideal. To be argued for and protected. But it is a lie. But a lie they can or will not see. They will not see how socialism kills innovation. How it breaks the morale of the true producers. How it would change America from ‘all men are created equal’ to ‘all men are doomed to be equal’. How it will always end in long lines and low quality. But just try and bring these points up and face denial or elitist vitriol.
And don’t you dare touch my Social Security. You evil Conservatives want to force the elderly into poverty. To take away their comfortable retirement. To destroy the ideal of senior tranquility. The system must be protected at all cost. Never mind it is on a collision course with reality. That our children will be have an impossible burden to bear. Or that the program was never meant to be a person’s sole retirement plan. These points are taboo, never to be spoken aloud.
Timothy Treadwell’s blind idealism finally fell victim to the dangerous reality of ‘his’ bears. There is, however, something to be learned from this young man’s tragedy. And it is simply this, that our ideals when not fully grounded in reality will surely be doomed to ‘The Danger of the Bear’ as well.

Crossposted @ The Wide Awakes