Tuesday, January 16, 2018

For Val Plumwood

God had already loaded the dice in Eden, first by giving Adam dominion over the beasts, and then by demonstrating his own dominion through the interdiction against eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge. It was not only that God established Adam as regent over the animals, or that he placed Eve in the subordinate role, but that Adam had the power to name the animals, while she was the one who could speak to them. The fall from primal paradise was already assured by the design of paradise itself.