I’ve been thinking a lot lately about whether it is possible to uncover universal principles of knowledge about the world through a lifetime of concentrated study of the local? The great Irish poet (and sometimes Gaelic goalkeeper) Patrick Kavanaugh (1904 – 67) wrote “parochialism is universal. It deals with the fundamentals”. My initial reaction to this sentiment was one of deep scepticism. I’ve generally thought of “parochialism” as most usefully applied in the service of dishing out scorn, mockery or my torrid disappointment with humanity’s propensity for small-minded thinking. But lately, thanks to the musings of a deceased Irish poet who celebrated the mundane, I’ve had something of an epiphany.
“parochialism is universal. It deals with the fundamentals”
Wikipedia defines parochialism as “a state of mind, whereby one focuses on small sections of an issue rather than considering its wider context”. As applied to ‘thinking’ the drawbacks are abundantly obvious, but what about when we apply this meaning to nature observation? Certainly, it has been my experience that one must invest a stupid number of hours looking carefully at a mere two hectares of forest before it begins to yield its more subtle stories. Twenty-five years of meticulous looking, listening, walking and pondering – and still I have no idea where the bandicoot sleep, or where ‘The Big Girl’ (aka. our humungous python) lays her eggs, or if the Owlet Nightjars reared young this year.
Kavanaugh again: “To know fully even one field or one land is a lifetime’s experience”. Oorah! Is this why I find it so awkward when I unexpectedly run into an old work colleague in the cold section of the IGA and they ask me what I’ve been up to? I know the answer I want to give – yeah, we’ve just come back from studying rare orchids in the cloud forests of the Venezuelan Andes… Because if (and when) I reveal instead that I’ve hardly left the property (regardless of lockdowns), that I’ve been recording bird alarm calls (loving it in fact) and I’m totally stoked because I just found where the Noisy Pitta is nesting – well, I get a peculiar look. It’s a look that implies I need to get out more.
To be parochial is to be “of the Parish”. But it can also mean to be ‘of the gully’ or ‘of the hill behind the house’. Because the fact is, it really does take a lifetime of intense concentration of the local to learn the particulars of place. Any place. The more I think about it, the more I realise how I’m a practitioner of nature parochialism. As Kavanaugh observed, “it is depth that counts, not width”. Now there’s something for us all to ponder.