Tag Archives: Nature

Dangerous Dualities

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Cronon’s “Trouble with Wilderness” begins to tear apart the “man/nature” false dichotomy; Emmet and Nye’s “A critical introduction” sets up a parallel dichotomy; “Science/Humanities”. In order to dismantle the first— the “dangerous dualism that sets human beings outside of nature” (Cronon, 17) we need to break down the second; “the nature/culture dichotomy that was common during much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries” (Emmet & Nye, 9).

One of my best friends in middle school was a textbook ecofascist; he would admit with little prompting that he believed it would be for the best if the cancer of humanity were wiped from the earth. He would describe how cancer grows in a body. The conclusions were obvious to him. My other best friend (who had actually survived cancer and had no interest in being exterminated) put human rights above all other concerns. He would ask me how I could be worried about sea otters when people were dying of curable diseases. He was really invested in the repeal of prop 8, although we were twelve and obviously not getting married.

 I can not condemn in either for their adolescent zealotry— indeed, I admired (and still do) their philosophical fervor, impressive in people barely past puberty. However, their campaigns put them at fierce odds; one believing wholeheartedly in the necessary demise of humanity, to protect a wounded planet, and the other committed to human rights to the exclusion of environmental concerns.
Their rivalry is a perfect embodiment of these paradoxical polarities. As a twelve year old, I was perplexed; I couldn’t side with either friend against the other. Of course, I believed in the value of humans and human creations, and that human life and liberty was worth preserving— but I also believed in the value of old growth forests, of undiscovered marine life, of polar bears. Was it really possible that these two things existed in opposition to each other? That to save the planet was to doom humanity, and vice versa? 

My friends were not stupid. Their opposition mirrored one that has existed at least as long as this country. It took me years to form the understanding that these two “sides”, the rivalry between the Human and the Nonhuman, was a construct; these opposing ideas were created and pitted against each other by some force, and were not always mutually exclusive.

It took me years after that to realize that neither scientists nor humanitarians could work alone to effect the change either “team” wanted— that “scientists excel at identifying and explaining such problems, but they alone cannot solve them. Solutions will require political and cultural expertise as well,“ (Emmet & Nye, 6).

I hope you can all forgive me a lapse in close reading this week; the texts we’re discussing represent the foundation of my career and life’s work, and I am compelled to speak personally to them, since I cannot begin to unfold their neatly wrapped theses. As a “scientist”, I believe that my study of the humanities is indispensable to the success of my work— because my work is centered around eliminating the veil between the human and natural world.
My first goal is to show people that they are a part of the “natural” world; that ecology is everyones business. I mean– it happens inside of us! I want to show people that highly complex life exists on all scales and in all the spaces we occupy, that it is beautiful and cannot be escaped.
My second goal is to demystify science, and make it less intimidating to the layperson; to take it from an exclusive institution, “Science with a capital S”, to science, a practice/process which anyone can be involved in, and most people are.
My third goal is to always advocate for the value of human life, culture, and civilization; and to show the world that human society is simply another natural, ecological process on this planet. It follows the same rules as bacterial colonies and insect colonies and vast ecological systems. We have much to learn about how our society functions; we can learn that by observing different kinds of life; and, through this power of observation, we may be able to escape the natural selection process that might otherwise eliminate our lineage.

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I regret I didn’t stay close enough to those two friends from middle school to know where they stand now. They were, for the record, very well rounded people— their rivalry was not one between a Scientist and a Sociologist, but between two intelligent people. Together we went down rabbit holes of etymology, immunology, the history of warfare, of music, botany, disability politics, rare diseases. But I want to credit them most of all for being so utterly convicted of what was important in the world that they inspired a philosophical crisis in me which shaped the rest of my life.

Pretty Little Children of Nature

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In the story of Undine there is an undercurrent of belief that humans have superiority over natural elements, based on the assertion that only humans have a soul, unlike nature. This belief reflects the on and off again thought that nature is a force outside of humans to be controlled for human prosperity, without concern for the impact this has on nature’s designs. This subjection of nature and the creatures within it makes it easier for humans to take what they need from it, without letting their souls feel the guilt of taking from another entity. When humans argue for their superiority over nature and other humans, their first tactic is to dehumanize. Instead of looking to the similarities nature and humans have with each other they create the image of “other” and infantilize it so their position seems more experienced and all-knowing.

Undine explains to her new husband about her and other elementals with this dehumanizing language, even though she states prior to this that the elementals do identify as human beings. She says, “hence we have no soul; the element moves us, and is often obedient to us while we live, though it scatters us to dust when we die; and we are merry…merry as the nightingales and little gold-fishes and other pretty children of nature. But all beings aspire to be higher than they are” (Penguin,105). Characterizing the power in nature as being like children makes it a less consequential part of the human world, one that needs help and guidance. Only participating in the human world and obtaining a soul made the elemental more than they are on their own, making the human world the superior entity.

Conveniently in the human world there are those designated to award souls and personhood. In the case of this story it does this through marriage by a religious figure who one must be humble towards. This release of power for human theology and methodology is portrayed as a reasonable trade while power is still wielded in the human world over each other, but only by the few. Relinquishing power is the price of admission to be part of the human world because the human world only thrives on its assertion of its own control, not its inherent ability to do so.

Framing the elementals as being powerful in this Earth-bound world but reduced to nothing because there is not something to grieve them, also removes responsibility from humans for caring about anything outside of themselves and their interests. Asserting that there is a temporary power of nature but humans (having anointed themselves with the idea of a continuing spirit) in their existence will be forever. It prioritizes the human experience over the natural world, not considering how the two are intertwined in the same existence.