Unnatural Nature
We are suffocating. It seems nothing can stop the forward march of the cult of Mother Earth. There is no need for me to link to the latest horror story. You all know it well. As in so many other realms, what would have been considered the lunatic fringe a generation or two ago is now the respectable mainstream. One cannot open a newspaper, go shopping, eat in a restaurant, or listen to workplace conversations without having one’s ear violated by one or another manifestation of enviromadness. Together with the victimization narrative, it forms the foundation of our contemporary anti-civilization mythology.
The Global Warming-climate change-CO2-ethanol-polar bear-renewable resource-carbon credit monster has taken on such proportions that it rivals, in sheer volume, the amount of mass hysteria and fantasy generated by the great totalitarian machines of the modern era. Interestingly, it is not being imposed by a central, directing force, but rather is pushed simultaneously by numerous governmental and non-governmental actors, from all sectors of life. This indicates that enviromadness fulfills some very deep needs.
One of these needs is the extirpation of guilt. People in the West feel guilty about their material wealth, unimaginable just a few generations ago. They need an outlet, and enviromadness provides it. Alas, too much accomplishment can be a dangerous thing, in the life of both individuals and societies. At the very pinnacle of success, when celebration should be the order of the day, people are beset by doubt, a feeling of anti-climax, guilt, “was it all worth it,” etc.
We are fat and complacent, like a pet lounging on the sofa. Just as a domesticated animal has been removed from its natural habitat and is artificially maintained, enviromadness seeks to remove us from our own natural habitat, which is the creative life of the mind. When firmly in his element, man imitates God, inventing and creating great works. There are those who invent and create, and those who enjoy the fruits derived therefrom.
Nature is not our natural habitat. It is rather our resource center and our playground. It may be objected that man feels comfortable and refreshed in nature, unencumbered by the neuroses of civilization. This may be true, but the Rousseau-ian expansion of this fact into an idealization of nature is flawed. It is not the real nature that comforts and refreshes us. The real nature is savage and brutal, steeped in the struggle for survival.
No, we humans are able to enjoy nature because we do not live within its “ecosystem,” subject to its rules. Even those of us who seek the danger of the wild do it as a foray, returning to the safety and familiarity of human civilization when the adventure has run its course.
We fashion nature to our own liking. We see a bobcat in our binoculars, and make believe it’s a cute, giant housecat. Nature is idyllic to us because we make it into an extension of our human domain. We photograph it, paint it, send postcards, write books about it, organize clubs, conduct research, and bestow names on its countless components.
When the envirocultists seek to place man squarely within nature, giving him the same status as a frog or a weeping willow, they stand the normal relationship on its head. We are the domesticators; we cannot be the domesticated. As Sir Francis Bacon observed:
Take an example of a dog, and mark what a generosity and courage he will put on when he finds himself maintained by a man, who to him is in stead of a god, or melior natura; which courage is manifestly such as that creature, without that confidence of a better nature than his own, could never attain.
The same applies to all the parts of nature that we shepherd into our intellectual pasture. It is futile to make nature the god above us. The only way it could work is to strip away the entire layer of civilization, returning us to a primitive condition. We would then live in fear of the spirits that lurk in every rock and tree. The arts, which are based on the projection of the intellect over nature, would die a thousand deaths.
Returning to Bacon, could there be any more fitting description of enviromadness than this:
The master of superstition is the people; and in all superstition wise men follow fools; and arguments are fitted to practice, in a reversed order.
[Quotes taken from the essays on atheism and on superstition, in Essays and Other Writings of Francis Bacon, ed. R. Wilson, London, J. M. Dent & Sons, 1943, pp 65, 67]
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March 1st, 2008 at 12:15 pm
……….enviromadness fulfills some very deep needs. One of these needs is the extirpation of guilt. People in the West feel guilty about their material wealth, unimaginable just a few generations ago. They need an outlet, and enviromadness provides it………..
This observation is crucial: Enviromadness would not be possible before the security and leisure of affluence had made it so. We are so distanced and protected from the savage reality of Nature red in tooth and claw, that the romantic vision of a benevolent Mother Earth has captured the imagination of almost everyone. Because we have learned how to master and to manage so much of the natural world, we can afford to idealize the wilderness that, not too long ago, we had to conquer in order to survive. Our collective conscience has made William Wordsworths of us all (well, nearly all).
The very few people left on this planet who are still living, as it were, in the Stone Age, do not fantasize about their environment: they are at war with it.
March 1st, 2008 at 6:01 pm
Nick Nichols… A Total Crock of Doo-doo on Townhall.com.:
“A few weeks back I noted in my column that when times get tough, Americans will stop worrying about whether polar bears have enough ice and start asking whether those white, furry critters are edible. That comment caused quite a stir, and I would like to thank everyone, in particular the folks from Alaska, for the great recipes they forwarded—“Bear Claw Cordon Bleu??? for instance.”
March 2nd, 2008 at 4:12 am
Dear Gary:
Alex is exactly correct about primitives and nature. It is the same with so many early religions: They sought to propitiate a world they could neither understand nor control. Modern environmental paganism does the same.
Much of the romanticism Rousseau directed at savages we moderns direct at the ‘rain forest’—once simply called ‘the jungle.’ We envision it as a panacea of miraculous cures filled with anthropocentric animals—Lion Kings and such.
I have spent 25 years of my life exploring and solo backpacking the jungles of Central and South America. I have been stalked and harassed by animals, sickened with a host of diseases and thought myself dead several times. And let me tell you: All the ‘rain forest’ stuff is nonsense. The jungle is full of death. It walks on four legs. It slithers upon the ground. It flies through the air. It wriggles in the grass. It lives invisible in a host of insects only to burst forth in the most hideous diseases known to man. It burrows into your flesh and organs. It infects and paralyzes and blinds. In the city you might be doctor this or professor that or senator so and so, but in the jungle your are nothing but prey.
And in all my years spent in jungles I seldom encountered any Greenpeace-type. Such fools blather from the air conditioned halls of the West. When they do venture out it is with well-appointed ‘Eco-travel’ agencies: They are well-cocooned, well-supplied and well-furnished.
As has been noted, Mother Nature is a bitch red in tooth and claw. Ignore this and you perish—and rather horribly I must say.
March 2nd, 2008 at 10:19 am
Gary, thank you for some enviromental sanity. It is with a forboding that I have been noticing more and more cult like symtoms in the enviromentalists. What is worse is what you pointed out- it has become mainstream. Everywhere we turn we are confronted by envirocultists with the intent to control every aspect of our lives. Others follow mindlessly behind them.
It is not just a mistaken belief but a kind of fanaticism. Particularly disturbing are the clergy I know that preach sermons about global warming and our guilt. We are being judged by the light bulbs we use.
I also agree with Mike Austin. There is a romanticism associated with the enviromentalists. They gloss over the harsh realities of nature. I spend alot of time outdoors in my work and play. I enjoy nature but am always grateful to get back to a warm home and a beef stew in the pot.
March 2nd, 2008 at 4:49 pm
I found the post and comments to be quite interesting. So much of man’s behavior on every level is motivated by guilt. At first glance it may appear that the idea of guilt being at the root of the problem, and applying it to our society, may seem to be exaggerated and hard to believe. But the way you linked all the elements of enviromadness together forms a logical conclusion.
Actually, enviromadness could be a form of self-flagellation.
March 2nd, 2008 at 6:51 pm
Alex: Thank you for emphasizing the role of affluence in all of this. Without question a key factor.
Steve Burri: The article you link to is quite informative. It mentions the International Conference on Climate Change that opened today in New York. Here’s more information on the event, which seeks to provide an alternative view of Global Warming:
http://www.heartland.org/NewYork08/program.cfm
Mike Austin: Thanks for sharing that incredible story with us.
Elizabeth: “We are being judged by the light bulbs we use.” Indeed.
futureshock: Self-flagellation it certainly is. And I hope that the envirocultists start feeling guilty about the damage they are causing to the rest of us.
March 2nd, 2008 at 8:53 pm
Today’s environmentalism is delusional. Petitions don’t save polar bears and “green??? light bulbs don’t help the environment. But it is equally delusional to think that environmental concerns are irrelevant, unimportant or inconsequential.
Man has lived within and as a contributing part of nature for the bulk of its existence with little to no change. When civilization did come, it was resisted. The constituents of civilization are abstractions of reality, and because of this alienation from nature, civilized man is generally less healthy and less satisfied with life. Paleolithic peoples lived in reality, no question, and they dealt with it honestly. Physically, pre-civ people were generally healthier and lived longer, contrary to the modern presupposition. Nature is naturally plentiful, and thus the gatherer-hunter existence was leisurely; play, conversation and craft were favored pastimes.
Consider that it is actually both: our natural habitat and, in its natural, unspoiled, non-objectified, non-commodified state, a greater resource and a freer playground.
A half truth. We are the domesticators, yes, and we domesticated ourselves.
Despite our abstraction of it and alienation from it, we are ultimately dependant upon nature for every single thing. Thus the quantification you speak of is redundant.
Correct. It’s a matter of deciding which kind of life to live. One of connection to the whole, affirmation of reality, leisure, play, creativity and discovery, or, as I’ve found is the effect of divided labor, specialization and stratification, one of abnegation, alienation and ponos.
Nietzsche aphorizes: “We have Art in order not to perish of Truth???? and, supplementally, Keats says: “Beauty is truth, truth beauty. That is all ye know on Earth, and all ye need to know.??? What is this truth? I think it’s reality—the natural world. The more conditioned we get to living abstractly and subsequently call the distance from reality truth, the worse off we are, the further from actual beauty we are, and the better of we are without art, without civilization, without protection from Truth.
March 3rd, 2008 at 11:28 am
I find myself agreeing with Shayne here. Modern “environmentalist” ideas are flawed, because they ultimately exist only to make those who hold them feel better. Consider that there are those who would believe that economic growth in third-world nations is somehow a good thing for the environment.
To ignore environmental concerns, and to assume that we are ‘better’ for being civilized is just as flawed. Ultimately, we are a part of nature – not nature, as some benevolent earth mother, but nature as a creative and destructive force.
March 10th, 2008 at 3:49 am
Environmentalism is another replacement for true religion. Chesterton had it exactly right; “when men no longer believe in God, . . . they’ll believe in anything.”