‘Defeating’ nature? It’s ourselves we’re punching in the face 🦠
‘The power of science will prevail and defeat nature’ — a message which has underpinned commentary on our fight against the coronavirus since its outbreak last year. Defeat nature.
While I think we can all agree that everyone wants to see the back of this awful virus, it has shown us one thing, our unhealthy relationship with taking nature. Our never-ending quest to overcome, dominate and defeat nature is what we really ought to be worried about. Covid is literally a zoonotic (means going from animals to humans) virus and a direct result of our efforts to dominate nature.
We often see nature as something which is ‘out there’ — a separate wilderness for us to explore. You only have to look at any nature documentary and how they portray nature as unruly, uncivilised and pure. We detach ourselves from nature and we see it as our playground.
It’s easy to understand why. Humans have evolved to become a sophisticated species. Well, if you call drinking wine, complaining about washing up, and working 40 hours a week in jobs we hate sophisticated. No, but seriously, we have been able to innovate like crazy, we have harnessed the power of science and technology to catapult us into a position of perceived superiority over nature and all else. This is the problem, while we have worked for so long to separate ourselves from nature we have actually just become more interlinked with nature, nothing has shown this more than covid. But as wild as it may seem (pun intended), we have not always seen ourselves as separate from the rest.
Where does the problem come from? Descartes Vs Spinoza
In the 17th century, French philosopher René Descartes wrote that humans are superior to other living species because we have minds and souls. Our minds were gifts from God and exist separate from our bodies. While all animals and living species have a physical form, this was nothing special. It was the mind which made humans unique. (I wonder what he was smoking?)
Needless to say that this went down well with the Church, reinforcing their prominent monotheism (belief in one God) beliefs that were popular in Europe at the time. But it wasn’t the Church that loved it most, it was the capitalist elites. They sensed an opportunity too good to miss.
While Descartes was busy talking about the distinction between the human mind/body, Europe’s landowners and aristocrats took it to mean that not only are we separate from our own bodies, but also from the world and the natural capital around us, ready to be exploited and turned into profit. But it was almost very different.
While Descartes was busy getting all the plaudits, a Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza was arguing the opposite. Instead, he argued that humans exist as one part of a single being, we’re all interconnected and interdependent upon one another. Rather than seeing ourselves as set apart from nature, Spinoza argued that humans are indeed part of nature.
Spoiler alert — Descartes won. And this was no small victory. Our dualistic assumptions (separation from nature) are now deeply ingrained into our consciousness to this day, particularly in the West. Whether we’re talking about ‘getting out’ into nature for our wellbeing, ‘protecting’ the environment from collapse, or ‘defeating’ the coronavirus, we are as Jason Hickel notes in Less is More, “still retweeting Descartes.” We live, eat and breathe these dualisms every day — they roll off of the tongue without us even noticing.
Why is this a problem?
Now, this is a tricky one to grapple with. Our belief that we exist separately from the world around us is so ingrained in our everyday consciousness that it seems entirely normal and harmless. It’s only when we pick this apart a little more that we begin to see that it’s actually at the centre of the climate crisis.
By shifting our relationship with the non-human world from one of community to one of hierarchy, we begin to see nature as a resource for consumption rather than part of a complex, living system that needs caring for. In metaphorically removing ourselves from the living world around us, we’ve ripped apart forests and pillaged oceans to (literally) fuel our never-ending thirst for profit and economic growth, all as though there would be no consequences. If it went wrong then it was nature’s problem to deal with, not ours.
But if the last forty years of climate science has taught us one thing, it’s actually that the strain we are putting upon the earth’s life support systems is not only destroying our forests, oceans, animals and plants, but it’s also destroying us. As much as we have been told to think differently for the last 400 years, we are completely, and unavoidably, part of the world we live in. By seeking mastery over the non-human and destroying it to feed our fast-paced consumer lifestyles, we are only shooting ourselves in the foot.
Still not following?
Let’s think of it another way. Say you were told that you had high blood pressure and that you had to change your diet or else it could pose a real threat to your life. Most of us would act quickly to cut down on our salt intake and treat the problem. Why? Because our heart is our life support system, and if we abuse it, we risk dying. We make the direct connection between how we treat our bodies and the impact which this has upon our own internal health. Easy.
Why don’t we show the same level of urgency when it comes to the planet’s health? Imagine if we could change the way we think about our relationship with the non-human world, so that we extend this beyond our own bodies, and see our health and existence as dependent upon how we treat other living organisms too. Would we act with the same urgency when we saw the impact which burning fossil fuels is having upon rising ocean acidity? Or with the devastating impact which deforestation is having upon habitat and biodiversity loss? It’s something to ponder that’s for sure.
The Solution? We Are Nature
You will be pleased to know that the grumpy part of this blog is now over, I’ve complained enough about the problem of separating ourselves from nature. But what’s the solution here?
We need to write a new narrative — one which allows us to internalise nature and see it as part of us rather than as a distant, external space. If we begin to see ourselves as nature, we’re far more likely to treat it with care rather than see it as something to abuse. And the best part is that this story has already been written and told for thousands of years.
While Spinoza (the pro-nature guy from earlier) boldly carried the baton in Europe, he was only echoing the ideas which had been developed, preserved, and practised for generations by Indigenous thinkers and their communities across the world. Take the Achuar people of the Peruvian Amazon as an example. To the Achuar, ‘nature’ is a social construct — it does not exist.
They understand humans not as separate, but as deeply interconnected and independent upon the trees, the earth, and the wide array of animals and plants around them. The Achuar believe that the living organisms of the jungle have souls and they should be treated with respect, rather than resources to be destroyed. It may seem absurd to many of us, but it’s crucial we recognise nature as part of us. Changing the way we think about nature is a game-changer for climate change.
It’s also important to say here that we don’t want to speak for the Achuar community or take up the space of Indigenous activists and leaders who are already living and breathing this stuff. Learn more about this from Entsakua Yunkar, shaman of the Achuar Sharamentsa Community, or go here to check out a whole load of great blogs and podcasts authored by people from First Nation communities in the US. All My Relations is a good place to start.
And it’s not just the Achuar people. Outside the seemingly inescapable grip which dualism has over many of us in the Western world is an entirely different story of human existence and purpose. From the Lenca community who are bound to the cyclical flow of the Gualcarque River in Honduras, to the Sioux First Nations people who have lived in harmony with the seasons in North Dakota for generations, the artificial lines which we draw between ourselves and nature so routinely would make no sense.
Of course, these communities do take from nature. They fish, hunt, and chop down trees to build, but not in excess. Though Indigenous communities differ hugely in their traditions, practices, and beliefs, what they all share is a fundamental understanding that as humans we must live in equilibrium with other living organisms. By fostering a state of balance, and acknowledging non-human beings as an important part of our social community, we recognise and respect the fragility of our ecosystem, and we take care of it.
Conclusion
I suppose it comes as little surprise that tackling a crisis as enormous as climate change and ecological collapse requires more than shopping with re-usable bags or becoming an eco-friendly consumer. We need to change our systems — and there’s no saying that it’ll be easy. It’s time that we stop seeing nature as something separate for us to go out ‘into,’ or to extract, or to experience. Let’s bring nature home, and by this, I mean to us, our bodies, our minds, our existence.
This requires us in the West to write a new story about our relationship with the non-human world. It means ending our love affair with Descartes and following the lead of Indigenous communities whose wisdom and ingenuity has long been suppressed and mocked by Western thought. Only if we give a voice to these ontologies will we begin to value non-human beings as equal partners in our shared home, and arrest our slide towards the climate crisis.
By re-establishing our role within the world, the hope is that we will begin to see how the fast-paced consumer lifestyles a select minority of us live is not just destroying polar bears or ‘the environment,’ but is also destroying ourselves. A defeat for nature is a certain defeat for us too. It’s time we work on the same team if we’re to have a chance of saving each other.