What is man’s relation to nature? This is a question that has been asked by humanists and scientists alike. In regards to our authors, John Felstiner, in Can Poetry Save the World, put forth the following questions: “Should water and wildland be managed for or protected from people?” (Felstiner 5). His environmental position is contrasted by another of our authors, Raymond Williams, who instead ecologically argues, “the idea of nature is the idea of man” (Williams 71). Based on my understanding of the semester’s readings and the blog posts of others, I believe the polarization of Felstiner and Williams’ arguments results in an oversimplified bifurcation—man and nature are either independent or dependent. Whereas the ecological position was valid during the Romantic period, I contend the industrial revolution and thereafter rapid technological evolution has subordinated nature to such an extent that the traditional concept of nature only exists because of man. That is, in our developed, westernized world, the ecological argument no longer holds and must be revolutionized. Below, I will illuminate the strengths of the ecological over the environmental argument, discuss the relatively recent transition, and address where we should go from here.
Refutation of the Environmental Position
It’s important to begin with the refutation of the environmental argument. I strongly contend the position that man is separate, and inferentially superior, to nature is incorrect. Kenneth Schmitz of Trinity College, University of Toronto, correctly states, such a relationship is akin to a “master-slave attitude toward nature” (47). Moreover, our own Jim Whiteside posits the environmental argument “exercise[s] what Sociologists call “othering”” where we remove ourselves in order to better define the natural world. Dislocating ourselves results in various problems some of which include Defining, Abstracting and Improving.
I have already argued against the environmentalist perspective at length in our first essay assignment and on the blog and will thus provide an extension of my critiques. Robert Burns’ “To a Mountain Daisy” successfully rejects environmentalism for “providing nature with a singular definition, abstract relationship, and disconnected improvement [that] only serves to enhance the problem as it distances man from it” (Head 7). Through two methods, Burns strongly refutes the separation of man from nature. They are as such:
1. Convergence of fates: Burns’ exclaims “the Daisy’s fate” is “thine-no distant date” and connects their respective futures. The most interesting part of this connection is, however, the dependence on man. The plow, driven by man, ends the lives of both the daisy and the reader thus inferring man’s actions will ultimately lead to his death. When one talks about fate, there are undoubtedly religious connotations. In 1869, Revd. Fergus Ferguson questioned the religiosity of Burns declaring one cannot demarcate “the sweet and wholesome from the poisonous” in his poetry. It is likely that Burns was, to some degree, agnostic. As a result, Burns may be indicating the prospect of heaven is a guard, of sorts, for man to exploit nature. In Genesis, God blesses man and encourages him to “fill the earth and subdue it ” (Genesis 1:28). By bucking, or at least questioning, Christianity, Burns rejects the dominion man is given over natural and thus equalizes the two.
2. Pastoral dialect: As I argued in my essay—“The depersonalized Scottish dialect takes man off the verbal pedestal and returns him to his natural tongue. Alluding to William Wordsworth’s glorification of the “thrifty cottager”, Burns brings man and nature together through humble language that breaks the artificial barriers erected in the past. This is epitomized by the first word, “Wee,” that brings man and nature together (Wee meaning man and nature, both, as “modest crimson-tipped flow’r) through the colloquial Scottish dialect (Burns l. 1).” Extending upon this, in an article printed in The North American Review, Walt Whitman characterizes Burns as “an average sample of the good-natured, warm-blooded…early-middle-age man.” He was, by these descriptions, an average man who thus, unlike Wordsworth’s “vain [poets] in their mood,” espoused humility. Like John Clare, the lack of personal superiority implies an ecological preference (l. 33).
Essentially, nature is inextricably intertwined with man. The natural world does not exist in isolation to mankind but in fact, in relation to it. It is, at least at the time of Burns and Wordsworth, incorrect to disassociate man from the nature.
Pro-Ecology
As it was important to refute the environmental argument, it is also necessary to demarcate the strengths of the ecological position. While I have, heretofore, focused primarily on Burns’, John Clare puts forth a similar argument in “To An Insignificant Flower, Obscurely Blooming In A Lonely Wild”: “And like to thee… / …So humble, lowly, mean, and plain, / No one will notice them, - or me” (l. 27-28). The ‘thee-me’ rhyme connects the fate of the “insignificant flower” to that of Clare. Such a fatalistic argument is directly comparable to that which was espoused in Burns: man and nature will whither and die together. Through her blog post, Laura correctly contextualizes Clare’s argument through his opposition to the enclosure movement and concludes by saying “I think the point that he is trying to make is that you can’t disentangle the people who use the commons from their land because they are one.” Clare’s opinion is enhanced by his reputation as a “peasant poet” who “belonged to a tradition of rural dissent.” As such, the poem can be construed as representation of a wider swath of individuals; not elitist poets but, in fact, those most harmed by the burgeoning economization of land.
William Wordsworth, in “Hart-Leap Well,” further questions the connection of man to land. Dr. Seuss, to whom I apologize because I cannot remember his name, argues, “By having a Knight serves as the protagonist, Wordsworth communicates how our conception of chivalry and the traits that we revere (or otherwise impress us) are fundamentally skewed. He invites us to take a humbler perspective on life and realize a more “ecological” existence.” The hierarchical position of man is, in fact, flawed. The socio-economic titles to which we use are of little relationship to nature. That is, a Knight is no more empowered to exploit than a peasant. In fact, the peasant, in all likelihood, is has more of a right, per say, to the woods than the Knight for he relies on the natural world for subsistence. Whereas Knight is an exogenous entity entering the wood for sport, the peasant (i.e. any impoverished class) resides within the wood and is thus an ecological component. By criticizing the “rude stone Sir Walter rear’d” and incorporating the opinion of the Shepherd—a peasant who, because of the grazing requirements of his flock, is dependent on nature—Wordsworth advances the ecological argument of dependency.
Martin Heidegger, the twentieth century German philosopher, conceives a similarly ecological connection between man and nature. Specifically, he desired “to break away from the Cartesian tradition which had split man off from his world” and went so far as to denote man as an “in-der-Welt-sein (being-in-the-world)” (McLean 150). Heidegger thus places man within the natural world as a being that is, for all intensive purposes, dependent on nature. Such an argument, when extended, elicits the conclusion that, because of our dependency, self-interest will guide man. By protecting nature we protect ourselves; just as we degrade ourselves when we degrade nature. As such, Heidegger “bind[s] man and nature so closely together that the ‘and’ in ‘Man and Nature’ becomes superfluous” (McLean 154). We are left with the ‘Man-Nature’ relationship. I believe such a connection is considerably stronger and more align with Burns and Wordsworth’s mutualism because the two entities are tangled together.
I therefore completely agree with Laura, Dr. Seuss and Heidegger that there exists a non-tangible relationship between man and land (a proxy for nature). As Williams notes, nature “contains an extraordinary amount of human history” (Williams 70). The connection intertwines the relationship and ties man to nature such that we (i.e. humans) cannot live in isolation. We live off the land and depend on that which has, since our creation, provided us with food and shelter. Therefore, there exist an amorphous border between the human and natural realm such that both bleed into each other. Such a border requires the removal of the conjunction, ‘and’. In its place, man and nature are syntactically connected.
Ecology and the Sublime
The sublime and its characterization of the man-nature dependency exhibits such a syntactical coalescence. As we discussed in class, Caspar David Friedrich epitomized the movement. In Wanderer above a Sea of Fog (1818), man is standing, ostensibly, triumphantly over nature (see figure 1). With that said, the man appears humbled and in awe of the fierce form nature has taken. I believe it stands to reason that he climbed this respective peak, believing he was conquering nature but instead realized the breadth that which lies before him. He is but one small piece of a significantly larger puzzle. Furthermore, towards the center of the painting, two hills descend into the man’s torso with his head rising like a peak. He is, in a sense, analogous to the mountains and thus one with nature.
Figure 1
Furthermore, Friedrich’s Monk on the Seashore (1809) blends the boundaries between man and nature (see figure 2).
Figure 2
The monk, barely visible in the southwestern portion of the painting, fuses with the black sea. He is distinguished only by the white head/hat contrasted against the sea and black robe contrasted against the land (or perhaps ice cap) upon which he stands. Thus, as stated above, man and nature bleed into each other and form not distinct but a united entity.
Moreover, Friedrich’s clouds connect to those penned by Wordsworth and Shelley. As Victoria alludes to in her post, “Considering the Cloud”, the poets differentiate the perspective and consequently empower the reader through different medians: “Shelley’s poem united humanity and nature, whereas Wordsworth uses a simile to create distance.” Both vantage points are available in Friedrich’s Monk on the Seashore. The Wordsworthian clouds “float on high” over the monk who is gazing out to sea and while he is not looking at daffodils, it is arguable that he too derives a ”bliss of solitude” from the natural vista (l. 2,22). The Shelleyian clouds, however, incorporate the monk into the natural setting through the first-person perspective: “I pass trough the pores, of the oceans and shores” (l. 75). Thus, the monk is twice connected to nature. He is both emotionally inspired, like a cloud passing over a field of daffodils, to the sea and a physical component of the natural setting. It is as if the monk, standing upright, serves as a hyphen (e.g. Heidegger’s hyphenated relationship), of sorts, between land and water.
Man’s Nature in the 21st (and 22nd) Century
Over the duration of the course, I have come to accept the ecological, over the environmental, view of man’s relationship to nature. This assignment has, however, forced me to reconsider this paradigm and I no longer believe Heidegger’s ‘Man-Nature’ relationship holds. While man and nature are inseparable, a tectonic shift has been underway since the Industrial Revolution. Modernization and Westernization (i.e. the proliferation of Western ideology) has destabilized the metaphorical playing field in favor of man. As a result, Heidegger’s hyphenation now inaccurately equalizes the bond.
Kenneth Schmitz, a Professor of Philosophy at The Catholic University of America, contends man’s power has exceeded that of nature to such an extent that nature can no longer exist independently. He proposes a new relationship so entitled, hominization, because “in an increasing number of ways nature itself has become dependent upon humankind for its present “habitable” condition” (Tang 46). That is, there is a burgeoning transition subjugating nature to man. Over time, the relationship has evolved as such:
1. Man in Nature
2. Man-Nature
3. Nature in Man or Man’s Nature
There is ubiquitous evidence to such a claim. We have boxed nature in zoos, aquariums, national parks, collegiate arboretums, and other artificial settings. In doing so, we have essentially come full circle. Whereas man began as migratory hunter-gathers that were encoded within the complex natural world, a reversal has occurred such that nature is now an enclosed, manicured entity within the human realm. Parks and zoos exist because we want them too. Perhaps the most striking example is found in Bank of America’s Corporate Headquarters. The new building, in which I spent time interning this past summer, has living trees planted not just on the ground floor but also throughout the offices. That is, there may be a tree planted (if you can even call it ‘planted’) on floor 40 that reaches through floor 42. While I must admit this is a wonderful addition to the traditionally aesthetically stark offices, it is indubitably an example of man’s nature.
Before concluding with my opinion of the implications of such a relationship moving forward, it’s important to define the nature’s dependency. It is, in my opinion, a short-term subjugation. As Wordsworth parrots in “Hart-Leap Well”, “Nature, in due course of time, once more / Shall here put on her beauty and her bloom” (l. 171-172). Excluding an exogenous event (i.e. a meteor), nature is empowered by longevity and can withstand man’s degradation (see my blog post “Hart-Leap Well: Man and Nature”). As humans, however, we are inherently interested in our own existence and time frame. Thus it is important to study and discuss our near-term relationship with the natural world, even though it may be inconsequential in the long run, because, as the economist John Maynard Keynes famously penned, “in the long run we are all dead”….
While I agree with Schmitz’s characterization of our new relationship, I disagree with his strategic analysis. He accurately frames the conclusion by declaring, “nostalgia…is no general solution” (Tang 49). Man must not look to the past for guidance nor answers. Instead we must, as we have always done, progress. To do so, Schmitz believes, “technical power” must be, “subordinated to the metaphysical, social and ethical good” (Tang 50). By technical power, Schmitz seems to be referencing capitalism that breeds creative destruction and, when unchecked, environmental degradation. It is with this that I disagree. True, we have the supreme ability to exploit nature in want of profit. Wordsworth has specifically warned us against such actions: “Never to blend our pleasure or our pride / With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels” (l. 179-180). What we must do, instead, is not subordinate our technological expertise, but leverage it to protect nature and ourselves at the same time. Renewable energy—solar, wind, water—are the bridges we need to responsibly live with nature. While these are not currently economical on a large-scale, natural gas, obtained through traditional (i.e. vertical drilling) and non-traditional (i.e. hydraulic fracturing), can serve as a bridge. Technology can, and must, be used in pursuit of a sustainably economic state. That is, man must incentivize himself to protect nature. For better or for worse, economics drives humanity and if our “fate is thine—no distant date”, then it is vital we properly position ourselves to simultaneously support environmental protection and economic growth.
Can Poetry Save the Earth?
In the preceding pages I have argued the ecological argument put forth by the Romantics was superior to the environmentalist vision but, over time, has evolved into Schmitz’s hominization. This requires a new call to action I denote as a sustainably economic state. How do we get there? A multilateral approach is necessary that encompasses policy-makers, scientists, and humanists. As such, poetry can help save the earth by continuing to question our relationship to nature. Such questions, epitomized by the fact that we are still discussing Wordsworth’s, Coleridge, and Burns, will continue to be discussed and analyzed for the foreseeable future. If taught and debated in universities across the country and world, such ideas will continue to permeate generations and influence the future world leaders. Change is painstakingly slow but, lucky for us, so to is the aging cycle of nature. I am confident that with time, we will progress to a more sustainable state where the arguments of Romantic-environmentalists are no longer able to be related to the present.
Citations
Felstiner, John. Can Poetry Save the Earth? New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009.
McLean, George F., Hugo Meynell. Person and Nature. University Press of America:
New York, 1988.
Williams, Raymond. Culture and Materialism. New York: Verso, 2005.
Yi-Jie, Tang, Li Zhen, George F. McLean. Man and Nature. New York: University Press
of America, 1989.
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