The Following is the final paper I wrote for a philosophy course I recently took called The American Mind. We were assigned to write about a topic we learned about using at least two of the writers we covered. The views of nature that these two writers expressed was something that stood out for me, as well as the concept of pantheism, which was a recurring theme in the class. I decided to join these together to write about something I think is important that had been on my mind, especially with other ecology classes I was taking.
Most people today don’t think that
they live in nature. Nature is a
separate thing. It’s what you see when drive through a forested area, or go for
a hike in the woods. But at what point
does the natural world end and society begin?
Of course it’s all a matter of the way you want to think of it. Nature can be a clearly defined thing, neatly
marked off from the concept of civilization; or it can be an all encompassing
term that includes everything on earth and beyond. The problem is, when we think of nature and
society too much as distinctly separate, we tend to forget how closely intertwined
the two really are, and we neglect the fact that each can do great harm to the
other. This is seen all too often today
as people and corporations put their own self-interests over the wellbeing of
the environment. I need not go into
specific examples. What we need today
more than ever is a worldview that sees society and the environment as one and
the same, each encompassing many different closely interacting aspects within a
single universal ecosystem. This could
be thought of as a form of pantheism (a system of views describing or
worshiping all things as part of the same whole) but focusing on the idea of
the environment and humanity as one and interacting by the laws of
ecology.
Two American philosophers in
particular that I have come across have constructed through their writings
something similar to this. In the
nineteenth century Ralph Waldo Emerson, in his essay Nature, describes his mystical relationship with and view of
nature, something he finds extremely beautiful and moving. Over a hundred years later, Annie Dillard
wrote in her book Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
about a year she spent living in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains, in which she
immersed herself in, and spent countless hours observing and thinking about the
natural world. Both embrace a
pantheistic view in which they revere nature as a whole almost religiously, and
often feel like they themselves are a part of its grand structure. Each’s view of nature and its connection with
humankind is distinctly different.
However, each also incorporates aspects of the ecological pantheistic
worldview that today’s society is in need of.
Each compliments the other, and together can be helpful in forming this
worldview.
In order to build a worldview that
embraces nature and society as one and the same, it’s helpful to begin with
each of our own personal relationships with nature. If we feel like we ourselves are part of the
natural world, then it’s not such a stretch to see all of mankind as part of
that system. Emerson and Dillard both
find such a feeling when they go into nature.
In one of the most famous excerpts that Emerson is known for, he writes,
“Standing on the bare ground, — my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted
into infinite space, — all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent
eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being
circulate through me; I am part or particle of God.”[1] This is all simply to say that being in
nature gives him the feeling of being part of a grander system, a “Universal
Being”, where his sense of his own self, or his egotism, is overcome by his
sense of being part of something greater.
Dillard has an experience that very
closely mirrors this. She tells of
coming across a tree that had apparently once been described by a blind girl
who was given the ability to see for the first time as “the tree with the lights
in it”. When she finds the tree she
describes becoming “utterly focused and utterly dreamed. It was less like
seeing than being for the first time seen, knocked breathless by a powerful
glance.”[2] Though less explicit than Emerson, she
implies that in this moment she feels not as a specific person but in the
presence of something greater that is “seeing” her, or encapsulating her. In
other words, she suddenly feels part of a greater whole. This feeling is expressed throughout much of
the book (though usually not as strongly).
She often describes the environment she’s in as “creation”, implying
that she’s within the fundamental essence of all God supposedly created. These feelings expressed by Emerson and
Dillard both reveal a very similar feeling that they personally feel one with
nature, an important starting point to ecological pantheism.
Despite their similar feelings on
their personal connection with nature, Emerson and Dillard express quite
different sentiments about the nature of the natural world itself. Emerson sees almost all beauty and goodness
when he goes into nature. He writes, “In
the presence of nature, a wild delight runs through the man, in spite of real
sorrows. Nature says, — he is my creature, and maugre all his impertinent
griefs, he shall be glad with me.”
Despite whatever personal troubles a person may be going through, nature
to him is always welcoming and good. He
even says “Nature never wears a mean appearance.”
Dillard’s perspective often stands
in stark contrast. Though she constantly
praises the beauty of nature and on many occasions too feels incredible delight
from the things it has to offer, she also finds an immense darkness and cruelty
in it. This is especially prevalent in
the second part of the book. She
describes how “we the living are nibbled and nibbling–not held aloft on a cloud
in the air but bumbling pitted and scarred and broken through a frayed and
beautiful land.”[3] The natural world to her is a violent and
messy place, whose beauty is found in spite of this. Nature doesn’t welcome you, she believes, but
places you within an unfair system where every creature must fend for itself.
This is where Emerson and Dillard
best complement each other. Emerson
provides the wonder and the joy that is obviously an aspect of nature that can
be found. Meanwhile, Dillard points out
the horror and cruelty that is so often an aspect of it as well. In order to form a complete perspective of
the environment we’re a part of we need both of these views. We can’t appreciate what nature has to offer
without seeing the beauty and joy in it, but we also can’t understand the
danger we pose to the environment and that it poses to us without grasping the
cruel natural system we’re a part of.
Beyond finding personal oneness with
nature and understanding the joy and cruelty within it, ultimately we must come
to the most important understanding of all: that society itself and nature are
indivisibly part of the same whole. This
requires an ecological perspective that recognizes the constant interactions
between society and the natural environment and all its life forms. Although Emerson is certainly pantheistic
when considering himself within nature, he unfortunately stops short of seeing
society and nature as one. He says, “In
the wilderness, I find something more dear and connate than in streets or
villages.” To him, nature has a
superiority over the human world. It’s
inherently more beautiful, more pure, and more holy than civilization. There’s nothing wrong with liking being in
nature more than being in the city, but as a philosophical view, praising one
over the other forms an unnecessary disconnect that is at odds with full
ecological pantheism.
In Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, humans and nature are often in close
interaction. She tells a story of a year
when hordes of starlings came to roost in Radford, Virginia for the winter and
disrupted human life there with their noise and stench and concerns over spread
of disease. Naturally, the city tried
everything they could to eradicate them, from freezing them to death with foam
to urging them away with recorded starling distress calls, but ended up only
spending thousands of dollars and losing a small portion of the birds.[4] Of course, populations of animals are usually
not so lucky in these types of situations, but what Dillard shows here is that
nature is intimately connected with human society, whether we like it or not. We share the same space, influence each
other, and in the end it is as much our land as it is the birds’. Although much
of her focus is on the natural world, Dillard doesn’t express the same inherent
distinction between the human world and nature as Emerson does, but instead
views them as part of the same system. This is the way we should all view things.
Emerson’s society-nature duality
isn’t totally useless. Symbolically, his
favoring of nature expresses a rejection of the norms that define society. He goes into nature to embrace his own
paradigm of life. Now more than ever our
society needs a new paradigm with which to view the environment. Both Emerson and Dillard express useful ways
of viewing the relationship between humans and nature. Both experience deep personal feelings of
oneness with nature. Emerson expresses
the joy and tranquility that exists within nature, while Dillard expresses the
violence and cruelty that also exists.
And Dillard completes the picture by looking at society as interacting
and blending within the same larger whole as nature. These aspects are in contrast with the view
people today too often succumb to: that the environment is something exterior
to us that we can manipulate without upsetting the balance of a larger system,
resulting in dire consequences. But if
we adopt the ecological pantheistic views set out by Emerson and Dillard and
start putting the good of the universal ecosystem that includes everything on Earth
over the good of our individual selves, we may have a shot at moving things in
a better direction.
Foot Notes
[1]
All Emerson quotes from Nature.
[2] Dillard,
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, 35.
[3]
Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek,
232.
[4] Dillard,
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, 37-38.
Bibliography
Dillard, Annie. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. New York, NY: Bantam
Books, 1982.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "Nature." Ralph Waldo Emerson Texts. http://www.emersoncentral.com/nature1.htm.
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