Practical Primal Philosophy II: Intrinsic Nature in Europe

In a previous blog post with the title “Practical Primal Philosophy: Meaning of ‘Intrinsic’ in ISD”, we considered the importance of having natural relations occurring naturally or essentially to a society and culture. This is important if we want to achieve sustainability and hence a future for mankind.

If natural relations are not intrinsic to society and culture then we need experts who have to work at putting these relations back and overcoming the damage done by whatever non-natural relations do occur naturally in a society and culture. This latter position with experts trying to put natural relations back and reversing the damage done by a society is that of the developed world at the moment. People at large in the developed world seem to be preoccupied with having more or larger stuff. Whilst they may be concerned about climate change, pollution, loss of biodiversity, food supply chains, food quality, and overpopulation, these issues are secondary. It is not that people do not recognise sustainability issues, it just that they have to leave them to experts and marginalise them since natural relations are not intrinsic to their society or culture.

With the knowledge we now possess of our distant evolutionary past, we know that we spent many millennia embedded in the natural world to the extent that nature and ourselves were inseparable. Take away natural supplies or food, water, warmth and shelter and mankind’s ancestors would have perished. This relationship is evident in early civilizations where nature as sun, moon, water, places or various kinds of animals gain religious significance and form part of a frequently complex and interwoven set of relations between man and his deities. Indeed one of the greatest of all western Philosophers, Aristotle, argued that all of man’s activities were extensions of nature.

If the developed world had held true to its ancient experiences, beliefs and arguments then perhaps unsustainable development would not have arisen. After all if we regard ourselves as intrinsically dependent upon nature for our well-being and ultimate survival we are less likely to allow her to be damaged – damaging nature is then equivalent to damaging ourselves.

In so many ways we are rediscovering this most fundamental of truths – that damaging nature is equivalent to damaging ourselves. The whole world is painfully waking up to this fact which underlies the whole environmental movement, environmental management, environmental accounting, climate change issues, green thought, natural health-care and so many other aspects of our lives today. But unfortunately it is a re-awakening to our relations with nature which implies that we somehow manage to forget or disregard them in the past.

The question “How did we forget our relations with nature?” is perhaps the most important one we can ask today. If we can answer this then we will understand more about where unsustainable development came from and hence find our way to more sustainable ways. Answering this question is the subject of the Intrinsic Sustainable Development book, so we do have some relevant ideas.

In Europe, Christianity put an end to many of our intrinsic relations to nature. The pre-Christian pagan people of Europe, for example the Romans and Celts, saw themselves and the natural world as being closely connected. Their innermost beliefs as expressed in their religions were based upon divinities that were inseparable from nature – they themselves were hence inseparable from nature.

But for Christians their belief in a single God came between all human relations with nature. Nature became something that God had made and now rules over with omnipotent power. Furthermore the Christian God does not live in our world; he dwells in some other world known as Heaven. Finally since God sent his son to the human world as a man, mankind became strongly differentiated from other animals and superior to them. All in all nature became a second best aspect of God’s world and it lost much of its former powers, associations, significance and relations.

It is nonetheless quite possible that man acting as a steward over God’s natural creation could have looked after nature better than he did. After all God is supposed to have made nature and man ought to take good care of it. This may have protected nature even when bereft of recognition of its naturally intrinsic relations with mankind if it were not for the French philosopher, René Descartes.

René effectively removed God – and life – from nature. He argued that God is eminently rational and that nature, our bodies included, is merely a passive machine. God became the God of Reason and nature became inert and mechanical. At this point in European history, it is no longer possible to conceive of natural relations occurring naturally or essentially to a society and culture. European society and culture had become wrapped up within its own rationality and self importance. This is how it is today in our very unsustainable world.

"Machine to Create Nature" by Jose Antonio Lanza, 2012