Growing up in a small suburb in the East Bay, my paradigm on Nature developed from a young age into a distant relationship with the idea of nature. Going to the beach or to a mountainous trail to hike, or a visit to the Lafayette-Moraga creek located outside of my house brought me closer to “nature”, otherwise I hardly encountered it on a daily basis. My paradigm was a distant relationship with whatever nature was in my mind, but even though I didn’t exactly know, it felt like something far away from my civilization.
As I read Second Nature: A Gardener's Education by Michael Pollan, my paradigm on nature is being tampered with and poked at with ever turn of the page. The more I read, the more I question my paradigm of what nature is and begin to reconstruct a new one. I am realizing that people are nature. Driving a car to go to nature is an idea of the past, because every decision I make, and every thought I have is a part of my culture, and I am nature.
I believe our paradigms should be questioned ever day because being stuck with tunnel vision is unhealthy, and leaves us blindsided by different possibility’s. As Pollan describes his paradigm in The Idea of A Garden, “Every one of our various metaphors for nature-wilderness, ecosystem, Gaia, resource, wasteland- is already a kind of garden, and indissoluble mixture of our culture and whatever it is that’s really out there” (181). Pollan’s idea that our different outlooks on nature are just superficial, and when it comes down to it, they are just ideas that we create in our minds leads me to think that humans always want to feel like they are in control of things. We create ideas about nature so that we feel powerful and in control of our surroundings, but really these are all just constructs of our minds.
Humans arrived on this planet with many tools that allow us to alter the previous path of Mother Nature. We were also given brains to make thoughtful choices and now it is up to humans to use them. We must look to ourselves, our own culture to create a harmonious, sustainable relationship with Mother Nature so that we don’t deplete her of natural resources. This is a very possible mission, and it will require a change in people’s paradigms on nature. When people realize and accept that our culture is nature, we can take big strides in improving the conditions on earth, and creating more sustainability. We must open our eyes to the impact we are having on Mother Earth without recycling and reusing many of our precious resources, and reshape our outlook and habits.
10 comments:
Thanks for your post, Ellie! Yes, Pollan's book helps us step back and take a look at our own metaphors. What HAVE we been thinking about nature and our relationship to it? Which metaphor seems to govern the way I act?
Pollan doesn't suggest, though, that those metaphors are "just superficial" or "just ideas we create in our minds." Language is a more powerful tool than that, and is perhaps the chief way humans have to understand experience, shape ideas and communicate culture. These metaphors are deeply rooted and both reflect and shape our understanding and behavior. Language can, as you suggest, be a tool for exercising control; but we also use language to express our ideas about everything from what we should cook for dinner to the meaning of love and the need for world peace. It's the very depth and power of our metaphors that make them hard to shift...and yet as you've seen in your own experience, that shift can happen.
So thanks for your thoughts and experience (rendered in language!). And I hope you don't give up playing in the creek just because you've also found nature closer to home. If anything, we all need to play in the creek far more often.
I really enjoyed reading this post Ellie, it was very enlightening and easy to relate to since I myself, and probably many of our other classmates, experience many of the same paradigm shifts. Its so true that this externalized view of nature is very ingrained in our heads, in large part due to the romanticized view of nature beamed into our heads through modern culture. In addition to Pollan's book we have been reading, which you cited as initiating many of the current paradigm shifts we are undergoing, Pathologies also engendered some changes as well. As you stated, many of us are coming to realized that nature is all around us and that we ourselves are both active participants in and integral parts of nature. Pathologies really brought this to my attention as I started thinking about the contingency of my own biological functions. I am basically a product of what I put into my body. With this in mind, it should be easy to initiate changes in lifestyle and diet which truly shape who we are. As you said, hopefully enlightenments such as this will inspire us to start "recycling and reusing many of our precious resources, and reshape our outlook and habits". Great post!
Hey everyone in Tracy Seeley's class,
I was happy to learn about this blog through a tweet from David Silver.
Jeremy Rifkin, an environmental iconoclast of sorts, once said "A paradigm is a paradigm when you don't know it's a paradigm." I think he was right.
In any case, great post, Ellie. Your reflections made me think of a few other readings you might want to put on your summer reading list. The first, in fact, is something you will almost certainly read in another class if you major in Environmental Studies (which as the former Chair of the Program I encourage you to do!). It's an essay by William Cronon called "The Trouble with Wilderness." It ends like this:
"If wildness can stop being (just) out there and start being (also) in here, if it can start being as humane as it is natural, then perhaps we can get on with the unending task of struggling to live rightly in the world—not just in the garden, not just in the wilderness, but in the home that encompasses them both."
The other recommendation is a book by John McPhee called The Control of Nature.
Good luck to all of you over the remainder of the semester. I'll check back in now and then to see what you're reading and thinking. And although I am on sabbatical now I hope to meet some of you next fall when I am back on campus.
Cheers,
Steve
Hi Everyone,
What a great post, Ellie. Glad to hear that Pollan's book has been prodding and poking your paradigm...
For me, one of the most thought-provoking moments in Second Nature occurs when Pollan questions the notion that human culture "is the problem, not the solution." He goes on to point out the folly in turning our backs on culture in favor of living among other species as equals; "This is a fine, ecological idea," Pollan writes, "until you realize that the earth would be even worse off if we started behaving any more like animals than we already do"(115).
The paradox is, we're the problem and the solution. We humans do have unique tools available to us-language chief among them, as Dr. Seeley pointed out- and also the ability to learn from mistakes, plan for the future, and act consciously.
I was raised as a Christian, and as I grew older I struggled with Biblical statements that insisted humans were put here to "subdue the earth," that God gave humans dominion over all the plants and animals. I felt that many people (mis)interpreted these words as God giving them the go-ahead to plunder the earth. I think that my budding environmental consciousness- as well as some of the attitudes of the environmental activists and early conservationists that Pollan writes about- developed in reaction to this patriarchal paradigm, which is so grounded in a particular variety of Christianity.
Yet another reason to look to our personal histories- it really does help us figure out how certain ideas take hold in our minds!
Ellie,
I love how you incorporated Pollan into your blog. Like you, I also am questioning my paradigm of what nature is after reading Second Nature. I think that it is our responsibility to keep on making those small adjustments in our daily lives to be a little more "eco-friendly." We could all pitch in even if its the smallest of details. All of our contributions will have a bigger affect on our future. I think that we are all contributing to the environment already, by just taking this course. Not only are we learning how to look at the environment, but also being conscious of what we do in nature, and why it is so important.
I'm really glad that you addressed the idea that we are nature. Like you said we have been discussing a lot of how nature is separate from civilization in class. But, I agree that it is important to also think about how we are part of nature and how big of an effect we have on what happens to it. It really is interesting to stop and think about our relationship with nature.
Hi everyone,
Thank you for your positive feedback. I really enjoy our class discussions, and hearing everyones ideas about Pollans Second Nature. After looking at Pollans work a little, it has definitely shaken my old paradigm and started me on a search for a new one. I understand that a lot of my peers are in the same boat, and it is great to hear your thoughts and perspectives. Our relationship with nature is something that can be looked at in so many different ways, and I don't think there is one correct answer. It is going to be a life long search for me, learning from different experiences, to find my real connection with nature. I am glad that I read Second Nature because it has caused me to re-evaluate my paradigm and get me back on the path to reestablishing a new one. I think the beauty of this whole process is in the search, because it will cause us to discover new aspects of human culture as well as plants and animals that we may not otherwise acknowledge. We as a class, should all take advantage of this opportunity to share our journeys, and I look forward to hearing some of your newly shaped paradigms.
Hi Ellie: I enjoyed reading your blog and those of your classmates and professor as well. I can tell that Pollan's Second Nature has made a powerful impact on you, in a positive, transformative way.
I love your statement "the beauty of this whole process is in the search". And I also liked your call to your class "to take advantage of this opportunity to share our journeys...".
Thanks for letting me know about your blog. Saba
I agree. When we begin to look at humans as nature we will begin to change our daily habits. This reminds me of Pollan's idea of the lung tree where we are not either inside or outside of nature but the earth is like an organism. We have to help keep the earth alive. Humans aren't machines but we are as much nature as animals. I think we need to realize that we aren't damaging just "nature" we are harming ourselves too.
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