I was very pleased after reading Berry's chapter to find myself taking a surprisingly humanistic viewpoint of his argument. I am normally the one labeled a "hippie" or "radical environmentalist"; it was quite the change for me to speak out on the side of humans. But I think my eye-opening experience of reading this chapter speaks to the strength of Berry's argument.
The first question I struggled with was- what makes us fully human? The best answer I could discern from the reading was that our culture makes us human. But this led me to start thinking about then, what is being human afterall? If humans are defined by their culture and society, then being "human" must be a human construct. By being human, we are an artifact of our own society, and we are set apart from the "wildness" that defines Berry's "nature". As Berry continues by describing humans as both "wild" and "domesticated", he is setting the stage for the juxtaposition of the human and natural. I like the idea that our constructed idea of being "human" is neither entirely within nor separate from what Berry considers wild nature. Without this introduction, I think that Berry's idea of working against nature is actually working against ourselves would seem ridiculous. Now, one can understand that by saving nature, we are saving ourselves.
However much I agreed with the main points of Berry's above argument, there was still one theme that didn't settle with me. Since to be "human" is to be an artifact of human society, we rely on our culture to become "human". However, Berry makes the argument that we must be "human" in order to save nature. In Berry saying that we cannot successfully accomplish any conservation of our planet without first being "human"? How does being more tied to human ideals and values of society make us more apt to save the nature world? Is the author implying that the inherent attentiveness to self-interest is the reason we see extrinsic value in nature and strive to save it?
Kimba!
ReplyDeleteI can relate to the how this article made you feel. I definitely felt more team human than usual. Berry brought up many interesting points, (though I didn't fully agree with many of his statments) especially his views on culture and self interest. I'm glad this got brought up because I've wondered the same thing. A possible answer may be in Berry's idea that we need to recover culture, then we can begin to recover nature (2nd def. by Colin). I think a large part of our problems are because we (as a developed country) see nature in terms of our self interest. Perhaps it will take another change in society's idea of nature to begin to accomplish substantial environmental restoration.
Equating nature with self-interest is exactly what berry is arguing for though. It is in our self-interest to recognize the limits of what the land can yield while also being able to regenerate in a healthy way. Cutting down a forrest without replanting is counterproductive; it shows the temporally stunted economic perspective that so many companies have. That same plot of land, if planted and attended to, could yield generation after generation of trees. Berry is trying to point out how the world's economic health and environmental health are inextricably linked. It just so happens that we haven't quite gotten to the end of the raw material rope yet.
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