Thesis
The ideas of nature and the relationships humans share with it are too complex and multi-layered to be summarized in a singular concept or definition. However, the tendency of humankind to separate itself from nature is dysfunctional and can lead to humanity alienating itself.
Synopsis
Raymond Williams’s essay details the evolution of humanity’s ideas of what constitutes nature and its relationships with this concept. First, he recalls the associations between the word “nature” and the essential qualities that lie in the foundation of all things (Williams 1980, 68). Then, he proceeds to outline the different understandings of nature and its principles in chronological order. The abstracted and personified idea of “Mother Nature” (Williams 1980, 69) has in the nineteenth century began to shift towards the image of a machine with fixed laws of motion.
In understanding nature as a construction, man has placed himself in the center of the system, which has fuelled humanity’s willingness and capacity to intervene (Williams 1980, 75). As the man began to transform, exploit, and conquer natural habitats, the new idea of nature emerged, the wilderness, untouched by humans. Recognizing the connections between theories and assumptions about nature helps to understand the thought process behind them and its relationship with human history. However, its main importance lies in an analysis of how the separation between nature and men is ideologically incompatible with developing new, accountable relationships with the natural world (Williams 1980, 85).
Comments
Williams’s account of the evolution of ideas about nature is especially valuable within the provided social and philosophical context. He puts personification and mechanization of nature in perspective by linking it to the view of God as the ultimate creator, common for the Christian world throughout history. In later segments, Williams mentions the capitalist approach to any available resources as raw materials and how it resulted in men viewing themselves as conquerors of the natural world. This adds a socioeconomic layer of analysis to the contemporary perceptions of nature and is helpful in dissecting the environmentally damaging ramifications of this approach.
The article depicts the idea of separating human and natural as inherently alienating for humankind. It highlights the dysfunction of putting these concepts in opposition and competition by focusing on the way these tactics help humans to avoid responsibility for their actions against nature. After nature is conceptualized in the public consciousness as “all that is not man,” the possibility of developing a functional relationship with the environment is severed. Williams traces this idea back to its origins to highlight the artificiality of this division, just as he concludes the border between economics and ecology to be artificial as well.
Williams concludes the article by stating the necessity of conceptualizing a new understanding of nature to shift the way humanity interacts with the physical world and to evolve further. Such necessity is well-articulated as the analysis of the current approach and its history ties this image of nature to the consumptive attitude humanity has developed towards its environment. Furthermore, this approach is revealed to be effectively dishonest as it ignores the complexity of humans as biosocial beings. As these ideas have historically evolved alongside general social realities, it is now time for humans to enter a new stage in their understanding of nature.