Introduction
Nature is an important part of humankind. Yet nobody has ever given us a concrete understanding of what nature is. We all have different meanings associated with nature. We praise nature when something good happens and yet we blame nature when something bad happens. Some people associate nature with divinity with such words as gods and spirits. This essay analyzes the work of William, Ideas of Nature, to see show how well he scores in his journey to help us understand what nature is and its relation to mankind.
Ideas of Nature
By saying that “the idea of nature contains an extraordinary amount of human history,” (Williams, 1980), the author wants to show that, though when defining nature most of the times we tend to separate humankind from other physical elements of nature, for as to understand nature, we have to look into our human history. It is the things that we believe in, things that we do, things we know and we cannot separate our understanding of nature from the human aspect of it.
Nature as a Singular, Abstract and Personified principle
The writer says that nature is a ‘singular, abstracted, and personified principle’ (Williams, 1980). This means that, at some point, people started looking at nature as one entity as opposed to the various interpretations that it had been associated with. They were able to separate it from its components and looked at it on its terms rather than as an extension of such physical things as ‘spirits of wind and sea and forest and moon’ (Williams, 1980). Instead of trying to look at it physically, they developed a more metaphorical meaning of nature as something intangible and only conceptual; that exists only in the abstract. They were able to give nature a concrete meaning with certain attributes specific to it as opposed to identifying it with anything else; it was an entity on its own and the physical elements only in it.
The diverse ideas of nature
William’s description of nature as ‘red in tooth and claw’ to portray nature as heartless and purposeless can be represented by a mad dog with its teeth and claws covered with the blood of its prey and showing its satisfaction by the killing. He also describes nature as a ‘ruthlessly competitive struggle for existence’ (Williams, 1980), meaning that nature makes it hard for life o exist and for one to exist he has to fight cold-bloodedly with other organisms which are also referred to as the war of nature; survival is for the fittest and if you don’t compete painstakingly you will be locked out of the world.
This situation may be likened to the life of a wild beast where since infancy it has to adapt to being hunted by hungry predatory animals and have to learn how to run fast enough and to feed for itself. Failure to adapt, those who are more powerful and mightier will survive at your expense.
When he talks of nature as an ‘Extraordinary interlocking system of mutual advantage’, (Williams, 1980) can be seen in grazers where the grazers depend on the grass to survive while the grass benefits from the animal droppings to obtain the necessary nutrients for its growth. Yet, nature is also a ‘paradigm of interdependence and cooperation’ (Williams, 1980) such as the one existing between man and plants in the regulation of air. Man needs oxygen produced by plans while plants need carbon dioxide that man exhales and without one party, it would be difficult for the other to survive.
These ideas may present diverse definitions of nature but they all end up portraying nature as one entity, with constant unchanging natural laws that can be harmonized together to bring about peaceful coexistence of all the components of nature. They represent nature in all its various meanings and components and give it a sense of singularity.
The idea of nature in Europe in the between 17th and 19th centuries
In the 17th century up to the 19th century the nature of nature moved from being unquestionable and unchanging rules of nature which are self-imposing and dictated by the right reason to more physical laws sanctioned by the state as the new ‘deputies of God’ and therefore the new nature. More regard is now heard about the details of the law and their interpretation. People are now using precedents and enacting statutes and state laws to be followed. The constitution is now the supreme law of the land and nature therefore shifts its meaning to gain that of a constitutional sense; Nature is the constitution.
The abstraction of nature depended on the abstraction of man because to understand nature we had to first look at it from a metaphysical point of view to identify the relationship between the two and determine whether a man is a part of nature. Separating nature from a man would help us focus on nature as separate from God or any divine powers and simply as mere processes or as William puts it, ‘as machines,’ on their own. It would be man studying nature through observation and experiments, in total isolation from it, and find out how it works or what it’s constituted of. This way, man will be able to know how he can intervene with the powers and workings of nature to help improve the world and life in general.
The nature of man
William describes nature as having two contradictory sides. On one hand, he views nature as a state of innocence and wholesomeness, and on the other hand, he describes it as brutish, rough, and cruel. This could be likened to the idea of armament and warlord, which on one side they are very important to a country in maintaining both internal and external security of a country. When a country is well-armed, it feels secure and well protected and when it is not sufficiently armed, it ignites feelings of nakedness and vulnerability and for a country to feel at peace, it’s of paramount importance that they strengthen their defense system.
On the other hand, arms and ammunitions are lethal items of destruction and they cause immeasurable terror to humankind all over the world. They kill and disable the same people that they seek to protect just like nature destroys the same creation that depends on it for survival.
Nature as separate from man
In the contemporary world, William advocates for separation between the way we see a man and the way we look at nature. This is important because, with the increased industrial revolution and various human activities destroying nature, we need o know when nature is at work and when we as humankind embark on our destruction. Without the separation, it is easy to blame nature for dried up sources of water or changed climatic conditions with the increased global warming.
Only when we focus on our new extractive industrial processes and the gases emitted by their chimneys and the traffic jams every morning will we realize that we are the main authors of our destruction through human activities. It is a man who destroys nature other than nature destroying man. If the man separates the way he views the two, he will determine how much he causes his destruction and will limit his actions in that regard. If he does not, he will keep on blaming nature for the consequences of his actions.
The relation between economics and ecology
The author further suggests that economics and ecology be looked at as one discipline. By this, he means that the various activities that man engages in, which affect the environment, should be studied in the same line as the study of ecology. I agree with this view because human activities have a great impact on ecology and in most cases, they are so intertwined that it is hard to separate them. By grouping them as one discipline, it will be easy to keep track of what is affecting the other and how it can be remedied. When they are separate, both disciplines will be looking up to each other to come up with a solution when something goes amiss instead of working together to achieve a common objective.
Conclusion
Understanding nature is crucial to man since nature and man are very interrelated. Nature can destroy man while at the same time, man can destroy nature. Unfortunately, in both cases, it is a man who will be in the receiving end since he cannot survive without nature. On the other hand, nature can survive even without the intervention of man. William hits the nail at the head in his view about the Ideas of Nature.
References
Williams, R. (1980) Ideas of Nature in Problems in Materialism and Culture, London: Verso. , Pgs 67-85.