Scientific Revolution And The Death Of Nature By Carolyn Merchant

Carolyn Merchant’s book is about the Frankfurt school’s analysis of human domination with today’s modern world consisting of socialist ecologists, ecofeminists, people of colour, spiritual ecologists and post-modern scientists. Merchant starts off by explaining domination with regard to human-human or human-nature interactions.

The issue of domination was researched in depth by two Germans, Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, who were living in self-imposed exile in New York and Los Angeles. They mainly focused on studying and researching the principles of Marxism as proscribed by Karl Marx and Fredrich Engels. They expanded on Marxism by analyzing it’s political economy and extending it to interconnections between various fields, and also emphasized Hegel’s theory of dialectical interactions.

Critical Theory drew it’s inspiration from Marxism. Horkheimer and Adorno employed Hegelian dialects to try and analyze society as a totality. They emphasized the autonomy of cultural superstructure over the later Marx’s determinism of the economic base on a legal-political superstructure. Horkheimer, when he became the director for the Institute for Social Research in 1931, set it as the primary agenda. To the Frankfurt theorists, the material conditions in an inegalitarian class society created conflicts, but the unequal social conditions could be changed. Freedom from pain and suffering can be achieved in a just society and it is critical theory’s goal to attain that society through the fulfillment of human needs and potentials.

In the 1940s, Horkheimer and Adorno turned their attention to the problem of domination of nature and human beings. In the ancient world, the emergence of a self of sense as distinct from the external natural world entailed a sense of denial of the true nature of human beings. Merchant then brings on the examples of Odysseus, a Greco-Roman mythical figure, as an example from the ancient world, and Francis Bacon, an English philosopher and statesmen, as one from the relatively modern world.

She writes that they epitomized the break with the enchanted past of myth and imitation. Odysseus represents how one can find their true nature through hardships and the will to not delve into mans baser instincts. Francis Bacon advocated extending the dominion of man over the entire universe through experimental science. Power over nature was also extended to mathematics and physics by renowned thinkers such as Rene Descartes and Sir Isaac Newton.

The domination of external nature by internal nature exacts a toll, writes Merchant. The unrestricted use of nature and it’s resources destroys it’s own means for continuity much as we can see in the modern world today where a scarcity of resources is leading to a possibility of the mass extinction of mankind. Similarly, the repression of human emotions and instincts leads not to salvation, but anguish. The tighter the rein, the more likely is the event of rebellion as we can see in history with the French Revolution, more recently in the Indian Emergency in 1975 or even in our daily lives as we can see that children with stricter parents, tend to act out more and rebel. Internal nature rebels spiritually and bodily while external nature rebels ecologically. Here we can see the intersection of Critical theory and the ecology movement.

Another member of the Institute for Social Research, Herbert Marcuse, published a number of works between 1955 and 1972 which applied the concept of critical theory to social reproduction by examining the role of mass media, the control of information and the decline of the family in maintaining the culture required for the succession of capitalism. Marcuse saw ecology as a force of life and in his article in Liberation magazine, he connected the mass genocide and ecocide happening in the Vietnam war which happened through weapons created by modern science such as napalm and Agent Orange. The ecology movement attempts to defend what is left of “untouched nature” and argues that the entire production and consumption of war and waste must be stopped completely to ensure human survival.

The ecology movement of the 1960s to the 70s extended the critique of human domination of nature and other human beings by industrial capitalism as begun by Marx, Engels and the Frankfurt theorists. Political economists looked at first world capitalism and third world colonialism. While the industrial revolution in 18th century Europe and 19th century America had increased economies and raised living standards, it did so at the expense of third world country’s people and resources. To rebuild Europe after World War 2, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) were established. Globalization, Merchant says, is an expansion of first world countries into third world countries where resources and labour are cheaply available, tariffs are weak and environment regulations are overlooked.

Global capitalism comprises of a set of economic forces that systematically interact and degrade ecological forces, reducing nature’s ability to renew it’s resources and to resist the destructive tendency of the human population. Another problem in third world countries, is the rapidly increasing population. An increase in population is detrimental for human efforts to salvage what is left of the planet. While green economics and politics are in theory the way to go forward in matters of global sustainability, the key problem lies in mankind’s ability to simply not think of the world beyond itself.

Ecofeminists are those who oppose both the domination of nature as well as of women by men. It attempts to synthesize the two struggles of ecology and feminism. Ecofeminism has been conceptualized as a transformative feminism drawing on both radical and social feminism. A prominent ecofeminist, Noel Sturgeon argued that ecofeminism is a complex political movement that reflects a tension between the essentialist implications of women-nature connection and a deep desire for the positive empowerment of women to bring about environmental change.

In conclusion, we can see that mankind has a long history of dominating nature, the environment and even other humans. The only way to move forward and stop the doomsday clock would be to reintegrate nature in our lives. Dams on rivers must be removed, forests must be replanted, excess production of goods must be stopped, and waste must be treated carefully and properly managed. If we are to follow these steps, in time, the Earth will heal itself and become as prosperous and resourceful as it was a few centuries ago.