Romance of the 'Natural' world.

[Unwardil]

We have this romantic view of nature. The word natural is used all the time to add value to otherwise worthless products but let's ignore for the moment that the word 'natural' is inherently meaningless in the broader context of life the universe and everything and just refer to the word as it is used in this context which is 'Not made by humans'.

I have for a long time been puzzling over why people buy into this, because almost nothing about the way people conduct their lives suggests that they actually want this. We build houses, we decorate those houses not with the plants that would grow there by themselves, infact, we use herbicides to stop this from happening in favor of the things we want to grow there.

There's an almost constant tendency not only of un-industrialized cultures to seek industrialization, but once industrialization has occurred to move away from an agrarian (which is not inherently natural existence anyway) to living in cities where you can easily go for weeks with ever encountering nature except for possibly the squirrels and the pigeons. (Note, I'm not counting the trees which are planted on boulevards and in the middle of streets as being natural, there's no way they'd be there if people didn't actively take care of them)

I contend that people don't actually like nature at all. They like the idea of everything working together in harmony, perhaps, but then they get out into the natural world and discover it's a lot of biting insects and animals killing each other for food and territory. Civilization, for all it's evils, is vastly superior to nature, yet try and sell something by saying it's been genetically modified to be more nutritious or that it' uses a new synthetic plastic which gives it 4 times greater tensile strength over the regular wood model and people wont give you the time of day.

Basically, I'm wondering why this is. Why do people think they like nature and natural things (None man made environments or products/materials) when actually in practice they shun them at every turn?

Example:

I've talked about this idea with people who are vegetarians because they are against cruelty to animals and it absolutely disgusted and horrified them when actually it's probably a far more ethical solution than anything ever forwarded in the agricultural industry.

Build from scratch or from the stem cells of the animal in question cultures of single celled organisms which emulate the taste and texture of animal tissue. Pack it together to look like a steak or a chicken breast or whatever and grow these cultures in the meaty equivalent of a greenhouse.

The reason they didn't go for it? Because they don't think we should monkey around with nature. Despite the fact that it would probably do away entirely with the need for keeping animals for food and all the environmental hazards that entails, they still say no, absolutely not, never ever. I've never even heard anyone who would even accept the idea on a purely moral level. They wouldn't eat the stuff if they knew what it was.

 

[Commander Eagle]

The grass is always greener when it hasn't been paved over.

 

[Unwardil]

The grass is always greener when it hasn't been paved over.

See, have you ever seen natural grass? It isn't all that green and it's very tall and full of wheaty bits. People use herbicides to get rid of that kind of grass in favor of the domesticated kind.

 

[Commander Eagle]

Yeah, I know grass isn't green. I'm over here in Kentucky. Grass is blue.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

It reminds me of my attitude towards children: I think they are great and awesome and cool, as long as I can hand them back to their mothers when they start crying or need a diaper changed.

I think nature is great and awesome and cool, as long as I can get back to civilization as quickly as possible if something goes wrong.

 

[Unwardil]

That's sort of my point. Nature is a nice thing to go and look at once and a while, but why the hell would anyone actually desire it on a regular basis?

 

[PAB]

you have made a good point,
do you think that the idea of nature then, in your terms of its romantic perception . is part of its definition, in terms of for example, if i go to the local nature conservation and feed the ducks, there is an obvious (civilisation) domestication, these wild animals aren't so wild but are in a process of 'petisization'(im pushing this word for the dictionary, basically the process of becoming a pet).

So the romantic (or brutal aspects of nature) perception is all that keeps 'nature' alive, as a concept.

There is an aesthetic of the natural perhaps, that the nature conservations aren't natural due to there conservation.
But more importantly that nature is domesticated, like you mentioned trees, also flower beds and lawns, parks, etc can be mentioned. We design a certain element of nature-romantic into our environments, based on the ideologies of beauty and nature/urban.The nature conservations i think are much more a product of this though then compared to roadside decoration.?

So then nature conservation is really more to do with efficient and mutually beneficial interaction with types of ecosystem.[i only talk from uk experience i imagine that the US conservations are much larger and different]

 

[Unwardil]

I like your new word PAB, I shall endeavor to make use of it in regular conversation in the future.

You're right of course, in practice, there's very little in the entire world that has escaped humanities influence. We're kind of a big deal on the global stage at the moment. I fully acknowledge the beauty of things found in nature, trees, plants, animals of all shape size colour and what have you. Very lovely, what I'm very confused with though is why the word natural is so often used for selling things of a purely utilitarian nature. Breakfast cereal for instance. Why do we have this conception that natural grains are anything to be desired? Quite apart from it being a bald faced lie on the part of marketing team, why do we desire our breakfast cereal to be made from natural sources of fiber when we evidently seek the unnatural in every facet of our existence and strive for better control over our environment.

 

[PAB]

I like your new word PAB, I shall endeavor to make use of it in regular conversation in the future.

You're right of course, in practice, there's very little in the entire world that has escaped humanities influence. We're kind of a big deal on the global stage at the moment. I fully acknowledge the beauty of things found in nature, trees, plants, animals of all shape size colour and what have you. Very lovely, what I'm very confused with though is why the word natural is so often used for selling things of a purely utilitarian nature. Breakfast cereal for instance. Why do we have this conception that natural grains are anything to be desired? Quite apart from it being a bald faced lie on the part of marketing team, why do we desire our breakfast cereal to be made from natural sources of fiber when we evidently seek the unnatural in every facet of our existence and strive for better control over our environment.

yeah, i know what your saying, it's a toughie (any attempt will be waffle and at a tangent, so i apologise in advance)

im not sure how exactly to approach this, maybe its best materially?
so if we take the example of an organic breakfast cereal, the reality is advertisement and it's tied into the culture (economical-social). Its branded in its method of production, as associated as naturally grown, rather then i.e genetically modified.
Again culturally we are in a type of post-industrial civilization, where we want exactly the same things unified in quality, e.g Baudrillard gives an example of mc donalds there idea is that if you go to any mc donalds the e.g 'mc chicken sandwich' will be the same.this is probably relevant ....

suspicion i think is also apart of this, the only reason i might buy the '100% natural wheat organic breakfast cereal' is because it reassures me that i know what im eating. rather than a cereal that is subsidised with 'filler' , (not sure they would do this with cereal but they do with sausage and burgers). And then this feeds back into the type of culture (capitalist-consumerist) . where via conditioning advertisements and general media, you might construct an impression of 'all natural foods' being better, and then reinforced via the market...'so you know its got to be good!'.

Plus, maybe theres a vague mis- representation in terms of 'unnatural synthetic food', in it being mixed up in the 'green-mother earth-loving-eco-maniacs', which transgresses into mainstream staus quo. for example -dont play god, dont mess with nature, in which part of the false ethical opposition is to support organic agriculture, old fashioned methods. an element of conservation, which also conserves the ideology of 'nature'

 

[Unwardil]

Ignorance then.

Seeing as people hear 'genetically modified' and automatically think 'Biological weapon' whereas they should probably be more associated with things like 'Insect resistant wheat' or 'flu vaccine'. The entire world is, on some level, the crazy colonel from Doctor strange love who won't drink tap water because he believes that the fluoridation of the water is a communist plot to take over the united states when in actuality it's an initiative to improve the dental hygiene of the entire population, increasing life expectancy, standards of living and reducing medical costs.

I agree, sadly, that's probably the reason.

Now, how to get across to people that they're wackos, that the unnatural is in 99% of cases to be desired of the natural and that synthetics, genetic engineering and all that other fun sciency stuff should be encouraged and embraced with enthusiasm, seeing as that's what people actually already do whether they realize it or not.

 

[Doc.]

I myself am a big lover of going out to nature, back-pack trips and all that, we have lots of beautiful places here and I can go out for a long time, I haven't actually thought how much dependent I really am on the city, but certainly I don't feel like hunting for my food or getting milk from cows which is just disgusting :lol:

there is also common misunderstanding that "natural" drugs are better than any other. a friend told me that doctors in ancient times could cure almost everything in with their natural plant-based drugs :?

 

[Unwardil]

Sure, you can cure absolutely every known disease with Hemlock.

There's a side effect though, the patient dies in 99.9% of cases.

But I'd also contend that you don't actually like going out into real nature. Just the tame nature that people have trapped and petitized, more or less removed all the really unseemly elements and just kept around for it's beauty. Like a really big garden. And I'd imagine you bring a lot of little amenities of civilization with you. Matches, for instance and possibly lighter fluid (though you have to be a sissy to actually use it) certainly you'll bring packed food with you (as you're not actually allowed to hunt in national parks) so it's more of an escape from the ordinary than it is at all getting back to nature.

 

[Doc.]

Sure, you can cure absolutely every known disease with Hemlock.

There's a side effect though, the patient dies in 99.9% of cases.

They have actually identified ancient-Egyptian records for various plant-based medicines, while some of them did work, most were either useless or harmful.

But I'd also contend that you don't actually like going out into real nature. Just the tame nature that people have trapped and petitized, more or less removed all the really unseemly elements and just kept around for it's beauty. Like a really big garden. And I'd imagine you bring a lot of little amenities of civilization with you. Matches, for instance and possibly lighter fluid (though you have to be a sissy to actually use it) certainly you'll bring packed food with you (as you're not actually allowed to hunt in national parks) so it's more of an escape from the ordinary than it is at all getting back to nature.

no I did not mean parks, we had only one national park, which was beautiful before Russians burnt it down in 2008 :lol: I did mean "real" nature, as real as it gets. it just depends where you draw the line, after all you don't expect to put me in the middle of the forest with a spear alone do you.

 

[Andiferous]

I love nature, but it also terrifies the bejeses out of me. I love taking walks by the lake, but I'm likely to have a heart attack if I see a garter snake.

I'm a quick jaunt away from national mountain parks - and I assure you that deep within the mountains you will find untamed nature. Every summer there is news of tourists being ripped apart by bears. We've had deer, bears, cougars and even moose wander into the city...

 

[Unwardil]

And when that aspect of nature rears it's ugly head, how much do people think 'Wow, nature sure is a cold bitch... Maybe we should take control of this?' Always. There's almost always some cursory effort made to either keep nature out of the cities or to better educate tourists on the dangers in the wild. And yet when we see 'Made with natural fibers' we think 'Hey, that must be quality shit if it's natural.'

This is the dichotomy which confuses me.

 

[Andiferous]

And when that aspect of nature rears it's ugly head, how much do people think 'Wow, nature sure is a cold bitch... Maybe we should take control of this?' Always. There's almost always some cursory effort made to either keep nature out of the cities or to better educate tourists on the dangers in the wild. And yet when we see 'Made with natural fibers' we think 'Hey, that must be quality shit if it's natural.'

This is the dichotomy which confuses me.

I know what you're saying, but I think the ravaging bears just force us to respect nature a bit more, and perhaps they serve a purpose in humbling us, educating us, and forcing us to remember that as human beings we don't always have control of our environment.

Escaping that by taking control of the environment is a bit of a cheat, in my opinion. And by forceably removing species of different kinds, we not only risk the balance of the natural ecosystem (which could have consequences for the likes of us), but we lose that opportunity for exposure, study and education.

When nature infringes on civilisation, as it often does, yes, bears and other dangerous or endangered wildlife are usually tranquilised and removed, and placed back in their natural environments.

When bear attacks happen, the bear responsible is usually destroyed, as it may pose a danger in future. But it happens regularly (especially with a mother bear protecting her young). And it will continue to happen. And unless bears are eradicated from the planet, it will not stop.

 

[PAB]

And when that aspect of nature rears it's ugly head, how much do people think 'Wow, nature sure is a cold bitch... Maybe we should take control of this?' Always. There's almost always some cursory effort made to either keep nature out of the cities or to better educate tourists on the dangers in the wild. And yet when we see 'Made with natural fibers' we think 'Hey, that must be quality shit if it's natural.'

This is the dichotomy which confuses me.

have you read schopenhauer ? he loves talking about the suffering of existence and uses examples of an animal devouring another animal as the reality of being. (oversimplifying here) but hes awesome, very pessimistic (but that not a bad thing, in fact Nietzsche's criticism was that he wasn't pessimistic enough)

 

[Unwardil]

See, where I differ greatly in opinion is that I think humanity has the potential to be immeasurably better for everything involved than nature can provide. I also suspect that people, on the whole, desire this, that we actually hate the natural order 'red in tooth and claw' and only like it when it's obeying us, being beautiful and smelling nice and all that. It perplexes me then, that, at least in language people seem very much against turning the world into our own specialized habitat, perfectly suited to our own needs, because we do that all the time anyway.

 

[Andiferous]

But don't you worry that redesigning and overwriting everything in the natural world does nothing but surround us with the results of our learnings, continually reminding us of our learnings and continually rewarding our success, while preventing us from learning from those mysteries of nature that are thusfar outside our comprehension? We'd build a little bubble for ourselves.

Additionally, you're not really taking into account our "superior" sense of morality and forgetting that we are animals, too. You may be preventing the evolution of other species, and doing a great disservice to the ecosystem in general, without really understanding it, putting all and everyone at risk.

 

[Unwardil]

Seeing as how we are the only animals on the planet who can

a) question the morality of killing other life for our own sustenance and
b) actually take steps in order to limit the suffering of the animals we keep for said purpose

then yes, I'd say our morality is superior to nature given that nature doesn't have any morals.

I would agree that nature is something to be studied, but it should also be our goal not to emulate it but to surpass it in every conceivable way. Atheists especially are guilty of this, that they berate theists for believing in a God who can make so many obvious fuck ups in his design, yet at the same time marvel at how well nature works by it's self. Well which is it, is nature just fine by it's self or does it actually leave quite a lot to be desired? All human actions suggest we think the later.

Caves are not good enough homes for us, so we build better ones. Edible plants are not plentiful enough to sustain us, so we cultivate the ones we like in neat little rows. Animals are difficult, dangerous and time consuming to hunt, so we raise them in captivity and slaughter them at our leisure for consumption. Our skin is poorly suited to keeping us at a comfortable temperature in most of the climates we find ourselves in, so we make clothes etc, etc. Humans have been playing God ever since they came down from the trees and we've thrived as a result to such a great degree that we are now our own worst enemy. Nothing else on the planet has the potential to inflict any harm on us in any major capacity, not as a species anyway, except for ourselves, yet, we stubbornly remain beholden to trivial things like weather patterns and ecosystems when it is fully within our power to do away with such dependencies.

Simply put, we can grow tomatoes in mines. 3 miles beneath the surface of the earth, we can grow tomatoes. Think about that for a second, really think about it. Not only that, we can grow better tomatoes in mine shafts than it's possible to grown on the surface and in greater supply with greater yields. Why? Because we can control every step of the process. We're better than nature. Nature is the horse and carriage. Quaint, antiquated, to be kept around as a novelty certainly and for the purposes of history, but not for any utility, not when we have cars which are at once cheaper, faster, more environmentally friendly (think about keeping horses here, they're filthy and they crap everywhere) and more ethically sound (you can't abuse a car like you can a horse).

How many people will seriously chose to take a horse when they could drive. For recreation, the horse, maybe, if you're into that (or a Mennonite, but they're crazy) but if you need to travel 100 km in an hour, the horse isn't even an option.