UHP399 Gardens & Machines

In Raymond WIlliams’ ‘Ideas of Nature,’ he deals principally with the evolution of humankind’s relationship to nature, or rather: the ‘idea’ of nature.  Although most people, Williams claims, think of the world of nature in contrast to the world inhabited by humans, our manner of thinking about nature is paradoxically shaped by human history.  Humans have an inherent connection to nature by the ways in which we attempt to understand it.  Williams begins his discussion by detailing the critical moment in human history where there was not only a singular God, but also a singular Nature.  We personified Nature in order to explain her as the minister of God: all actions that could be explained back to Nature were simplified and demystified within a language of “providence” and “destructiveneess.”  This singularity, the author argues, does nothing for his attempt to grow closer to an understanding of nature.  A simplified description does more to separate than it does to connect.

Williams then goes on to say that the evolution of our understanding of nature was ironically ushered in by scientific ideas of evolution.  Humankind began to feel the need to relate to God through the avenue of Nature.  What is troublesome, however, is the need felt by humans to then lay out a language that “intervened” and “controled” Nature due to their God-given right to command the elements and find the tools of God within them.  In essence, man “abstracted” himself from nature.  Williams then cites Hobbes and Locke, who differ in opinion of how humankind best exists with Nature, as well as Rousseau, which begins a conversation of humankind, Nature, and property.  Ultimately, these conversations are here only because we have separated ourselves from Nature.  Williams claims that we have distinguised between Nature and God in order to examine, experiment, and produce.  We ‘project’ ourselves onto Nature, splitting ourselves; but when we alienate nature, we inevitably alienate ourseves.  We separate ourselves from the effects of our interactions with Nature, which puts us dangerously close to absolving ourselves of responsibility for it.  Only when we realized that we must identify ourselvs as “one” or as a part of Nature will we learn the language of the conversation that needs to take place.

In Leo Marx’s ‘Sleepy Hollow,’ he develops on the thread where Williams left us.  He discusses the ‘pastoral ideal’ in art and in literature as a “powerful metaphor of contradiction” between ’society’ and Nature.  There is another discussion of separation here.  There are two kinds of pastroalism according to Marx: sentimental and imaginiative.  The former primarily serves the purpose of defining societal feelings, such as the need to ‘get away from the city’ and into the country.  People under a sentimental notion of pastoral feeling turn away from the harsh reality of technology that human society has become.  The imaginative expression, on the other hand, exists in literature and descriptive art form.  The art within ‘pastoral literature’ attempts to capture the feeling of the human juxtaposed to Nature.  The landscape is idealized and high metaphor is used in order to convey impossible thoughts of refuge within nature.

Nathanial Hawthorne is Marx’s prime example; he usees natural facts “metaphorically to convey something about a human situation.”  Marx’s argument seems to say that Hawthorne, as an artist, sees trouble in the advancement of technology and its encroachment onto Nature.  This both destroys humankind’s refuge of contemplation and serenity, and promotes complex emotions in regards to the advancement of our society.  Marx makes note of the “little event” that is a popular trope in literature, as the sign of technology, the machine, invading natural spaces.  There is an interrupted ideal.  Hawthorne’s biggest contribution to Marx’s essay here is his line which says: “when we see how little we can express, it is a wonder that any man ever takes up a pen a second time.”  There is something sublime and magical that results from the relationship man has with nature, and the inexplicable emotion he feels when this places begins to be invaded by the creations of his own species.  Marx uses Hawthorne to urge the consideration of a widened gap between pastoralism of the mind (in which we consider the effects of nature) and pastoralism of sentiment (the urge we feel to leave society behind).  Marx’s essay agrees with the message of Williams’: when we begin to recognize this separation that we have created between the world of humans and the world of nature, we will notice how utterly connected they already are within ourselves.  When we keep these worlds mentally separated, however, we run into the danger of forgetting how the wastefulness and disruptiveness of the world of machines affects the pastoral world we hold so close to our beings.

Questions for discussion:

1. What does Marx mean when he says “Art, as usual, has been on the scene first?” on page 18 of his essay.

2. Does Leo Marx provide any motivation for how we are to avoid or lessen the encroachment of technology onto the world of Nature?

3. What are the benefits and negatives of the intellectual separation of economy and ecology that Williams mentions at the end of his essay?

In “Ideas of Nature,” Raymond Williams attempts to analyze the relationship between man, nature, and their history. He implies that man’s view of nature has changed over time and is dependent on human progress. First he explores the idea of a “singular, abstracted and personified nature” and how it conflicted with a competitor: the monotheistic God. He claims that the history behind this idea was immense and led to the arrival of a compromise in the western world: that “God is the first absolute, but Nature is his minister and deputy.” Williams continues to describe nature’s evolution as an “absolute monarch,” which dominated the majority European thought.

Next, Williams looks at the evolution of man and its effects on how nature is perceived. At some point, distinct generalizations of man in nature arose. Hobbes identified man to be in poor standing with nature while Locke thought the relationship to be full of “peace, goodwill, and mutual assistance.” More importantly, as man evolved, the relationship with nature also evolved. Nature became a resource as opposed to a monarch and the history of man became separate from the history of nature. Williams concludes with his belief that this separation will remain as long as man continues to alienate nature through resource exploitation.

In contrast to Williams, Marx’s “The Machine in the Garden” describes the effects of nature on man, particularly through literature. The main idea here is the tendency for people to want to return to nature. He explains that many writers want to feel close to nature by escaping the urban way of life. He further mentions that many believe this wanting of nature to be an obstacle in our advancement both socially and technologically. But just as this idea starts to settle in, Marx brings out a handful of other examples showing that many writers are in fact integrated into nature and feel that such lifestyles are being invaded by the modern world. This leads us to believe that regardless of how man tries to separate themselves from nature, we will always be drawn towards it.

Both readings clearly try to convey the relationship between man and nature, but while Williams is focused on the effects of man on nature, Marx is interested in the effects of nature on man. Williams looks at the history of the relationship in order to determine how it started and evolved over time. He uses fancy terms in his analysis to describe a relatively simple concept: the more humans progressed, the less they respected nature. In all honesty, such a conclusion is relatively trivial and Williams himself made little to no contribution to the topic. Instead, he brushed up on the theories of other philosophers and filled a chapter of text to tell us something that could have been accomplished in one page. Additionally, his identification of the problem and its corresponding proposed solution is no more enlightening; he fails to mention some of the most important questions of man and nature.

Marx’s writing immediately reminded me of “The Grizzly Man” and Timothy Treadwell’s attempt to become “closer to nature” through the wildlife in nature. Treadwell’s intentions seemed very similar to that of the writers described by Marx and are a good support to Marx’s arguments. However, the analysis also lacks any real insights as to why people are drawn to nature, why people take actions to be closer to nature, and etc. Overall, both readings seemed light on logical reasoning and full of rather unexciting details and jargon.

3 Questions to think about:

1. Why do humans WANT to progress?

2. Are humans suppose to be “part of nature” like other animals? If so, why were we “given” the intelligence to advance so much further than the “rest of nature?”

3. Is it too late for humans to be completely integrated in nature?

“A Tour of the Monuments of Passaic, New Jersey” by Robert Smithson, is perhaps the most perplexing short story or article I have ever read. If forced to offer a summary of the article and its argument (as I am now) I would say that he is attempting to show the bleakness and entropy of modern, highly industrialized towns. The town he speaks of—and towns similar to them—has no past to note of, just a future. A future that is black and white and dreary to the point of madness. However, I will not feign complete understanding of this writing—I’ll just have to wait for the discussion tomorrow.

My response to this work is—confusion. Several times he goes off on small asides to express some thought, while I get thrown off his growing idea that is tenuous in the first place. This by far the most narrative and abstract of our reading so far, so comparisons are slim. He does, however, clearly get by the idea of alienation and distance that industrialized places can bring—too much machine and too little garden.

“Ideas of Nature” by Raymond Williams, is not surprisingly about our ideas and attitudes about nature. How they have varied, how they are flawed, how they have evolved; these all are important parts of this chapter. However the most important point, arguably, is whether or not man is a part of our ideas about nature. The “nature” of Nature has varied and is still varied today. For some Nature is wild and dangerous, others it is balanced and tranquil, it can be God or it can represent the primitive nature of early man. In an easy connection to Leo Marx, Nature can be an idealized fantasy where everything is warmer, easier, and more loving. In a brilliant statement, Williams describes this diversity: “And ‘Nature is’ any one of these things according to the processes we select…” We can make any assumption about Nature and have at least some evidence to back it up because Nature is so, so varied. As he says, “All at once nature is innocent, is unprovided, is sure, is unsure, is fruitful, is destructive, is a pure force and is tainted and cursed.”

This article is directly related to some of our previous discussions—such as ‘Is man a part of Nature or separate from it?’– and also to Marx. Although it does not focus on one preconception about Nature as Marx does, it has slightly the same feel as Marx’s argument. Williams general idea and his conclusion are close to an idea that I am finding to be more and more true I continue through my education; rarely is any one theory correct outright, often it takes the views from several different theories to get a complete picture.

“The Machine in the Garden” by Leo Marx. The main point of this excerpt is that humans in industrialized societies, more specifically the U.S., are almost obsessed with the pastoral ideal. The ideal is that nature is the place of peace and balance and wholeness, and that we have lost something by leaving it. Marx argues that this is present in both the general culture, and in the “high art” literature by some of the most famous Western writers of our time. Marx is disagreeing with this ideal, and throughout the chapter it was plain that he was upset that it existed. This is of course the work for which this course was named, but I feel it deals more with the transition to an industrialized society. He talks often of the intrusion of technology into nature, but now we have already intruded all but the most inhabitable areas. I do not mean to say that his work is now inapplicable—it was only written in 1964—only that the dynamic has changed. Now the whole world is aware and involved in the struggle of nature and machine. The “Green” movement could even be interpreted as the pastoral ideal gaining strength.

Three questions:

1. Is the bleak and depressing picture that Williams paints an exaggeration of the state of industrial centers?
2. What have we truly lost, if anything, to the transition to industry?
3. If humanity is not nature, that what is it?