I read this essay for Environmental History the other day, and though it may seem sort of obvious at first, when you think about the implications, they really can be quite astounding. [N.B. I just finished writing this; I was originally going to put my explanation of the article and my reflections on the article in the same post; however, this is pretty long, so I'll split the two up. Plus, I want time for you to digest this article, as well.]
The essay is by William J. Mills, a British guy who teaches or taught (don’t know if he’s still around) at Oxford. The basic premise of the essay can be summed up here:
The world is looked at in different ways. Priorities are altered. In this essay, I have suggested that such reorientations can, at least partially, be understood through study of the “central metaphors” employed at different times. The elaboration of these metaphors constitutes the characteristic “metaphorical visions” of a period, and the replacement of one metaphor by another explains much of the reorientation that occurred between periods…
…one particular metaphor is chosen and becomes the vehicle around which a systematic vision of the world is then organized. In the Middle Ages, the metaphor is the book of nature, in the Renaissance it is the microcosm, and, finally, in modern times, it is machinism.
Hmm…so, what exactly does that all mean? Basically, Mills is suggesting that the way we view Nature or the planet are both formed by and expressed with metaphors, and that each period of Western human history is characterized by a single Nature metaphor. It’s important to note that these metaphors aren’t just poetic ways of describing the natural world; they’re visceral, real perceptions of the earth. Just as language shapes the way we see the world, nature metaphors shape the way we see nature.
I think it’s pretty interesting. Especially when you apply the above paradigm (nature metaphor of society = an accurate descriptor of how said society interacts with nature) to real history.
As stated in the quote above, Mills begins with the Middle Ages. The nature metaphor that people living in this period of time used most frequently was one of the book. Not surprisingly, this view of “The Book of Nature” is derived from the revelatory aspect of Christianity. God came down from Heaven to man, wrote His law on books (the Bible), and that was that. The revealed Word of God, therefore, comes to us from Scripture, as opposed to other religions, where we sit and meditate or pray and we thus come to an understanding of God.
The people of the Middle Ages extended this metaphor further. If God created the world, and the Bible, then wouldn’t Creation in some way give us some clues about God? Remember, the Middle Ages were theocentric: everything somehow related to God.
In any case, many thinkers believed that Creation was, in fact, like a second book of the Bible. One of the most famous theologians of all time, Augustine, wrote:
Some people, in order to discover God, read books. But there is a great book: the very appearance of created things. Look above you! Look below you! Note it; read it. God, whom you want to discover, never wrote that book with ink; instead, he set before your eyes the things that He had made. Can you ask for a louder voice than that? Why heaven and earth shout to you: God made me!
We can see literally the Book of Nature metaphor in that passage. John Chrysostom, another theologian, wrote:
For if God had given instruction by means of books, arid of letters, he who knew letters would have learnt what was written; but the illiterate would have gone away without receiving any benefit from this quarter, unless someone else had assisted his course; and the wealthy man would have purchased the Bible, but the poor man would have not been able to obtain it. Again, he who knew the language, that was experienced by letters, might have known what was therein contained; but the Scythian, and the Barbarian, and the Indian, and the Egyptian, and all those who were excluded from that language, would have gone away without receiving any instruction. This, however, cannot be said with respect to the heavens.
Again, the Book of Nature as a metaphor for Creation is revealed. However, in this passage, we can kind of see the logic behind the Book of Nature. If you’re a Christian, hanging out in Europe, and you believe that only through baptism and belief in Christ can one attain a position in heaven, you have to wonder about all those people who came before you, who didn’t have the revelation of the Bible to help them see God. Plus, your friend just bought an old book written in Greek from some monk, and it’s title is The Republic by some guy named Plato, and it has all this really deep and amazing and near-Christian side to it. How could a pagan have any sort of divine wisdom?
The simplest and best answer was actually given in the Bible itself: “That which may be made known of God is manifest among them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made…” That’s in Romans 1:19-20.
So, now that we can clearly see the Book of Nature as the dominant nature metaphor for the Middle Ages, Mills outlines four philosophic implications that we can derive from the metaphor, and how these implications influenced the cultures of the Middle Ages and their perspectives on nature. Mill writes:
Viewing the earth as a book entails certain consequences, among which are these:
1. A book must have an author. To view the earth as a book is necessarily to view it theocentrically.
2. A book represents an attempt to communicate meaning. If the earth is a book, it possesses intelligibility and can, in principle, be read.
3. This meaning may well not be restricted to a literal interpretation of the text; various levels of meaning may be discoverable. Just as it was once believed that the Bible should be read both literally and symbolically, so also do the features of our world possess meanings that are not always those which appear most obvious.
4. A book is written in legible characters. Something in nature must be found to correspond to these.
Thus, it seems like we could almost say that the Middle Ages viewed nature nearly the same way that they viewed the Bible: as a sacred, important, and holy thing to be treated with reverence. Interestingly, many people think of the Middle Ages as a period of pessimism and hell-fire sermons. And that may be partially true, but it also seems like the ecological outlook of those people was almost similar to Native American interpretations of nature and the land, a fundamentally optimistic one. A pillar within the campus of Seattle University has a Native American phrase, that, when translated to English, means “The earth is our first teacher.” Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153) seems to be in perfect agreement when he states, “Believe me: I have proved it; you will find more in the woods than in books; trees and stones will teach you what no other teacher can.”
Now, Mills moves on to the Renaissance. For me, his analysis here is less interesting, if not (to be fair) more relevant. The metaphor for the Renaissance was the human body, and to an extent, the metaphor still somewhat applies today.
Think about it: we use expressions such as the “head” and “mouth” of a river, the “feet” and “backs” of mountains, a “vein” of ore, etc. There are a bunch of different ways that we look at the earth as really a giant human body. Pretty strange, when you first think about it, but the more you ponder it, the more it makes sense. Anyway, I don’t want to delve too far deep into this, because I guess I don’t find it as fascinating. Heh, sorry…you can read the paper if you want to know more.
So, after all that, we finally reach the era that we live in (more or less). Mills calls this era “the Modern Era,” but I think that most academics believe we’re living in the Post-Modern age, or something. Anyway, just a caveat. In any case, I think Mills’ analysis still applies, regardless of the name.
What’s our metaphor? Well…before you read on, maybe ask yourself what you think it is. Hmm…what could it be? Ready to read more? Okay!
Back in the seventeenth and eighteenth century, when modern science was beginning to flourish, a number of biologists, doctors, and other scientists would perform vivisections on animals. Dogs, cats, farm animals…they would be nailed to a wall, alive, and cut open so the scientists could study how the bodies of such organisms functions. While the animals screamed in pain, the scientists were said to have remarked that those noises were simply groans of gears in the great machine; they felt no pity, because in their view, the animals were nothing more than machines.
And so we arrive at the metaphor for nature that our society accepts: that of nature as a machine. Because of the viewpoint of modern science that a whole is made up of individual parts, we see the natural world as a bunch of parts that function together to drive the natural machine. Mills writes:
Machinism develops out of the…desire to comprehend the unfamiliar in terms of the familiar, but in this case the familiar is human experience in making and living with objects. Taken broadly, therefore, machinistic metaphor can include relating the world to the products of pottery, carpentry, architecture, and the like, as well as to more sophisticated products, such as levers and pulleys, clocks, steam engines, or computers. It follows that the history of the machinistic metaphor is largely that of the history of technology, with people perennially seeking to interpret the bewildering and complex world in terms of the most advanced human inventions.
It makes sense, when you think about it. How many times have you heard people talk about the cell as if it were a factory? It’s a metaphor used so often, it’s practically cliche. That’s just one example I thought of off the top of my head; I’m sure you could come up with more, if you really thought about it. You may also be familiar with the “watchmaker” concept, which is most commonly applied in the evolution v. creation “debate” (my use of quotes around the word “debate” was deliberate, just so you know).
So what does this machinistic metaphor mean for us? Just as he did with the Book of Nature metaphor, Mills outlines a few major conclusions we can reach:
1. “Made” objects require a “maker.” The machinistic metaphor, at least in origin, supports rather than undermines a religious view of the world…
2. Objects are “made” for a purpose. Early machinistic explanations, therefore, commonly incorporate substantial elements of teleological reasoning.
3. The well-constructed object does not require constant maintenance and repair; the more successful its construction, the more it can be left to its own devices. The metaphor requires a Creator for the initial act of creation, but, and contrary to all previous belief, the Creator’s omniscience and omnipotence are now to be demonstrated only by His total abstinence from intervention in the world…The environment, deprived of the immanent presence of God, for the first time in Western history becomes desacralized, a crucial step toward the secularization of culture. [blogger's emphasis]
4. Associated with the process whereby the environment becomes desacralized is the encouragement given by the metaphor to people’s belief in their ability to tinker with and ultimately control nature. A machine is put together from many parts, but what has been put together can also be taken apart. Machinism and atomism are by no means as unrelated as they might appear. Under the influence of this metaphor, the attitude of people toward their environment gradually becomes increasingly one of analysis and dissection, asking of it not only how it works but also how such mechanisms may be controlled for human ends. [blogger's emphasis, again]
5. Major technological inventions tend to be reflected in major shifts of environmental vision.
Think it’s true? Well, stew over it a bit, and comment with your thoughts. In a few days, I’ll have another post up with my personal reflections on all this (though I’d love to hear yours, too!).
