Ecological Thought is not really about Nature
Emphasis on the capital "N" (it'll make sense later)
“In order to have ‘ecology’, we have to let go of ‘nature’”
- Timothy Morton
Put aside your medieval literature, for now, dear reader. I had a piece more in the scope of theory and criticism that I wanted us to discuss today. From the introduction to Timothy Morton’s “The Ecological Thought” comes a few ideas that are both paradoxical and mind-boggling upon first look.
Here’s one to start:
“This book argues that ecology isn’t just about global warming, recycling, and solar power–and also not just to do with everyday relationships between humans and nonhumans.” (2621)
So what has it to do with…?
The answer is not a one-liner. Within the reading, Morton dumps a passage of all that ecology has to do with:
“It has to do with love, loss, despair, and compassion. It has to do with depression and psychosis. It has to do with capitalism and with what might exist after capitalism. It has to do with amazement, open-mindedness, and wonder. It has to do with doubt, confusion, and skepticism. It has to do with concepts of space and time. It has to do with delight, beauty, ugliness, irony, and pain. It has to do with consciousness and awareness. It has to do with idealogy and critique. It has to do with sexuxality. It has to do with ideas of self and weird paradoxes of subjectivity. It has to do with society. It has to do with coexistence.” (2621-2622)
When I read this, I set aside my work and held my head–overwhelmed with the practically unending, all-encompassing list of everything that ecology pervades.
What in the world did ecology NOT have to do with?
Morton answers that question quite simply–in fact, with the perplexing quote that I inserted at the top of this post. I’ll restate it.
“In order to have ‘ecology’, we have to let go of ‘nature’.”
If you input “ecology definition” into Google’s search engine, the web will output:
the branch of biology that deals with the relations of organisms to one another and to their physical surroundings.
If you search for the definition of “nature”, you receive:
the phenomena of the physical world collectively, including plants, animals, the landscape, and other features and products of the earth, as opposed to humans or human creations.
Considering both, how can ecology not be, at least, considered with nature?
This was the question that sat at the forefront of my mind as I read further, daunted by the impossibility of what was proposed to be explained.
“The ecological thought is the thinking of interconnectedness. The ecological thought is a thought about ecology, but it’s also a thinking that is ecological… it’s a practice and a process of becoming fully aware of how human beings are connected with other beings…” (2625)
Perhaps the most helpful moments of Morton’s piece were his examples and the fact that nature was reframed as Nature (yes, with a capital “N”) and redefined through the ways in which it, as a conceptual thing, is unnatural and as separate from ecology as you can imagine.
Morton explains that Nature has been imagined as some “reified thing in the distance… on the other side where the grass is always greener… [somewhere] in the wild” (2623).
However, the reality is that nature (lowercase “n”) is not separate from us. It is not somewhere we can choose to go in order to escape our urbanized cities, our suburban neighborhoods, our concrete jungles. Are these not environments, too? Are they not each a part of our one reality, a part of what is now our modern nature?
The fact that Morton is pointing to is the fallacy that is of separation of culture and nature, of human/human-made and not, of what is “technology” and what is “natural”.
“Modern thinkers… would remind them of a time without industry, a time without ‘technology’, as if we had never used flint or wheat” (2624)
And then, there are our own shortcomings as contributors, as active participants in our fantastically large environment.
There is “the myth of the faceless mother”, our personification of the Earth that Morton states does more harm than good, that only further enables us to destroy her from the inside out–all in the name of “preservation” which “we’ve been getting [ ] all wrong, on a more profound level” (2625).
Morton’s examples of this harmful preservation that best illustrated his point (and made clear to me the purpose of this reading) were the objections to the construction of solar arrays and wind farms in Lakewood, Colorado, and a Scottish island, respectively, in 2008.
The residents’ reasons across both places were “because it didn’t look ‘natural’” and “because they ‘spoil the view’” (2627).
Morton puts it as “truly a case of the aesthetics of Nature impeding ecology and a good argument for why ecology must be without Nature” (2627).
Within these reasons, there is hypocrisy found in the people and in their aims for a certain “natural” appeal that is neither beneficial nor helpful to nature.
Morton's case for “Why is a wind turbine less beautiful than an oil pipe?” is disturbing but necessary.
Unfortunately, the jarring possibility of the disturbance of our ignorance–ignorance of our impactful connection and, at times, undeniably destructive connectivity to our surroundings which we are incapable of detaching ourselves from–is too much.
And yet, we must be aware of it. And yet, we must be constantly considering it. We must always be thinking about it, actively and no longer from a distance.
That is ecological thought (or at least what I got from Timothy Morton).
This was such a great read. While I agree that Morton's ideologies were overwhelming and mind-boggling, I enjoyed reading it and learning about new concepts. I also understood that Nature (with an uppercase N) was about the nature that was in the past, so far out of reach that only art, itself, could attempt to replicate. It was a nature, within a world, not interrupted by human beings. The nature that is lowercase does not have that ability, in some ways, it does coexist with us and I believe the importance of ecological thought (and thinking ecologically without Nature) is to think about everything and how everything connects. As you stated, with our inclusion of technology, nature has had to learn to deal with (often times in a sad, destructive manner) what it means to no longer be nature that is Nature. We, as human beings, should also think ecologically about how our interference with nature and other living creatures and organisms affects all of us, and everything, all at once.
And to completely get away from the more professional response to your post, I must say that you ate this article down. Absolutely Devoured. The pictures were also beautiful and a great touch in completing your article. Looking forward to your next post.
Very well-said. You do a great job of consolidating and highlighting the chief points of Morton's argument here (which is appreciated by the way, as it's certainly a difficult read). I think Morton's mention of wind farms (opposed due to their 'unnaturalness' but, in reality, no less beautiful than our idyllic Nature) is telling of the juxtaposition that underlies his work. As you say, it is "disturbing but necessary." As a fellow pre-medical student, though, you may agree that such juxtaposition, especially in Morton's definition of "ecological thought," verges on self-contradiction. One example stands out to me: Morton claims that several unnatural aspects of Nature are "hierarchy, authority, [and] purity" (2622). Yet, only a few paragraphs prior he associates ecology with "space and time;" "consciousness;" and, later, the social drive, even social requisite of human life (2621-23). I wonder, then, since these larger foundations of existence (e.g., cosmology, physics, human nature) are grounded by microbiology and scientific law (one may say, scientific hierarchy and authority), is humanity itself somehow, to some degree, unnatural? Would Morton also charge us to reconsider our own self-concept in the same way he casts doubt upon Nature? These are questions at which I can only guess, but they're interesting (like your own argument) to ponder.