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diff --git a/subnature.otx b/subnature.otx index 957b815..c85a94d 100644 --- a/subnature.otx +++ b/subnature.otx @@ -1,3 +1,5 @@ +\input{subnaturefn.otx} + \chap A Critique of the Domination of Nature {\leftskip=0.25in plus1fill\rightskip=0.25in\it\noindent @@ -15,7 +17,27 @@ North Atlantic.\par the \e{Joint Oceanographic Institutions For Deep Earth Sampling. Prepared for the National Science Foundation by the University of California (Scripps Institution of Oceanography). US.\ Govt.\ Printing Office.} -Since the 17\textsuperscript{th} century, modern science has seemed confident that the human species is independent from organic nature.\fnote{1} Universal knowledge of inorganic structures provides an ever refined system of techniques that (supposedly) separates us from nature in an irreversible manner. Socio-technical evolution step by step transforms all in-built human capabilities in a cycle of technical learning that creates tools that are reinforced till they become machines and are finally replaced by automatic systems. This behavioral cycle of feedback-guided learning is an artificial world construction process that is unconsciously determined by the human need for security and safety.\fnote{2} The irony is that more control over nature does not seem to decrease anxiety about the terror of nature. +\sec\nl + +Since the 17\textsuperscript{th} century, modern science has seemed confident that the human species is independent from organic nature.% +\fnote{In \bt{The Phenomenon of Life: Toward a Philosophical Biology} (N.Y., Harper, 1966), Hans Jonas has argued that we moderns live under the perspective of pan-mechanism in which the very existence of life has become the inexplicable phenomenon. The worlds of archaic humanity had the opposite problem. Living within world-views of pananimism (or vitalism), the inexplicable problem---in the sense of existential paradox---was death. In this sense pre-modern societies culturally constituted death as part of human existence. In modern cultures we have viewed organic life under the same cognitive forms that we used to understand inorganic matter-energy relations in space and time.} +Universal knowledge of inorganic structures provides an ever refined system of techniques that (supposedly) separates us from nature in an irreversible manner. Socio-technical evolution step by step transforms all in-built human capabilities in a cycle of technical learning that creates tools that are reinforced till they become machines and are finally replaced by automatic systems. This behavioral cycle of feedback-guided learning is an artificial world construction process that is unconsciously determined by the human need for security and safety.% +\fnote{Hence human existence is predicated on this fear and terror of nature. +See Arnold Gehlen, \bt{Man in the Age of Technology} (N.Y., Columbia +University Press, 1980). Gehlen's interpretation of the history of socio- +technical development has influenced both conservative [See Peter +Berger, et. al., \bt{The Homeless Mind} (N.Y., Vintage, 1973) and critical +social theory (see Jurgen Habermas' \et{Science and Technology as Ideology} in \bt{Toward a Rational Society} (Boston, Beacon, 1970)]. In +Habermas' essay, Gehlen's history of technology is used to reject +Herbert Marcuse's claim that the universality of one-dimensionality +requires the development of a \dq{new science and technology.} This claim +is dependent upon an evolutionary perspective that sees cognitive +development as a progressively more universal and invariant instrumental + relation to natural \dq{objects.} This presupposes that the +mathematization of the human sensual manifold, as in Kant's notion +of natural knowledge, is the only form of possible knowledge of nature +and is adequate to its \dq{object.}} +The irony is that more control over nature does not seem to decrease anxiety about the terror of nature. While a sense of the inevitability of socio-technical progress pervades modern culture, so too does a sense of a \dq{broken connection} with biological and cultural continuity. The nuclear image of possible human annihilation, and the permanent \dq{crisis} ethos of contemporary societies, meld together to require what Robert Lifton has so aptly called \dq{psychic numb- ing.} Hence, the fear of survival returns and the search for symbolic immortality (began perhaps with the fall from the ignorance of death) renews the quest for a technical transcendence of nature. @@ -57,7 +79,7 @@ ideologies of progress today seem to lack. But the problem may not be \dq{progress} as a socio-cultural ideal. Indeed there is one learned argument that \dq{progress} was central to classical antiquity in the West from the very -beginning.\fnote{3} But \dq{progress} here meant growth of an organic +beginning.\fnote{Ludwig Edelstein, \bt{The Idea of Progress in Classical Antiquity} (Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins Press, 1967).} But \dq{progress} here meant growth of an organic whole that exhibits persistence and change, identity and difference. The model of nature was cited as exemplary; Seneca could thus say: \dq{Nothing is completed at its very beginning.} @@ -84,7 +106,7 @@ interacting parts) to a new scheme of the continuity of fields (in relativity) and the inseparability of the observing instrument from what is observed (in quantum mechanics). The new order implied is that of a \e{hologramic enfolding of the -information about the whole into each part.}\fnote{4} Instead of the +information about the whole into each part.}\fnote{David Bohn, \bt{Wholeness and the Implicate Order} (Boston, Routledge \& Kegan Paul, 1980), p. 11.} Instead of the classical Cartesian-Newtonian explicate order (where each part has its own place outside of others), the new implicate order has enfolded information about the whole in each part @@ -93,7 +115,7 @@ unity and a \e{hologramic order.} While it would be possible to recall that archaic worldviews also held to a hologramic presence of the whole in each -part,\fnote{5} the more relevant point here is that awareness of +part,\fnote{See deSantillana and von Deschend \bt{Hamlet's Mill: An Essay o1 Myth and the Frame of Time} (Boston, Gambit, 1969) for an account of how the flow of time and time of music formed the archaic world's experience of nature as ordered by the order of time.} the more relevant point here is that awareness of co-present elements returns as a center of physical inquiry and supplements the present analytic abstraction of a composite or explicate order. A new scientific theory implies a new @@ -103,24 +125,12 @@ of scientific-technical learning. As Gregory Bateson has argued, a communicational science is concerned with the meta-relationships of events in contexts, while a strict causalistic science focuses upon the reality of \dq{objects} while excluding -contexts.\fnote(6) This defines an epistemology change from Galilean -\dq{resolutive compositive method} to an organismic approach.}\fnote{7} +contexts.\fnote(See Gregory Bateson, \bt{Steps to an Ecology of Mind} (N.Y., Ballantine, 1972), p. 252.) This defines an epistemology change from Galilean +\dq{resolutive compositive method} to an organismic approach.}\fnote{Critiques of modern science's fallacy of \dq{simple location,} or the instrumentalist spatialization of events, has been central to A.N, Whitehead's philosophy of organicism. Whitehead argues that the basic physical unities are \dq{concrescent actualities} and resemble a living organism in that they depend not on its components but on the \e{pattern} through which they are composed. See \bt{Science and Modern World} (N.Y., Free Press, 1925).} It also forces us to re-evaluate the modern belief that we are separate from nature. -Something like a forgetfulness of our immanent participation -in nature has accompanied the celebration of technical -transcendence since the 17\textsuperscript{th} century. Belatedly I see that Hannah -Arendt's distinction of work and labor has an implicit philosophy -ophy of nature that is compatible with this changing image of -nature.\fnote{8} The notion of \e{labor} reminds us that the life process -imposed on us by our bodies, also ties us into the recurrent -cycle of all biological life. In the human metabolism with -nature labor mediates by an endless incorporation of matter -and energy into the body (consumption) and the endless -housekeeping which redirects the processes of growth and -decay and maintains the human world against the intrusions -of nature (e.g., pollution, excessive growth, etc.). +Something like a forgetfulness of our immanent participation in nature has accompanied the celebration of technical transcendence since the 17\textsuperscript{th} century. Belatedly I see that Hannah Arendt's distinction of work and labor has an implicit philosophy of nature that is compatible with this changing image of nature.\fnote{Hannah Arendt, \bt{The Human Condition} (Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday, 1958). Hannah Arendt's claim that all European languages discriminate between \dq{labor} and \dq{work} indicates a dimension of the bio-social world that is totally ignored in social theory. While all modern social theories of progress project \dq{work} as the form-giving fire and nature as the object and resource for human production, the endless recurrent necessities of sustaining biological life is lost in the modern image of \dq{process} (of nature and economic production). We labor with our bodies and work with our hands; this fundamental difference is documented by the universal existence of songs of labor that accompany the rhythmically ordered co-ordination of the body. (Songs of work are social and sung after work.) In the midst of labor, tools lose their instrumentality and function as means to an end; the certainty of the motion predominates. Labor constitutes the mediating interface of human world and nature and reflections on meaning of this linkage for sustainable form of human survival is essential. } The notion of \e{labor} reminds us that the life process imposed on us by our bodies, also ties us into the recurrent cycle of all biological life. In the human metabolism with nature labor mediates by an endless incorporation of matter and energy into the body (consumption) and the endless housekeeping which redirects the processes of growth and decay and maintains the human world against the intrusions of nature (e.g., pollution, excessive growth, etc.). In this sense the constitutive idea of modern ideologies (capitalist and socialist) that freedom begins beyond the limits diff --git a/subnaturefn.otx b/subnaturefn.otx new file mode 100644 index 0000000..590baa5 --- /dev/null +++ b/subnaturefn.otx @@ -0,0 +1,151 @@ +FOOTNOTES + + + + + + + + + + +10 Ilya Prigogine, \et{Unity of Physical Laws and Levels of Description} in +M. Grene (editor) \jt{Interpretations of Life and Mind} (N.Y., Humanities +Press, 1971) and Ilya Prigogine and others \et{Thermodynamics of Evolution} in \jt{Physics Today} Vol. 25 #1, 1972, + +11 See John and Nancy Jack Todd, \bt{Tomorrow Is Our Permanent Address} (N.Y., Harper \& Row, 1980), p. 48. + +12 See Magoran Maruyama, \et{The Cybernetics: Deviation-Amplifying +Mutual Causal Processes} in \jt{American Scientist} \#51, 1963, and G. +Nicolis and I. Prigogine., \bt{Self-Organization in Non-Equilibrium Systems} + N.Y., Wiley Interscience, 1977). + +13 Lancelot L. Whyte, \et{Towards a Science of Form} in \jt{Hudson Review} +Vol 23 \#4, Winter 1970--71, reminds us of the sense in which the +natural world is a perceptually present world of spatial units from +molecules, crystals, organisms to solar systems and spiral nebul\ae. +How thesee spatial forms are generated---how these units and hierarchies +of units arise in nature---is the project of a morphic science. + +14 H.H. Pattee, \et{Complementarity vs. Reduction as Explanation of +Biological Complexity} in \jt{American Journal of Physiology} Vol. 236 +\#5, May 1979 where he argues: + +\Q{As a consequence of this property of information none of the rules +or constraints of information-processing systems can be reduced to +rate-dependent equations (to the structural laws of nature T.S.), and +therefore their descriptions cannot be integrated in time, as are rate +equations, to give the trajectory or behavior of the system. Such +informational constraints that have rate-independent alternative +structures are called nonintegrable\ld\ constraints. I would define +biological function as activity that is controlled or measured by +nonintegrable constraints.} +\Qs{(p. R244)} + +Both the explanatory laws of physics and the cybernetics of nonintegrable +constraints are essential for an account of biological organization. + +15 Bateson, \e{op. cit.}, p. 460. + +16 Ilya Prigogine, \bt{From Being to Becomuing: Time and Complexity in the +Phystcal Sciences} (San Francisco, WH. Freeman \& Co., 1980). + +17 G. Nicolis and I. Prigogine, \bt{Self-Organization inn Nonequilibrium +Systems: From Dissipative Structures to Order Through Fluctuations} +(N.Y., John Wiley \& Sons, 1977). + +18 See Marjorie Grene's \bt{Approaches to a Philosophical Biology} (N.Y., +Basic Books, 1965) for a discussion of Portmann's thinking in contrast +to other biological theorists who reject the Galileian primary qualities +as fundamental for organic life. For a brief introduction to Portmann +in English, see \et{Beyond Darwinism}in \jt{Commentary} XL (1965), pp. +31--41. + +19 This argument is developed below in Section 1V. + +20 J E. Lovelock, \bt{Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth} (N.Y., Oxford +University Press, 1980) + +21 As indeed it has: See W. Ford Doolittle's review of Lovelock's book in +\jt{Co-Evolution Quarterly} \#29, Spring 1981, pp. 58ff. where the charge +that the feedback loops of Gaia are either created by natural selection +or, more likely to Doolittle, occur by chance. In response, we can return +to Prigogine's theory of dissipative structures: +\Q{We here propose an alternative description of prebiotic evolution. +The main idea is the possibility that a prebiological system may +evolve through a whole succession of transitions leading to a hierarchy +of more and more complex and organized states\ld\ As a +result, if the system is to be able to evolve through successive +instabilities, a mechanism must be developed whereby each new +transition favors further evolution by increasing the nonlinearity +and the distance from equilibrium. One obvious mechanism is that +each transition enables the system to increase the entropy production\ld} +\Qs{in \et{Thermodynamics of Evolution.} op. cit.} +However other reviewers of the book find the hypothesis tenable: See +K. Mellanby, \ht{New Scientist}, Oct 4, 1979; René Dubos, \jt{Nature}, Nov. 8, +1979; P Morrison, \jt{Scientific American}, March 1980. + +22 Erns Mayr, \et{Teleological and Teleonomic: A New Analysis} in \jt{Boston +Studies in the Philosophy of Science} 14 (1974), pp. 91--117. + +23 See EM. Lappe and J. Collins, \bt{Food First: The Myth of Scarcity} +(Ballantine Press, 1978). Also see \bt{The New International Division of +Labor} by F. Frobel, J. Heinrichs, D. Kreye (Cambridge University Press, +1980). + +24 See Gerald O. Barney, \bt{The Global 2000 Report to the President of +the U.S.: Vol. I The Summary Report} (NY., Pergamon Press, 1980). + +25 See Klaus Myer-Abich, \e{op. cit.} + +26 See Nicholas Georgesev-Roegen, \et{Inequality, Limits and Growth +from a Bio-Economic Viewpoint} in \jt{Review of Social Economy} V. 35, +Dec. 1977. + +26 See Serge Moscovici, \et{The Re-Enchantment of the World} in Norman +Birnbaum, \bt{Beyond the Crisis} (N.Y., Oxford University Press, +1977) for an analysis to which this paper is indebted. + +28 Raymond Dasmann, \et{Eco-Development} in the \jt{Planet Drum Review} +Vol. 1 \#2, Winter 1981. + +29 The term \dq{re-inhabitation} is taken from one of many local journals +which are now advocating the watershed as the natural eco-development +unit. The strategy is the use of a combination of oral history and local +ecological research as a place identification approach. See Paul Ryan's +\bt{Talking Wood: Living in the Passaic Watershed}, 1980 (Talking Wood, +PO.Box 364, Pompton Lakes, N.J. 07442). (But the original use of the +term was by Peter Berg in an article on \et{Re-Inhabitation of California} +in \jt{The Ecologist} in the early 1970's.) + +30 See Ivan Illich, \bt{Shadow Work} (Boston, Marion Boyers, 1981). + +31 For the notion of communicative rationalization, see Jurgen Habermas' +\et{Science and Technology as Ideology} in \bt{Toward a Rational Society} +(Boston, Beacon, 1970). However, this paper represents a critique of +Habermas' instrumental concept of natural science as well as his +orientation toward core nation-states of the West. For an account of +his notion of critical theory, see my \bt{The Critique of Domination} +(Boston, Beacon, 1974). + +32 Yet there is a sense in which the anarchist position's notion that theory +and practice is ultimately unified art the level of action which changes +reality cannot be faulted. Especially in the American context, there is +an affinity of anarcho-libertarianism and the historical symbols of +independence, self-determination, and self-reliance which are, at least +in origin, not reducible to possessive individualist idealizations of +self-interested production for gain. These American practices were +socially and ethically mediated by the ever-present American quest for +\dq{community.} An anarchist practice still permeates the American +movements for decentralization, ecology and approprate technology, +feminism, etc. There is also a unique amalgam of Old World utopian +surplus and contemporary anarchist, neo-primitivist, and nativist symbols + that simply mystifies Marxists---especially theoreticans who expect +social relations to dance according to their notion of reason. + +33 Russell Means, \et{For the World to Live, \sq{Europe} Must Die} in +\jr{Mother Jones}, Dec. 1980. + +34 Wendell Berry, \bt{The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture} +(San Francisco, Sierra Club Books, 1977). + |