Ecological "harmony" isn't simply a fiction. It's a useful approximation because there are disparate time scales at play. Call it "quasi-equilibrium" if you prefer. The earth has been around for billions of years, and humans have inherited an environment that was changing very slowly compared to the speed at which we're now changing it.
I enjoyed reading this (and the preceding chapters) as it is rare to get such a clear POV through well researched, engaging and evidence based writing, clearly establishing the amazing feats of human agency and progress. Your stance is very clear, unapologetic and well founded in many instances. And that makes me genuinely interested in your POV on a few questions your essay(s) raised for me … (1) what is the root of the opposing stance of human vs. nature (in all its forms)?, (2) aren‘t we - and by extension everything we do and create - also very much of nature?, (3) what do you see as the roots of the challenges we - humans - face in the 21st century?, (4) how many of these challenges are human-made or human dependent?, (5) if we have any part in them, shouldn‘t we also aim to understand our own ‚nature‘ better and explore how we can do better for ourselves and each other? … thanks for sharing your perspective.
First of all, if you aren't already following Sam Matey at The Weekly Anthropocene, you should be. He posts good round ups of data on a lot of the things you're addressing here--especially the idea that it's silly to think that the world "naturally" should be reverted to some trapped-in-glass state from an arbitrary time in the past. Here's a link: https://sammatey.substack.com/
Secondly, a quibble: While there's a lot of strife and competition in nature, there's a lot of cooperation, too. I think that the overstatement of competition and brutal hierarchies among animals is itself an artifact of the charmed times in which especially the kinds of people who write about evolution live.
It's easy to focus on the big male tiger killing cubs so he can sire some of his own, and make the central story in nature be one of competition between individuals--especially if you live in a time and place where it feels like individuals can write their own destiny, like modern Western cultures are. But that feeling of individuals having power can only exist because so many of the major problems nature has thrown at humans have been solved: infectious diseases, resilience to natural disasters. We've largely solved those problems through collective action, and I think this has allowed us to forget that for people and for animals, the main adversary is not another individual of one's own species, but nature itself.
Throughout history, the main killer of baby tigers and baby humans hasn't been violence, but infectious diseases and starvation. As you've noted, why humans have made so much progress against infectious disease and famine is because of our genius in working together. Other animals try to fight against natural disasters through cooperation, also: engaging in mutual hygiene behaviors that thwart the spread of parasites and diseases, or shoring up collective shelters against a storm.
You make excellent points here, but I think you may make them a bit too strongly. You say "there is no reason to consider the original, 'pristine' state of nature as an ideal, or to minimize our impact on it". But there is at least one reason to favor the pristine state of nature: that is the state for which we have the most historical data, and the best evidence of stability. When we meddle – whether by "clear[ing] fields, dredg[ing] rivers, or control[ing] animal populations", or otherwise – we risk unintended consequences.
This doesn't mean we should never intervene. I don't advocate for "degrowth". But I think we should place *some* weight on minimizing our interventions on the world – as one desideratum to balance against others. "The configuration of atoms that just happened to exist before humans" is not always the best, but it is battle-tested; when in doubt, it seems a reasonable rule of thumb to err on the side of minimizing disturbances.
I would also argue that very often things are lost when we tame and homogenize the world: an established ecosystem, in all its complexity, can be both more robust and more beautiful than what we tend to replace it with. Another reason to lean toward "when in doubt, leave it alone" – not as an ironclad law, but as a useful rule of thumb.
Let's remember the famous programmer saying: if it works, don't touch it.
It's difficult to predict the risk of an action done to a complex system. Even human-engineered systems whose safety is backed by math and computation can go astray. Sometimes disasters happen due to a little human error or some ignored factor.
Jason, I think you've let your bias against degrowth get in the way of the fascinating nuance here. You've made a strawperson argument by falsely equating living in 'harmony' with 'nature' with the degrowth movement. I've outlined an optimist techno-humanist-environmentalist view below to continue the discussion.
Let's start with definitions. You defined nature as 'the negation of humanity' by reference to structures, tools and activities arbitrarily deemed 'natural' or 'unnatural'. Nature is life. Nature in the context of this article is life on Earth. It's a false dichotomy to arbitrarily remove ourselves from the concept of nature by stating that nature is the 'negation of humanity' and 'absence of human agency.' We are part of life on Earth.
Putting aside the concept of value being a human construct, the intrinsic value of nature isn't incoherent, it's complex. I believe you can define an intrinsic value of nature as life - ignoring the degrowth movement.
I would hypothesise that the intrinsic value of nature is found in its complexity and systemic resilience to change in conditions. From understanding the building blocks of life to the mind-boggling large number of collaborations and competitions between micro- and macro-organisms, biodiversity is a key component of what makes nature/life more resilient to change through spinning the evolution and innovation flywheels. Just like a healthy tech market.
Contrary to your statement, we have created standards of what is good for nature that we can optimise for (e.g. air quality, biodiversity, ocean health). They're not perfect, but they're sufficiently functional, and we can actively work to improve those standards and their indicators, whilst also making it more economical to improve them.
Therefore, I would posit that harmony means equilibrium, not 'agreement'. Harmony without conflict is not only undesirable, but impossible. As a simple human-centric example - studies of decision-making find that a tentative group decision made from conflicting perspectives lead to better results than unanimous agreement / groupthink. This aligns with Doctrix Periwinkle's comments above on cooperation in nature. Harmonious evolution and innovation both require conflict. To bring it back to techno-optimism, a healthy or harmonious tech market requires conflict. We don't want to give OpenAI unanimous unequivocal dictatorial influence on everything relating to AI. A competitive market is a harmonious market.
I'm not a fan of the term of 'mastery' or 'god-like' when it comes to working with nature (or most things really). It implies a hubris that belies the intellectual humility required to seek the truth, or to see the forest rather than just the trees. Semantics aside, I would agree with the premise of 'mastering' nature to achieve greater harmony, where greater harmony is defined as a more robust complex equilibrium that is more resilient to disruption through human activity. It's not 'restoration to a pre-human baseline' nor is it 'maintaining stasis and limiting change', it's enhancing and restoring environments to have high biodiversity with an equilibrium where no one species (flora and fauna) dominates others to extinction.
We will undoubtedly get to a point where we master the technology and understand the complexity of biological systems to sufficient detail where terraforming, geoengineering and de-extinction will gain momentum and have greater adoption, similar to the current renaissance of nuclear. Terraforming environments on Earth may not be much of an extension from our current activities of re-introducing existing species to habitats where they had been removed. We can and will evolve our use of technology to enhance nature, we're just socially focused on risk mitigation right now, but that too will change.
1. I do not fully agree that value is a human construct. I believe value is objective (truth and falsehood) and separate to that, humans construct value that, if not in alignment with Objective Value, is inherently false value -- irrespective of how many billions bow to False Value.
2. I double-click on your mention of hubris, as well as on your argument that conflict in this context is both required and healthy. It aligns with my beliefs outlined below.
Fair point on value not entirely being a human construct. Truth is objective, value is relative to an individual or group, but it doesn't have to be human.
This distinction is important because otherwise any person can form his own value set, change them at will, and assert his right to those values, including permitting plainly objective values like those that forbid murder and theft. If we were to say that abhorrence to the likes of theft and the murder of the innocent are human constructs, I would hate to think what the world would look like...
To bring it back to the article in question, our attitudes toward Nature and everything else cannot be based on a human-constructed value system.
Technology is an extension of man, but man is an extension of nature..therefore - technology is an extension of nature. Perhaps mastery of ourselves and our environment AS nature is worth considering.
Excellent article! But oh, my gosh, I recoil at the repeated use of the word: "environmentalist". I think that YOU know what you mean by this term, and I know what it means to ME as one who has communed with nature through my 73 years of life, and have been an activist in environmental matters throughout my adult life, but the word environmentalist carries deep negative connotations for most of the population, and I strive to never use the word in spoken or written word. The use of the word just gets the user in trouble most of the time. Try your hardest to avoid using this word.
I don't think there's anything wrong with using the term 'environmentalist', it's the false equivocation of 'environmentalist' meaning anti-growth, anti-economic or even anti-human. You can be an enviro-capitalist, more now than ever before.
I had just read Matt Clancy's Decline in Writing About Progress when Substack (https://substack.com/home/post/p-147731562?source=queue) referred me to your articles on Progress. His work builds on Joel Mokyr's A Culture of Growth, where cultures must form the languages and the platforms for growth to flourish and thus, the internet, AI and our evolving governance structures must be aligned before the next phase of significant growth ensues. Great work and look forward to the next chapter.
An interesting take on things, but I do have a question: would you say that human progress has, in any way, negatively effected humanity because of its impact on the environment? For example, climate change. Whilst you do mention it, you steer away from the harmful effects on us. The industrial CO2 you mention has been shown to impact our health and the like, but these negative effects can be surely stopped by the decreasing of industrial CO2 emissions. It seems contradictory to endorse what you call evidence of natural human 'progress' yet fail to recognise the harmful effects these have on humanity and, surely, a humanity that fails to keep people alive and healthy cannot be seen as progressing, wouldn't you agree?
In response to the both parts of this chapter, G-d and Nature are only at odds if G-d is defined in the Christian sense. Have you considered different understandings of the entity we call G-d in your research?
This chapter is mostly not about Christianity or the Christian God. The “gods” referred to in the title are the forces of fate, powers beyond human control. The Christian God occasionally played this role (see the parts in the previous essay on smallpox and the Lisbon earthquake) but not always.
I am grateful fro your reply and for your thoughtful work.
If I may, I counter the notion that this chapter is mostly not about G-d. I wonder whether you have subtly inserted your religious beliefs into your arguments, perhaps without even realising it? Nature is G-d -- in His concealed state. By suggesting we master Nature, you are suggesting we master G-d (as though we could!).
Perhaps instead of "master Nature" I'd suggest "live with nature" not in the Liberal sense which actually means "surrender" but in the same sense in which I would visit the doctor if I'm sick: hopefully with the understanding that doctors treat and G-d heals.
The difference is subtle and mostly boils down to one of mindset rather than practice.
I like where you're going with the semantic change. My initial reaction is that 'live with nature' underestimates our agency. Perhaps 'seek equilibrium with nature' - it acknowledges that we impact nature in both positive and negative ways, and highlights our role in achieving a stable, healthy competitive/collaborative dynamic.
I agree with you that 'live with nature' is an imperfect phrase to express the way humans should relate to nature for the reason we both mention ie it could be misinterpreted to imply lack of agency. I'd be open to alternatives, while simultaneously questioning the implied meaning behind 'master Nature'.
Similarly, I would be hesitant to use "seek equilibrium with nature". Unlike 'master nature' which implies we can master G-d, 'seek equilibrium with nature' implies we are equal with G-d. The implication is just a notch lower on the power stack but still not a true reflection of the relationship between G-d and mankind.
What we need is a term that implies that Nature is G-d in His concealed state and that the same G-d has granted us the agency (and with it the obligation) to 'live with Nature' and not surrender to it.
I was intentionally avoiding the spirituality element of the discussion haha. I wouldn't say it's implying being equal, I would say it's implying humility. I would abstract the concept of God in this context to refer to 'complexity or universal truths that we do not currently understand'. Regardless of spiritual beliefs, the purpose of seeking equilibrium with nature implies a humility that we don't know everything.
I can appreciate the desire to keep away from the spiritual element, especially if you live in England. However, while this approach might have some merits, it fails to recognise that we cannot abstract away from the context of G-d in any context, given that He is the only true Existence and the purpose of our creation is recognition of His existence. You cannot abstract from the fulcrum. How much more so in this context where the discussion is Nature.
Thus, we revert to the most ancient and primal of debates, the religious debate. In recent Western history (particularly Western Europe) there has been an attempt at abstracting religion from everything and at making it taboo, but the results have proven that it's impossible to achieve. The only thing that changes is the emperor's clothes, and our discussion here is a case in point.
If equilibrium implies genuine humility and recognition of our simultaneous agency as you suggest, then I am OK with the term.
Totally agree the notion of "natural" means "not involving human beings". And this makes for a really confusing discourse!
https://open.substack.com/pub/davepeticolas/p/a-natural-death
what is unnatural about human beings?
Reading Jason makes me ADMIRE humans,in addition to my already adopted stance of loving and caring about them
Ecological "harmony" isn't simply a fiction. It's a useful approximation because there are disparate time scales at play. Call it "quasi-equilibrium" if you prefer. The earth has been around for billions of years, and humans have inherited an environment that was changing very slowly compared to the speed at which we're now changing it.
I enjoyed reading this (and the preceding chapters) as it is rare to get such a clear POV through well researched, engaging and evidence based writing, clearly establishing the amazing feats of human agency and progress. Your stance is very clear, unapologetic and well founded in many instances. And that makes me genuinely interested in your POV on a few questions your essay(s) raised for me … (1) what is the root of the opposing stance of human vs. nature (in all its forms)?, (2) aren‘t we - and by extension everything we do and create - also very much of nature?, (3) what do you see as the roots of the challenges we - humans - face in the 21st century?, (4) how many of these challenges are human-made or human dependent?, (5) if we have any part in them, shouldn‘t we also aim to understand our own ‚nature‘ better and explore how we can do better for ourselves and each other? … thanks for sharing your perspective.
First of all, if you aren't already following Sam Matey at The Weekly Anthropocene, you should be. He posts good round ups of data on a lot of the things you're addressing here--especially the idea that it's silly to think that the world "naturally" should be reverted to some trapped-in-glass state from an arbitrary time in the past. Here's a link: https://sammatey.substack.com/
Secondly, a quibble: While there's a lot of strife and competition in nature, there's a lot of cooperation, too. I think that the overstatement of competition and brutal hierarchies among animals is itself an artifact of the charmed times in which especially the kinds of people who write about evolution live.
It's easy to focus on the big male tiger killing cubs so he can sire some of his own, and make the central story in nature be one of competition between individuals--especially if you live in a time and place where it feels like individuals can write their own destiny, like modern Western cultures are. But that feeling of individuals having power can only exist because so many of the major problems nature has thrown at humans have been solved: infectious diseases, resilience to natural disasters. We've largely solved those problems through collective action, and I think this has allowed us to forget that for people and for animals, the main adversary is not another individual of one's own species, but nature itself.
Throughout history, the main killer of baby tigers and baby humans hasn't been violence, but infectious diseases and starvation. As you've noted, why humans have made so much progress against infectious disease and famine is because of our genius in working together. Other animals try to fight against natural disasters through cooperation, also: engaging in mutual hygiene behaviors that thwart the spread of parasites and diseases, or shoring up collective shelters against a storm.
I write about a set of studies on cooperative monkeys having a survival advantage following hurricanes (and human cooperation with respect to hurricanes) here: https://doctrixperiwinkle.substack.com/p/about-the-weather
Anyway, keep up the good work. It was a pleasure to read this.
A most refreshing point of view.
It would be improved even more by the acknowledgement of a spiritual dimension.
You make excellent points here, but I think you may make them a bit too strongly. You say "there is no reason to consider the original, 'pristine' state of nature as an ideal, or to minimize our impact on it". But there is at least one reason to favor the pristine state of nature: that is the state for which we have the most historical data, and the best evidence of stability. When we meddle – whether by "clear[ing] fields, dredg[ing] rivers, or control[ing] animal populations", or otherwise – we risk unintended consequences.
This doesn't mean we should never intervene. I don't advocate for "degrowth". But I think we should place *some* weight on minimizing our interventions on the world – as one desideratum to balance against others. "The configuration of atoms that just happened to exist before humans" is not always the best, but it is battle-tested; when in doubt, it seems a reasonable rule of thumb to err on the side of minimizing disturbances.
I would also argue that very often things are lost when we tame and homogenize the world: an established ecosystem, in all its complexity, can be both more robust and more beautiful than what we tend to replace it with. Another reason to lean toward "when in doubt, leave it alone" – not as an ironclad law, but as a useful rule of thumb.
Let's remember the famous programmer saying: if it works, don't touch it.
It's difficult to predict the risk of an action done to a complex system. Even human-engineered systems whose safety is backed by math and computation can go astray. Sometimes disasters happen due to a little human error or some ignored factor.
Jason, I think you've let your bias against degrowth get in the way of the fascinating nuance here. You've made a strawperson argument by falsely equating living in 'harmony' with 'nature' with the degrowth movement. I've outlined an optimist techno-humanist-environmentalist view below to continue the discussion.
Let's start with definitions. You defined nature as 'the negation of humanity' by reference to structures, tools and activities arbitrarily deemed 'natural' or 'unnatural'. Nature is life. Nature in the context of this article is life on Earth. It's a false dichotomy to arbitrarily remove ourselves from the concept of nature by stating that nature is the 'negation of humanity' and 'absence of human agency.' We are part of life on Earth.
Putting aside the concept of value being a human construct, the intrinsic value of nature isn't incoherent, it's complex. I believe you can define an intrinsic value of nature as life - ignoring the degrowth movement.
I would hypothesise that the intrinsic value of nature is found in its complexity and systemic resilience to change in conditions. From understanding the building blocks of life to the mind-boggling large number of collaborations and competitions between micro- and macro-organisms, biodiversity is a key component of what makes nature/life more resilient to change through spinning the evolution and innovation flywheels. Just like a healthy tech market.
Contrary to your statement, we have created standards of what is good for nature that we can optimise for (e.g. air quality, biodiversity, ocean health). They're not perfect, but they're sufficiently functional, and we can actively work to improve those standards and their indicators, whilst also making it more economical to improve them.
Therefore, I would posit that harmony means equilibrium, not 'agreement'. Harmony without conflict is not only undesirable, but impossible. As a simple human-centric example - studies of decision-making find that a tentative group decision made from conflicting perspectives lead to better results than unanimous agreement / groupthink. This aligns with Doctrix Periwinkle's comments above on cooperation in nature. Harmonious evolution and innovation both require conflict. To bring it back to techno-optimism, a healthy or harmonious tech market requires conflict. We don't want to give OpenAI unanimous unequivocal dictatorial influence on everything relating to AI. A competitive market is a harmonious market.
I'm not a fan of the term of 'mastery' or 'god-like' when it comes to working with nature (or most things really). It implies a hubris that belies the intellectual humility required to seek the truth, or to see the forest rather than just the trees. Semantics aside, I would agree with the premise of 'mastering' nature to achieve greater harmony, where greater harmony is defined as a more robust complex equilibrium that is more resilient to disruption through human activity. It's not 'restoration to a pre-human baseline' nor is it 'maintaining stasis and limiting change', it's enhancing and restoring environments to have high biodiversity with an equilibrium where no one species (flora and fauna) dominates others to extinction.
We will undoubtedly get to a point where we master the technology and understand the complexity of biological systems to sufficient detail where terraforming, geoengineering and de-extinction will gain momentum and have greater adoption, similar to the current renaissance of nuclear. Terraforming environments on Earth may not be much of an extension from our current activities of re-introducing existing species to habitats where they had been removed. We can and will evolve our use of technology to enhance nature, we're just socially focused on risk mitigation right now, but that too will change.
A thoughtful response.
1. I do not fully agree that value is a human construct. I believe value is objective (truth and falsehood) and separate to that, humans construct value that, if not in alignment with Objective Value, is inherently false value -- irrespective of how many billions bow to False Value.
2. I double-click on your mention of hubris, as well as on your argument that conflict in this context is both required and healthy. It aligns with my beliefs outlined below.
Fair point on value not entirely being a human construct. Truth is objective, value is relative to an individual or group, but it doesn't have to be human.
This distinction is important because otherwise any person can form his own value set, change them at will, and assert his right to those values, including permitting plainly objective values like those that forbid murder and theft. If we were to say that abhorrence to the likes of theft and the murder of the innocent are human constructs, I would hate to think what the world would look like...
To bring it back to the article in question, our attitudes toward Nature and everything else cannot be based on a human-constructed value system.
Sorry mate, you've lost me there - your logic is unclear to me
Technology is an extension of man, but man is an extension of nature..therefore - technology is an extension of nature. Perhaps mastery of ourselves and our environment AS nature is worth considering.
Excellent article! But oh, my gosh, I recoil at the repeated use of the word: "environmentalist". I think that YOU know what you mean by this term, and I know what it means to ME as one who has communed with nature through my 73 years of life, and have been an activist in environmental matters throughout my adult life, but the word environmentalist carries deep negative connotations for most of the population, and I strive to never use the word in spoken or written word. The use of the word just gets the user in trouble most of the time. Try your hardest to avoid using this word.
I don't think there's anything wrong with using the term 'environmentalist', it's the false equivocation of 'environmentalist' meaning anti-growth, anti-economic or even anti-human. You can be an enviro-capitalist, more now than ever before.
I had just read Matt Clancy's Decline in Writing About Progress when Substack (https://substack.com/home/post/p-147731562?source=queue) referred me to your articles on Progress. His work builds on Joel Mokyr's A Culture of Growth, where cultures must form the languages and the platforms for growth to flourish and thus, the internet, AI and our evolving governance structures must be aligned before the next phase of significant growth ensues. Great work and look forward to the next chapter.
An interesting take on things, but I do have a question: would you say that human progress has, in any way, negatively effected humanity because of its impact on the environment? For example, climate change. Whilst you do mention it, you steer away from the harmful effects on us. The industrial CO2 you mention has been shown to impact our health and the like, but these negative effects can be surely stopped by the decreasing of industrial CO2 emissions. It seems contradictory to endorse what you call evidence of natural human 'progress' yet fail to recognise the harmful effects these have on humanity and, surely, a humanity that fails to keep people alive and healthy cannot be seen as progressing, wouldn't you agree?
In response to the both parts of this chapter, G-d and Nature are only at odds if G-d is defined in the Christian sense. Have you considered different understandings of the entity we call G-d in your research?
This chapter is mostly not about Christianity or the Christian God. The “gods” referred to in the title are the forces of fate, powers beyond human control. The Christian God occasionally played this role (see the parts in the previous essay on smallpox and the Lisbon earthquake) but not always.
I am grateful fro your reply and for your thoughtful work.
If I may, I counter the notion that this chapter is mostly not about G-d. I wonder whether you have subtly inserted your religious beliefs into your arguments, perhaps without even realising it? Nature is G-d -- in His concealed state. By suggesting we master Nature, you are suggesting we master G-d (as though we could!).
Perhaps instead of "master Nature" I'd suggest "live with nature" not in the Liberal sense which actually means "surrender" but in the same sense in which I would visit the doctor if I'm sick: hopefully with the understanding that doctors treat and G-d heals.
The difference is subtle and mostly boils down to one of mindset rather than practice.
I like where you're going with the semantic change. My initial reaction is that 'live with nature' underestimates our agency. Perhaps 'seek equilibrium with nature' - it acknowledges that we impact nature in both positive and negative ways, and highlights our role in achieving a stable, healthy competitive/collaborative dynamic.
I agree with you that 'live with nature' is an imperfect phrase to express the way humans should relate to nature for the reason we both mention ie it could be misinterpreted to imply lack of agency. I'd be open to alternatives, while simultaneously questioning the implied meaning behind 'master Nature'.
Similarly, I would be hesitant to use "seek equilibrium with nature". Unlike 'master nature' which implies we can master G-d, 'seek equilibrium with nature' implies we are equal with G-d. The implication is just a notch lower on the power stack but still not a true reflection of the relationship between G-d and mankind.
What we need is a term that implies that Nature is G-d in His concealed state and that the same G-d has granted us the agency (and with it the obligation) to 'live with Nature' and not surrender to it.
I was intentionally avoiding the spirituality element of the discussion haha. I wouldn't say it's implying being equal, I would say it's implying humility. I would abstract the concept of God in this context to refer to 'complexity or universal truths that we do not currently understand'. Regardless of spiritual beliefs, the purpose of seeking equilibrium with nature implies a humility that we don't know everything.
I can appreciate the desire to keep away from the spiritual element, especially if you live in England. However, while this approach might have some merits, it fails to recognise that we cannot abstract away from the context of G-d in any context, given that He is the only true Existence and the purpose of our creation is recognition of His existence. You cannot abstract from the fulcrum. How much more so in this context where the discussion is Nature.
Thus, we revert to the most ancient and primal of debates, the religious debate. In recent Western history (particularly Western Europe) there has been an attempt at abstracting religion from everything and at making it taboo, but the results have proven that it's impossible to achieve. The only thing that changes is the emperor's clothes, and our discussion here is a case in point.
If equilibrium implies genuine humility and recognition of our simultaneous agency as you suggest, then I am OK with the term.