Nature and Society
Duality
The word “nature” is a fairly messy term, in large part because of its relativity. I grew up in a rural area, so I consider nature to be forests but not fields, because those are more akin to an asset. On the other hand,friends of mine from urban backgrounds disagree and see them very much as nature. The key reason for this messiness is that nature is defined not by what it is but by what it is not. Nature is “not society”, the other side of that coin — all things are either in nature or society but they cannot be neither. Insofar as “society” is a vague term, nature as “not society” will be too.
This dichotomy is an intuitive one. We are all familiar with and probably have experienced common desires like retiring to a cottage, living on a farm, running away into the woods, and so forth — these are methods of escaping society which are achieved by entering society’s opposite in nature. However, the messiness of these terms reveals a crucial element of our understanding of these two things — this declaration, this creation of a society-nature binary — is not real in the sense that it cannot be tracked to some atomistic level. The distinction between what is natural and what is social is entirely arbitrary and has no fixed basis at all, instead being found solely in one’s interpretation thereof.
This dichotomy constructed as such also reveals certain characteristics of how we communicate on other topics. The humanities, as a set of fields, broadly seek to understand society, whereas what we consider the sciences seek to understand nature. This can somewhat explain why there is a great degree of contempt held for the humanities, while STEM is held in fairly high regard. Nature is “more unknown” and therefore more intimidating to approach; hence, the study of it and attempts to understand it are more impressive.
It is important that we recognise that nature is deeper than appearances. It isn’t just woodlands and fields, things we typically associate with the word “nature”. Biology would qualify as nature, even though biology is literally inside of us as the mechanisms that keep us alive. The universe is nature, but we haven’t actually observed most of it. Our unconscious minds are nature, even though by definition they cannot be directly observed.
Horror
Nature holds and inspires fear in us because of this — Nature is unknown. Paraphrasing a certain 20th century author whose racial beliefs are too questionable to warrant naming, the greatest fear is fear of the unknown. The fear of the unknown aspects of Nature therefore command both respect, out of recognition of the power it may hold over us, as well as derision, out of a desire to suppress this fear and assert our supremacy as masters of the universe. While the interpretation of the character of Nature can vary (some seeing it as pure and untainted, some seeing it as spiritual and ethereal, some seeing it as messy and backward), these interpretations are usually determined by how a given society has interpreted its own existence in relation to Nature. Nature being unknown and therefore fear-inspiring is true in all cases, however, so either respecting Nature or holding it in derision will be true regardless of the character of the society viewing it.
Due to its unknown character, Nature is rather uncomfortable to deal with and generally unpleasant because it reflects life as a whole — namely, that the universe is mostly apathetic to our problems. This is not to say that life is all suffering, because suffering implies intent or direction from some cruel torturer figure. Life is not rigged in this way to cause suffering either deliberately or even inadvertently — it just doesn’t care. This indifference is confusing because it alienates us from our very understanding of it and has seemingly no motive or actor, making it difficult to track mechanisms or make any sense of it at all. To this end, we flee — we seek any and all methods necessary to understand and in doing so, feel safe and comforted against the benign hostility of Nature against us. Individually, no single person can reasonably attempt to control their destiny while seemingly held captive by Nature. With “fight” therefore no longer a viable option, they are left with either doing nothing — a guaranteed method for failure — or “flight”, which we can see in the formation of networks of solidarity.
Creation
This fear of Nature — motivated by seemingly random suffering perpetrated by Nature — is escaped from through Society, and now we see the reason why this “Nature v Society” dichotomy exists. Society gives us many things — love, family, nation, ideology, class, work, and so forth. These elements help to constitute our identity both as individuals and as participants in wider Society, but also as a group member within specific identities (religion, nationality, political beliefs, etc) and as part of the wider whole. Cumulatively, these factors act as a barrier against the force that is Nature by providing networks of solidarity by which it can somewhat be overcome and tamed, further reinforcing the Nature-Society dichotomy’s very existence.
This declaration and formation of identity through the construction of Society is, ultimately, somewhat disingenuous or fabricated. Society isn’t real or fixed; it is merely declared to be real. Some may point to a biological predisposition for humans to form societies, as we are social animals, but this doesn’t change the key truth that Society exists because we declare that it exists. Because of this, Nature will inevitably “seep in” into the environments we inhabit our networks of solidarity in and make its presence known once again, because it is the state of a physical reality whether we like it or not, whereas Society is simply what we have declared to be real in opposition to this. as a result, the manner in which we conceptualize and consequently execute society is grounded in, stems from, and is motivated by what we’re opposing from and within Nature and how we conceptualise Society in its ideal form, i.e. ideology. It should be noted that doing so is not a lie or somehow innately false, for it is formed by sincere belief which in turn makes it real as far as we’re concerned — a social construct is still constructed and therefore real.
Resist
While Nature qua physical conditions moving independently of ourselves may certainly penetrate into Society, ideas of how Society is or should be — also known as ideology — help us to dispel the horror as the unavoidable fear encroaches further via the networks of solidarity aforementioned. Over time, however, these collective ideals of Society will run dry, as ideology are philosophical texts written in a certain time and context for that time — the world will change as solutions to a bygone time become increasingly irrelevant. They will no longer provide reassurances to us against our fears, in a manner not unlike how our childhood toys, once more reassuring than any other, will eventually lose their meaning and just be a toy.
Historically, we have fled backwards at this point. When an ideology runs dry and loses its potency to resist, a different ideology is brought in, which may genuinely alter the face of Nature and provide new reassurances. This does not, however, resist the benign cruelty of Nature’s inevitable reemergence. Over time, these conditions are no longer sufficient; Nature creeps back in, leading to either reform to establish either new, stronger conditions, or instead conflict. In the latter case, Nature is unleashed for a short period until a new ideology takes hold, where participants of the new Society agree that Nature was horrifying and should never be unleashed again, and so new conditions are established to push against it. The cycle repeats, we continue onward in a path of war and violence, such as seen in the Russian civil war or in the collapse of Austria-Hungary.
Alien
It should be clarified here that a perceived need to strip Society back to being indistinguishable from Nature is cruel and immoral — after all, Society’s protection remains valuable and not all people are able to withstand Nature. Morally, these vulnerable individuals should not be ignored nor neglected by the rest of us. It would certainly seem, however, that no ideology which is able to keep itself alive forever exists, or even can exist, because endless energy from both its participants, its authors, and its advocates is required to do so. Nature cannot be resisted forever, and people will eventually replace a tool that doesn’t do its job properly.It is also true that some ideologies resist not only Nature but also Society, so long as they are not the ideology in power in that Society and are trying to dislodge that which is (such as Marxist resistance to capitalist structures). However, whether or not one aligns in the same direction of resistance as these forces is optional, often depending on whether the potential participant in question feels that they are engaging in meaningful resistance or simply meaningless acts of politics.
Ideologies, therefore, are not tied to Nature through any aspect because of their Nature-defying character.We have only one true connection with Nature as this force of pure alienation we fear so greatly, and that is the knowledge of our own existence. Rooted in Nature, it is still opposed to Nature but it is not part of Society. It is not social either. This is because Society is part of an external reality, Society is outside of our own self, so we cannot be sure of its ultimate validity — it lies indistinguishable to us in much the same way we are uncertain of the validity of a dream even upon realising we are dreaming, for it feels too real to ignore yet beyond proof. We give the benefit of the doubt in most cases, but all we can truly say with certainty is that there is some mechanism that makes us feel something that seems to be what we call our body, even if what we feel isn’t really there at all.
Because of this uncertainty over the validity of all that is external to us, we must see things external to us as what they are — ideas, dreams. Much like how we reject being held hostage by Nature, we must in turn reject being held hostage by these ideas and dreams — “I” must come above all other concepts. “I” is the one thing we are to be sure of, in much the same way that we are sure of our own selves being safe as opposed to the hostility of the external world of Nature pre-Society. In order to do this, we must therefore hold these ideas and dreams in absolute contempt at all times, for this is the one power that “I”, an individual uncertain of the outside world’s character or existence, cannot lose — an ability that can never be taken from “me”. Ideology, as part of these ideas and dreams, must be destroyed at all times so as to ensure that new ones can flourish.
Contempt
Nature acts as an omnipresent threat to Society as it, to some degree, is the threat of material degradation, of entropy, of the inevitable collapse and death of things. It reminds us of our mortality, it reminds us of the temporariness of all things, it reminds us of how fragile our life is. To find a method by which we can resist Society, as discussed previously, but not have to somehow become comfortable with the intrinsically alienating force that is Nature — something I would contend is a project that is doomed from its very conception — there would appear to be only one option. Resistance against Society must be coordinated so as to be in the same direction as that of Nature.
Nature, as a force that has no meaning at all from cold indifference, paradoxically holds the greatest meaning of all due to it being the most unstoppable omnipresent force that could possibly contend with the seemingly unstoppable omnipresent force that can be found in ideology. Through this, the only way that we can embrace the alienation of Nature and solve this perpetual dilemma of fear, violence, destruction, and existential terror is to alienate against Society qua ideology in a direction of purpose that is unique only to oneself.
