We Rape Mother Nature

Throughout history, the cultures by which we live by has constructed our language and our perspective of how we view nature as we change the naming of one object into another. According to Rape of the Wild written by Collard, the process of naming a subject is “nothing less than an existential statement about the people who invent it. It is important to keep in mind the connection between social organizations and language” (5).

With this in mind, ultimately you could re-name a desk, calling it a “cat” for example. Although re-naming a subject is not instantaneous, throughout time the new name for that subject can be trans-valuated in that culture to define that the term “cat” has indeed replaced the previous term of the “desk”. Within the past 6,000 years there has been several languages of which different cultures spoke of. At any rate, the combination of these languages evolved into a base language called Sanskrit which contains root words from Greek and Latin.

Some terms brought from society has symbolized our views and the way we live. As Merilin Stone noted in Rape of the Wild, “the words ‘light’ and ‘dark’ first acquired the connotations of good and evil in Sanskrit, reflecting the emergent cast system and the Aryans’ contempt for the darker-skinned peoples who inhabited India before their arrival” (16). As we see a person walking down the street dressed in all black, society may denote hat the person to being bad or evil. On the other hand, a women wearing a white dress can symbolize her virginity or purity. Is this how slavery started? Does a black male represent or dehumanize that person?

Now lets look at how “nature” has evolved over time and how sometimes we refer to Earth as “mother nature”. In the beginning, nature didn’t exist as term although we called it “wilderness”. The term wilderness (seeing Earth as untouched by humans) has evolved into “nature” by which each culture lives by. In addition, some people now refer to nature as “mother nature”. As we speak of the earth as mother nature, this provides the act of conserving and protecting our planet. Viewing earth a living organism provides materials in which we believe is a necessity as we control and destruct Earth.

In 2010 there was a oil spill of 200 million gallons for 86 days by the company of British Petroleum (BP) in the gulf coast. After extensive cleaning and filtration, BP and the federal government now question where all the excess oil has gone, as we no longer can actually see the destruction from a bird’s eye view. An article from ABC News written by Jeffery Kofman on July 26, 2010 reviews this happening and questions the remaining amount of oil in the gulf. According to Ed Overton, a professor of environmental studies at Louisiana State University; “[It’s] mother nature doing her job” (1).

In chapter 2 of Radical Ecology written by Merchant, with the organic world view “one does not readily slay a mother, dig into her entrails for gold, or mutilate her body” (43). With this being said, why would humans destruct and drill for oil? In the reading of Radical Ecology written by Merchant, the Rise of Capitalism in the 16th century occurred especially when the Europeans discovered the Americas. Throughout time we have gained the necessity for gasoline where we feel forced to drill into mother earth for consumption, not thinking of the consequences. In the 17th centuries, a new world view of Experimental science emerged where society saw Earth as being dead, inert, and insensitive to human action. Currently, most Western schools teach of the Mechanistic Worldview as they teach the concept that us humans control and dominate nature. In the essence that we are now dominating nature in addition to our technological advances, it is impossible for us to trans-valuate our society into what it once was from the beginning. In reference to Rape of the Wild by Collard, I agree that through technological advances and the greed to obtain wealth has brought our society basically to rape mother nature of all her resources.

Link to ABC News Article:
http://abcnews.go.com/WN/bp-oil-spill-crude-mother-nature-breaks-slick/story?id=11254252

Link to readings:
Collard:
https://ecampus.unt.edu/webct/urw/lc5122011.tp0/cobaltMainFrame.dowebct

Merchant:
https://ecampus.unt.edu/webct/urw/lc5122011.tp0/cobaltMainFrame.dowebct