The Role of Beauty:
Environmental Movements and Human Rights
Humans have long found
beauty in their surrounding environment. The natural world has inspired poetry,
art, music, fashion, scientific progress, and more. This idea of seeing beauty
in nature and using it to create and invent is what keeps humans fully
connected to the world they live in. We have an innate and deep-seated
connection to the nature that surrounds us. Problems occur when we lose our
understanding of this connection; so-called progress strips function and beauty
from nature. Because human beings depend so much on nature, it follows that
there is an apparent connection between human rights movements and environmental
rights movements. This relationship between nature and humanity is a major
focus of the Transcendentalist movement of the Nineteenth Century.
Paul Hawken’s Blessed Unrest, which delves in to the
equivalence of the environmental movements and social justice movements of
today’s global community, brings the Transcendentalist movement into alignment
with the social movements of today’s world. In particular, Hawken emphasizes
two Transcendentalists, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, who
illustrate this dichotomy of the abstract and the concrete and the basis of a
global social movement within the counterpoints of their works: Emerson’s
“Nature” and Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience.”
Both Emerson and Thoreau
focused much of their work on nature and spirituality. At the time, to be
educated was to be interested and knowledgeable about not just politics, but
also philosophy, religion, art, poetry, and a vast array of culture. These
topics all connected to each other. They were not exclusive, independent parts
of culture. This interconnectedness is the key to understanding the viewpoint
of the Transcendentalist. It was not a narrow, one-dimensional view. In
addition, they each provided commentary on the social and moral issues faced by
society.
Emerson and Thoreau did
not, however, agree on everything. In 1836, Thoreau was a senior at Harvard
University when he read Emerson’s “Nature” and from this found a mentor and a
new way of thinking (Hawken, 2008, p. 74). Originally published anonymously,
Emerson never expected it to resonate as well as it did. Emerson questions and
analyzes that from which humanity derives. Any query as to what nature is or
does is also a query concerning our own origins. Because of this, the question
Emerson Asks, “To what end is nature?” becomes a question not only about nature
but also about understanding our place in this world (1836/1983, p. 7). Emerson
asserts, “Nature, in its ministry to man, is not only the material, but is also
the process and the result” and that the arts—those things changed and affected
by humans—“are reproductions or new combinations by the wit of man” (p. 12). In
other words, those things that are distinctly “other,” that are not of nature,
are just imitations by humans of nature. Human beings are merely creating an
artificial nature to do what nature creates, but at our own whim and on our own
schedule. Everything belongs to or imitates nature. This awareness of our
connection to nature, that “we are
nature, literally, in every molecule and neuron,” speaks not only of a
connection of the physical to nature, but also to the spiritual and abstract
(Hawken, p. 71).
Emerson’s
and Thoreau’s different approaches to many of the same topics exhibit progress
and creativity within the Transcendentalist movement. Progress with creativity
was a key idea in the thinking of architect Alden B. Dow. On a recent trip to
Midland, Michigan, I had the opportunity to visit his home and studio. In
addition to his profession as an architect, Dow was also an amateur
philosopher. Everything about his design takes into account both the
functionality and beauty of the interior with the context of the exterior and
surroundings. Dow believed that the buildings he created should inspire the
same creativity present in his buildings within those who experienced it and
that everyone is obligated “to make his surroundings more beautiful” (Maddex,
2007, p. 68). I find his concepts of interconnectedness and inspiration align
closely with the ideas of the Transcendentalists. Dow had a variety of
different precepts included in his philosophy, but most of them centered on the
idea of his buildings being connected to the environment that they are in. The
outside becomes part of the inside and the design does not end at the outer
walls.
For his
design, Dow sought and found much inspiration from the organic shapes around
him. One of Dow’s favorite sayings was that “nature relieves architecture.
Architecture relieves nature” (Maddex, 2007, p. 5). He saw nature as a
continuance of the man-made structures—the architecture. He saw that same
architecture as a continuance of nature. Nature and architecture have a
complementary relationship.
In the same
way, nature and civilization have a complementary relationship. As human
beings, we have a symbiotic relationship with the nature that we live in. When
we respect that idea, we are at harmony with the natural world. Emerson and Thoreau,
among many other Transcendentalists, wrestled with this symbiosis and the
effects new technology had on that relationship. In much of Emerson’s early
writing, “he praised the progress that came from technological achievements”
(Lumpkin, 2006). As time passed, he became “troubled by the role of technology,
and its affects on man and nature, in promoting commerce [and] as a result, his
attention turned to man’s responsibility in containing technology” (Lumpkin).
Contrary to what might be assumed, Emerson had a similar idea about the role of
nature and its effects. In Emerson’s view, “intellect was primary and nature
was secondary,” and he saw human beings as separate as and more important than
nature (Lumpkin). Nature was a tool to be used to further civilized life.
Emerson had
an entirely idealistic view of technology and industrialization. He saw it as a
way to enhance or use nature. He “felt the development and uses of technology
represented the highest expression of man’s intellect” and, because intellect
was primary to nature, to be opposed to technology “was unimaginable” (Lumpkin,
2006).
One of the
largest positive outcomes of Transcendentalist thought came about by way of
social reform. Intellect as a primary concern meant that education and original
thought were important. As such, class division and racial segregation became
targets for the Transcendentalist reformers. This was the single largest push
for broad spectrum reform in American history. Reformers created “single-issue
reform movements, pushing for temperance, prison reform, educational reform,
changes in debtor laws, and the abolition of slavery” among many other issues
(Newman, 2005, p. 41). Women’s rights, worker’s rights, African-American’s
rights were all issues that were born into movements during this time. Indeed,
the Transcendentalist movement itself was actually spurred into being because
of the radical working-class movement in New England just prior to the Civil
War.
Although
Emerson was a proponent of these radical social changes, his approach to the
culmination of these changes differed from that of his follower, Thoreau. Where
Emerson saw the change coming from educated leadership and connecting with the
“divinely ordained laws of nature,” Thoreau, though he does not depart from
this idea, takes it to a more extreme level (Newman, 2005, p. 42). Thoreau
called for civil disobedience as a responsibility, not just a right. A number
of years after Thoreau first encountered Emerson’s work and Emerson himself,
Thoreau refused to pay a poll tax and spent a night in the Middlesex County
Jail. Eighteen months after that night, Thoreau pontificated on “The Rights and
Duties of the Individual in Relation to the Government,” which would later be
published as “Civil Disobedience” (Hawken, 2008, p. 74-76). Thoreau’s
assertions of a wish for “every man [to] make known what kind of government
would command his respect” and as a result they “[would] be one step toward
obtaining it” (1849/1965, p. 636) shows not only his passion for supporting
what he believes to be right and withholding support from what he believes to
be wrong, but also his belief in “human interdependency, a belief that called
out for a willingness to respond to moral imperatives, however distant”
(Hawken, p. 76). Thoreau’s interpretations and ideas respond to what Emerson
began in “Nature.” He saw “the connectedness Emerson experienced in the natural
world” and “saw [it] in the human world” (Hawken, p. 76). Emerson was to
Thoreau an inspiration and mentor and Thoreau treated their relationship as
such. He internalized and immersed himself in Emerson’s philosophies and used
them to further his own understanding of the world, thus allowing us to further
our understanding of the world.
We use the
past so-called radical movements as foundations for new understandings of the
world. Bill McKibben, a contemporary activist who takes this connectedness and
applies it to today’s world, has many times been called radical. He believes
that there is “nothing radical at all” about the environmental movements he
supports (lecture, October 10, 2013). He’s right. The ideas of conservation and
moderation are very old and appear as broad ideas in the Transcendentalist
movement and throughout history. Although we, as human beings, are facing a more
and more extreme problem with climate change, environmental movements, and
environmental and human interconnectedness are as old as human history.
This old
connection can be seen in the way we have assimilated nature into culture.
Culture tends to center around the arts—music, visual art, poetry, language. In
all of these, nature is the dominant presence. Before we had the written word,
we had art that depicted natural events and places. Many of the
Transcendentalists saw themselves more as poets than as activists. Thoreau
focused the “first decade of his life as a write” on poetry; he believed
himself a poet before anything else (Newman, 2005, p. 84). Thoreau produced a
multitude of poetry exclusively on nature or exclusively on social issues, but
he kept nature as a visual for abstract ideas, a way to connect that which is
hard to understand with something universal and concrete. In a poem about
women, Thoreau’s language remains centered around nature:
Ive
seen ye, sisters, on the mountain side
When
your green mantles fluttered in the wind
Ive
seen your foot-prints on the lake’s smooth shore
Lesser
than man’s, a more ethereal trace,
Ive
heard of ye as some far-famed race—
Daughters
of god whom I should one day meet—
Or
mothers I might say of all our race. (Newman, 2005, p. 93)
While beautiful, Thoreau’s way of personifying nature is not
original to him. We have seen this personification of nature in the culture of
all civilizations. The religions of the Greeks and Romans upheld the godlike
power of nature. Most ancient cultures had a reverence for that which provided
for them. They saw nature as a gift. This differs greatly from how Emerson
wrote about nature and how we see nature today as a society. Emerson believed
nature was a tool. We believe nature is an adversary.
Americans
are used to an adversarial justice system, and I believe that this overflows
into how we view the world around us. We have to fight against communism. We
have to fight against climate change. We have to fight against socialism. There
is always something we are fighting against. To look at the challenges we face
today from a more Transcendentalist point of view, we would be fighting for something. Fight for civil rights of
oppressed people. Fight for nature. Fight for individualism and the well-being
of all people. How we understand where we connect to the world affects how much
we consider when deciding on actions.
There are
some cultures that have preserved the concept of a barrier-free relationship
with nature, who have not allowed “evolution” and “progress” to
compartmentalize that which is so fundamentally connected. These cultures, what
Paul Hawken includes as the third portion of his social movement, are the
indigenous cultures of the world. They marry nature, humanity, and the
preservation of both into a single idea—a single, unified movement.
An avenue
to return to this singular movement is through the appreciation of beauty. Like
Alden Dow, we can learn to incorporate beauty that already exists into our lives.
To see beauty in our differences can help to heal social rifts. Beauty, as seen
by Emerson, “in its largest and profoundest sense, is one expression for the
universe” (1836/1983, p. 19). Internalizing and understanding beauty is a path
to understanding the world and how we live in the world, not apart from it.
Whether the
Transcendentalist movement marked a point in time where we understood and
distinguished how the ecological woes of the world and the human woes are one
and the same or if it marked a point in time where we became aware of a
distancing of the two problems within the social consciousness, it shows us a
way of thinking that we can build upon to better appreciate the beauty we live
in. Emerson and Thoreau both had a primal understanding of nature and the way
in which we are not just connected to it but are part of it.
References
Emerson, R. W. (1983). Nature. In R. W. Emerson (Author)
& J. Porte (Ed.), Essays and lectures (pp. 5-49). New York: The Library
of America. (Original work published 1836)
Hawken, P. (2008). Blessed
unrest: How the largest social movement in history is restoring grace,
justice, and beauty to the world. New York: Penguin.
Lumpkin, G.T. (2006). The promise of technology versus the
pastoral ideal: Ralph waldow emerson’s conflict over the role of
mankind in nature. International Journal
of Humanities
and Peace, 22(1), 45-46.
Maddex, D. (2007). Alden
B. Dow: Midwestern modern. Midland, MI: Alden B. Dow Home and Studio.
McKibben, B. (Presenter). (2013, October 10). Notes from the Front Lines of the Climate
Fight. Lecture presented at the Changing
Climates Speaker Series, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI.
Newman, L. (2005). Our
common dwelling: Henry Thoreau, transcendentalism, and the class politics
of nature. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Thoreau, H. D. (1965). Civil disobedience. In H. D. Thoreau
(Author) & B. Atkinson (Ed.), Walden
and other writings of henry david Thoreau (pp. 633-659). New York: The Modern Library. (Original work
published 1849)
No comments:
Post a Comment