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Nature Spirituality and the Negation

2023; Michigan State University; Volume: 17; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.14321/jstudradi.17.2.0009

1930-1197

Roger S. Gottlieb,

Religion, Ecology, and Ethics

Theories of the radical transformation of society—“radical” in the sense of a significant alteration in the direction of greater freedom, increased sense of rights extended to those currently lacking, a more rational form of social organization in the direction of meeting human needs and (more recently) the needs of other forms of life as well—typically put a great deal of their hopes on at least one “negation”: that is, an aspect of the current unfree society that leads in dialectical fashion to experiences that motivate masses of people toward fundamental social change.For the theorists of the French Revolution this was the pressure of increasing taxes on the peasantry. For Marx it was recurrent, ever bigger economic crises combined with the political homogenization of the working class. For early Western Marxist Georg Lukacs it was the fundamental contradiction between people experiencing themselves as thinking and feeling subjects and (they or their labor power) being treated by capitalism as unfeeling, objectified commodities. Feminist and antiracist movements often locate the negation in the contradiction between the rhetoric of egalitarian democracy (or at times religion) and the way oppressed groups are denied rights, fairness, and respect. For the environmental movement it is the hope that the experience of environmental calamities such as climate change, dried up rivers, and burning forests will wake people up to the sheer magnitude of the threat, and the essential and life-threatening irrationality of current policies and priorities.Spirituality, a concept widely used in traditional religion, in “spiritual but not religious” settings, and in indigenous traditions, may be described as a belief, a form of life, and a set of characteristic experiences.1 The belief is that living by certain key virtues—for example, awareness, acceptance, compassion, gratitude, and love—is essential for a good, happy, morally beneficial life. Along with this belief is the attempt to cultivate these virtues. Finally, there is a range of typical experiences to which this attempt gives rise. These experiences may include a sense of connection to a wider reality, a pervasive feeling of gratitude, the ability to understand one's own mental states, a sense of peace such that the drive to acquire and control are diminished, and the ability to have compassion for radically different types of people and indeed for nonhuman life as well.Spiritual practices are frequently repeated, virtually habitual, mental, physical, and social forms aimed at cultivating spiritual virtues: meditation to train the mind, prayer to orient one's emotional life, forms of social service to develop compassion, bodily practices like yoga and tai chi to orient the body to self-awareness and spontaneity, and silence or fasting or celibacy to limit the power of intense desires for vicious speech, overeating, and sexual misconduct.Virtually all forms of spirituality aim at lessening the power of what is sometimes referred to as the ego: that is, that aspect of the self that is driven, selfish, self-hating, violent, unconscious of one's own desires, unable to recognize and deal with fears and resentments without hatred and violence. Since the ego—especially oriented toward individualistic self-concern, high consumption, and narrow group self-interest—is an essential ideological and characterological prop of contemporary patriarchal, racist, environmentally destructive capitalism, spiritual perspectives offer at least one possible counteracting force—that is, a negation.Spirituality thus understood is necessarily the negation of collective forms of exploitation and domination, irrationality-based group hatred, or unending consumerist desire. Justifications for the various social and ideological structures underlying unfreedom are at odds with spirituality—at least spirituality as I have just described it and as it has been lived by people as various as Martin Luther King, Jr., Gandhi, Dorothy Day, Rabbi Michael Lerner, and Thich Nhat Hanh.2Nature spirituality is the millennia-old phenomenon in which the experience of nonhuman nature—from reflections on a particular animal or plant to a landscape or ecosystem—can lead to the emergence of spiritual virtues. The repeated statement that “I find God in nature” means that in nature a person becomes more “Godly”—more generous, forgiving, compassionate, and less driven, jealous, hateful, or anxious. The Native American invocation of “all my relations” before a public statement is an acknowledgment of interconnection and mutual responsibility that can reflect a generosity of spirit and a sense of concern not limited to the ego. Gratitude and wonder are common responses to nature's beauty, interdependence, and complexity. Other spiritual responses include wonder, peacefulness, an acceptance of death, and a fundamental posture of appreciation rather than possession.Of particular importance, I believe, is that fact that nonhuman life functions without an ego. A tree will provide shelter, beauty, ecosystem functions (holding soil against erosion, exchanging resources with other trees and with mycelium networks), and dead leaves each fall to enrich the soil. It will offer these functions with all the strength at its disposal, but it will not expend one iota of energy worrying about death, being jealous of trees in more favorable locations (getting more sun or water), or being angry at the men with chainsaws coming to cut it down. It is thus in the experience of a tree—or a falcon, a trout, or even a tardigrade—that human beings get models of marvelous beings who act in the world without an ego. In that experience is a reminder that we ourselves can act in the world at least with less of one. To the extent that key forms of oppression require the ego—from the hatred embodied in racism to the political passivity rooted in insecurity and deference to those in power—a certain kind of experience of nature can serve as a negation of the present political and ideological order.Hiding in an Amsterdam attic during the Holocaust, Anne Frank wrote:What would have happened if, miracle of miracles, Anne had survived the Holocaust, gone outside to be “alone with . . . nature,” and found a series of dump trucks dropping off toxic wastes or a hilltop decimated by mountaintop removal mining? Then, I suppose, she would be in the same dilemma as the Raji people, an indigenous group living on the India–Nepal border, who lamented: “Before, we knew where the gods were. They were in the trees. Now there are no more trees.”4Nature spirituality can offer, at times, a kind of basic confidence in the future, one that will endure no matter what happens to the onlooker's personal ego. Also, it might seem to be a model of a kind of perfection: all these organisms functioning together, in a seamlessly integrated network that if not endless tends to continue for a length of time far outstripping individual lives. What happens to that basic confidence when in a comparatively short time, one less than the average life span in many places, we see the climate changing, populations of wild animals drastically deteriorating, or whole forests ravaged by insects given more opportunity to feed because of milder winters and warmer summers? What happens when we learn that nearly all life on Earth has been afflicted by plastic inside its bodies?The global range of examples is virtually endless.By analogy, most yoga resorts, meditation centers, and so forth are built in beautiful, natural settings. Very few, if any, are built near prisons, radioactive waste facilities, inner city slums, or areas of rural poverty. And this is because “beautiful, natural settings” encourage spiritual virtues, at least some of them; these other settings—not beautiful, not natural—do not.The lament over the totally administered society that the later Frankfurt School offered can now be joined by a lament over the totally administered natural world. And this management, in which humanity writes itself on the face of nature—like a vicious and irresponsible globally sized graffiti artist—reveals the toxic reality of contemporary civilization. What happens to spiritual life when we see what our species has done?The society-altering impact of what radical theorists have identified as possible negations has been limited. We can appreciate the extension of basic democratic rights to women, racial and ethnic minorities, and immigrants; the end of colonialism; the rise in working-class standards of living; and the reality of environmental organizations in virtually every nation. However, the overwhelming power of political and economic elites remains the fundamental social reality, along with most environmental problems getting worse or remaining ignored, backlashes against gender equality, and the fact that politically something like 40% of the world's population live under fascist or near-fascist regimes.5 Also, the fundamental irrationality of modern civilization, aided and abetted by rapid, uncontrolled, and often thoughtless technological development, leads to widespread unreality in the character and beliefs of the global populationThere are several reasons for the failures of progressive/left movements. The staggering increase in capitalist productivity has led to boosts in working-class standards of living, and in response to radical threats some measure of support has been created (social security, health insurance, unemployment insurance). As French socialist Andre Gorz observed decades ago, the working class is unlikely to make a revolution for a 10% increase in pay.6While racism, sexism and other forms of group oppression have been recognized and challenged, their ultimate elimination is far off. Also, capitalism has found it remarkably easy to integrate a certain percentage of racial minorities and women into positions of authority and wealth, leaving the rest still subject to various forms of ideological and physical repression.7While workers are still treated like commodities (perhaps even more, given the widespread weakness of unions), consumption, distraction (Internet, cell phones, 500 TV channels, virtual reality), and public education that promotes obedience, competition, and the goal of wealth and fame all sap the drive for social transformation. We have been neurologically colonized by computers, cell phones, social media, and the rest. The result is a dramatically impoverished ability to think and to enter into human relationships.Now, nature as negation is, if not ended, certainly weakened. Having devalued the rest of life, it has become disvalued8: a beach covered in plastic refuse, a forest with two-thirds fewer birds, frogs born with organs outside their bodies because of pollution, a summer in which it is just too hot to go outside,9 and a familiar river drying up. These realities do not encourage spiritual virtues and thus do not pose an alternative to the prevailing social order. Rather, they condition us to grief and despair,10 leading us to return to our technological escapes and psychiatric medications.If I have painted a rather hopeless picture, it is because I personally do not see a real basis for hope. Yet I will conclude by describing some possibilities of nature spirituality constituting a negation—despite the devastating environmental realities we face—and how the human relation to the natural world, while significant, remains a less powerful motivator than national, religious, and racial struggles, at least for now.To begin with, it should be clear that this negation is not one based in an analysis of social dynamics that provides us with a sense that liberation, the revolution, drastic change in the right direction, and so on are certain or even probable. Marx's certainty that he had (echoing Newton) discovered the “the economic laws of motion” of capitalist society, a motion that necessarily included the political homogenization and radicalization of the proletariat, is clearly not the kind of belief I am offering.11 The same holds for any confidence that gender equality or racial fairness will inevitably emerge from a movement demanding that nations live up to their supposed political principles.How then can the experience of a damaged, suffering nature possibly be an alternative to contemporary capitalism? The rise of democratic forces, the economic centrality of the working class—such realities suggest a contesting form of power. When we see images of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, are we not confronted with an image of, and feel emotional responses of, powerlessness and hopelessness, not of a strength capable of overturning the current unjust and literally insane order?In many cases, yes. But perhaps other responses are possible as well. Consider: Your mother, whom you dearly love, is in the hospital, seriously ill. Her case is, almost certainly, hopeless. Would you spend your time and energy only lamenting your loss, bemoaning your inability to become a medical researcher and find the cure? Or would you, retaining the shred of hope in the “almost” and more important seeking to embody the love you feel for her, comfort her, hold her hand, sing to her—simply being present with her despite her suffering, lost functions, and diminished appearance. You could, after all, give love to her, whatever the outcome.(Indeed, for what else are we here?)Cliché that it is, consider “Mother Nature” as the patient. Consider everything that Mother Nature, like a loving human mother, has given us: from the essential structure of the universe, to an evolutionary history sacrificing countless species to arrive at our own, to the bacteria in our own bodies that enable us to function, to the raw material of everything we live in, wear, eat, and play with. Can we not show love—to a polluted stream, an endangered species, a landscape ravaged by “development”? And can we not try to organize society differently: limit the power of fossil fuel corporations and the banks that lend them money, the militarists who want to use resources to kill people and in the process pollute even more, the popular culture of spectacle and distraction that keeps people from thinking, feeling, and acting? Could we not do this at least in part inspired by the example of our natural mother?While “we are doomed” might be the simplest and more accurate slogan for our time, there are still forests, birds, fish, butterflies, and magnificent trees. In the more modest sense of “negation” of offering an alternative to the administered society, nature—along with open and loving connections with other people—remains an alternative. It can offer a respite from madness, an inspiration for good works, a sense of gratitude that doesn't require possession, and something—even without guarantees—worth fighting for.The last point is crucial. It is a perennial failing of radical ideology—perhaps one based in a trope inherited from religion—to believe there are social forces that guarantee success for “our” movement.12 (As God, perhaps, guarantees that the ultimate forces of the universe side with the righteous.) Yet how much history must unfold to show that this is not the case—that, indeed, movements come and go, progress is followed by backlash, and the radical political impulse may wax brilliantly “now” and then diminish to the faintest glow, if it is lit at all?13Perhaps the negation that may come from our connection to a suffering, diminished, and deeply threatened nature can, at best, be a kind of empathy or solidarity. We can resonate with the richness of the web of life, feel the degree to which the same pulsating, striving, dynamic forces that animate a blueberry bush or a butterfly live within us as well. In this solidarity, once again, the force of the acquisitive, individualistic, capitalist-supporting ego is lessened.Such empathy does not lead to a faith-based confidence that we will get to the Promised Land, or that a nonmetaphysical eternal life of the ecosystem's continuity is our birthright. Nor, finally, does it lead to any certainty that with enough demonstrations, successful elections, campaigns around a particular river or pollutant, we will move from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom.14An authentic spiritual connection to nature offers us, rather, the chance to fully embrace—or at least accept—our own natural finitude. The ultimate reality, that is, of our death. And, ultimately, however far off in the future, the death of our sun and the consequent annihilation of the earth. To the extent that the denial of death is an essential constituent of rabid forms of nationalism, religion, and consumerism, the acceptance of death's reality can in this way be another form of negation.Political activism motivated by spiritual connection to nature is not just a possibility, but a living reality. The extended, collective resistance to the XL pipeline was often infused with expressions of Native American values. Explicitly religious responses to pollution and desecration, rooted in the professed spiritual value of nature as God's creation and gift, have been widespread.15 Perhaps most significantly, the Principles of Environmental Justice, which have spread throughout the global environmental community, begin “We must affirm the sacredness of Mother Earth.” This is a vocabulary that is foreign to most secular political movements, and as part of these principles it has taken a leading role in resistance to environmental injustice.16 The implications of these responses to nature as a negation of capitalist “rationality” should be clear.To be sure, the various negations rooted in natural spirituality may seem not only inadequate, but simply irrelevant. I would agree with this estimation if other, more familiar, forms of negation seemed to have sufficient strength to make the transformation of current society likely. Sadly, I find it hard to imagine a compelling argument that issues of race, gender, and class—to list the most frequently listed social structures in this regard—are individually or collectively able to provoke the fundamental social change. Indeed, the global rise in fascism is only possible because these negations, at least for now, do not negate nearly enough.Perhaps nothing will. But if we are not to totally succumb to despair, we must take any shred of hope where we find it: in resistance to the global assault on women, the calamitous rule of capital, the group hatreds, and the cancerous spread of falsehoods. And, as well, in our connection to beings not ruled by the ego and with whom we share the miraculous gift of life.