Philosophy
The Earth Mother has begun to trickle into science, western society, and environmental philosophies. Between science and religion lies philosophy. Here we find people using science to support their own ideas, which often have similarities to ancient religious beliefs, and also people who have first person accounts of the Earth Mother’s wisdom. Some philosophers study books, others observe nature.
One of the first documented observers of nature was Henry David Thoreau who had many first person accounts of the solutions and problems regarding the Earth Mother with his experience of living near Walden pond in the mid-1840’s. His book Walden (1966) served as inspiration for many philosophers and thinkers thereafter. Thoreau went to Walden for many reasons such as "to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life." In the "marrow" Thoreau found that, "It is life near the bone where it is sweetest," and above all, "Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!" At the same time he found a complexity in the details of Nature, herself, which is illustrated in Walden (1966) with the detailed and objective stories about Nature. He wrote, "The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly." His observations of life had many examples, like his reflection on an insect, of which seemed oblivious to his presence while Thoreau thought to himself how some greater entity might be observing him as he scurries about, obliviously. This view was just the beginning of the widening of our view of the universe. The dreams of a wider view of the world, which Thoreau had, have developed into the ideas previously discussed in Lewis Thomas's book The Lives Of A Cell (1974) and James Lovelock's book about Gaia when both of these scientists discussed the scope of life going beyond the subatomic particles and the Gaia organism. Thoreau knew that people needed to widen such views because even in his day the Earth Mother seemed to be taking too much abuse. “The surface of the earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths which the mind travels. How worn and dusty, then, must be the highways of the world, how deep the ruts of tradition and culture.” Still, he did not believe that Nature, herself, was completely destructible or weak. On the contrary he said, “Nature is as well adapted to our weakness as to our strength.” He also wrote that Nature "is likely to outlive all her children yet.” However, today, with the emerging of Gaia in a new light, we can see that these ruts and highways are beginning to be lined with respectful worshipers, protesters, and scientists who all are waking up to these ideas, which were so alien in Thoreau's time. With the old philosophies and the new concepts we are able to see that the Earth Mother will take care of us if we take care of her, but in the same notion if we abuse her, she will give us a taste of our own medicine.
Henry David Thoreau's asked in Walden (1966), “What are we celebrating?” in civilization. Thomas Berry wrote in, The Dream Of The Earth (1988), “For too long we have been away somewhere, entranced with our industrial world of wires and wheels, concrete and steel, and our unending highways, where we race back and forth in continual frenzy” thus celebrating civilization in this way. However, Berry has a different, wider view of celebrating, “the universe, by definition, is a single gorgeous celebratory event.” With this wider view of celebrating we can truly appreciate celebrating, but without it we find that we are caught in that civilized celebration, which is not always enjoyable and appears to be war to most other creatures. Civilization lets us loose ourselves according to Thomas Berry, but he has some very inspiring ideas that might remedy this problem. Berry recognizes the importance to strengthen, “the relationship between the human community and the earth process.” He continues and emphasizes, “A truly human intimacy with the earth and with the entire natural world is need.” The real question becomes how to achieve this connection or intimate relationship with the Earth Mother. Berry's answer is, “Our best procedure might be to consider that we need not a human answer to an earth problem, but an earth answer to an earth problem. The earth will solve its problems, and possibly our own, if we will let the earth function in its own ways. We need only to listen to what the earth is telling us.” Though The Dream Of The Earth (1988) is a brilliant book, Berry’s teachings tell us to not just read books but learn from the Earth Mother herself.
The thought of listening to the Earth Mother is nothing new, the Bible, ancient indigenous myths, and many religious scriptures have told their readers time and time again to listen to the Earth Mother. No one but the Earth Mother, herself, knows what is truly best for her. John Burroughs in his essays Nature Near Home And Other Papers (1913) said, “When people ask me, ‘How shall we teach our children to love nature?’ I reply: ‘Do not try to teach them at all. Just turn them loose in the country and trust to luck.’” Maybe the way for children and adults to understand nature is to do what Thoreau did, experience it first hand and try to taste that “marrow.” Listening to nature for some is thought of as a metaphorical concept, but to Derek Jensen it is very literal. Jensen wrote the book A Language Older Than Words (2004), in which he reflects on his own experiences as well as discussing this language which nature speaks universally, but to which we seldom listen to. “There is a language older by far and deeper than words. It is the language of bodies, of gesture, symbol, and memory. We have forgotten the language. We do not even remember that it exists.” Some people are beginning to remember what Jensen feared we had all forgotten. This may be because nature is trying to get us to remember. Freeman House wrote a book called Totem Salmon (1999) where she quotes David Abram saying, “Naturally, the mountains, the creatures, the entire non-human world is struggling to make contact with us.” Also, House quotes Abram again: “The plants we eat or smoke are trying to ask us what we are up to; the animals are signaling to us in our dreams or in forests; the whole Earth is rumbling and straining to let us remember that we are of it, that this planet, this microcosm is our flesh, that the grass are our hair, the trees our hands, the rivers our blood, that the Earth is our real body and that it is alive.” So it is possible that the Earth Mother is reaching out to us as she begins to suffer and teach us. But we must still make to effort to recognize her and see her in ourselves.
The movement from nature observations into modern philosophy was in part inspired by a forester and wildlife manager named Aldo Leopold who wrote the inspiring book The Sand County Almanac (1987). This book, which contains beautiful and poetic accounts of nature, is most well known by its essay and eventually philosophy called The Land Ethic. This essay presents guidelines for how to manage the land, because Leopold believed that the ethics of land conservation, management, and forestry were still based on economic self-interest and has been made so simple as to make it trivial. He pointed out problems in attitudes and implements of the conservation process calling it “dangerous” and “devoid of critical understanding either of the land or of economic land-use.” His ideas for a land ethic were based on a few statements such as, “The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land.” He also states, “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community.” Though his words were beyond his time, today he is regarded as the founder of eco-centrism or the holistic movement. His goal was to make people realize that they should have a land ethic of their own in their heart. He did believe that the government should practice better conservation skills. However, his main focus was on the common person and trying to make people understand that they have obligations to the land, which provides for them. He saw the land as something that was greater than individuals. This is shown in the next passage, “Only the mountain has lived long enough to listen objectively to the howl of a wolf.” He too believed that the Earth is our Mother and we must respect her. Even in 1949, when The Land Ethic was written, it was obvious to Leopold that the wilderness has been “hammered” by “the artifact called civilization.” Leopold saw the Earth Mother as a delicate creature that may perish if disturbed and put out of balance. This is why he stresses the importance for humans to show respect and responsibility to the Earth Mother. Leopold's views of the Earth Mother's delicacy differ from the views of James Lovelock or Lynn Margulis who both saw the earth as “a tough bitch,” in Margulis’ words which were written in Symbiotic Planet (1998). The balance and health of the Earth Mother is a problem that must be solved for the human species to survive. The solutions are extremely difficult to pinpoint because we are humans trying to see the world objectively, which is nearly impossible.
To find solutions, the problems must first be recognized. Rachel Carson heard the Earth Mother’s voice and felt truly hurt by the treatment the Earth Mother received. In the 1960’s she wrote Silent Spring (1962) a book which helped the banning of many deadly poisons such as DDT. She had a wonderful understanding of how soil, water, air, and life are connected. She wrote, “Without soil, land plants as we know them could not grow, and without plants no animals could survive.” Also she wrote that in the same sense soil is dependent upon the death and decay of life, “Soil is, in part, a creation of life.” As this connectiveness is examined she wrote, "The earth's vegetation is part of a web of life in which there are intimate and essential relations between plants and the earth, between plants and other plants, between plants and animals." Therefore, "...in nature nothing exists alone." Carson saw that in an agricultural society these connections are lost.
The story of the plow shows us how agriculture brought us further away from the earth. In the beginning, before the modern plow, the farmer had to carefully respect his fields and plow them with his single horse and bare hands. This made him develop a relationship with the land. In modern times, the new plow is a tractor which the common man can afford. Therefore, commercial industry takes control of the cultivation of the land and hires help. This is how nature became something man could exploit.
Solutions to help people break away from their habits of exploitation were explored by a metaphysical system for environmental ethics that was developed by Alfred North Whitehead in the 1960’s. Out of his teachings emerged many people who reflected upon his writings. Susan Armstrong-Buck wrote a discussion paper for her students at Humboldt State University which came from Environmental Ethics (1986) and summarizes Whitehead’s views in simple terms. Apparently, Whitehead presented that the Earth as a whole and each individual thing on the Earth has intrinsic value, which is defined as “value in and of itself independent of human preferences.” He emphasizes the need for both an understanding of “basic unity” as well as “the uniqueness of individual beings.” Despite his efforts to develop understanding, he still states in his book Modes (1938), “we can never fully understand. But we can increase our penetration.” Whitehead developed five important points that help one penetrate his philosophy easily: “(1) Each individual thing is irreplaceably valuable because each thing is a novel, creative contribution to the world; (2) Each thing is inseparably related to all other things; (3) Each thing experiences its own process of self-creation and hence is intrinsically valuable because it is self-significant; (4) The differences between things are due to differences in organization of constituent elements; (5) There is a purpose in the natural order, a striving toward novelty, harmony, complexity, and intensity of experience, which is part of what we mean by the presence of divinity in the world process and which allows us to make comparative value judgments.” He also wrote, “We are in the world and the world in us” in a book complied by Ruth Nanda Anshen called Alfred North Whitehead: His Reflections On Man And Nature (1961). Though he is humble and realizes that humans cannot be anthropocentric, his metaphysical system helps a student penetrate deep into ecology. His philosophy is well rounded, giving broad views and narrow accounts.
Another, philosopher is Albert Schweitzer who wrote A Place For Revelation (1988) and made a similar statement, "Wherever you see life—that is yourself!" Likewise, "In everything you recognize yourself." He also wrote about how strange it truly is that people cut flowers and put their dying corpse into vases and pretend that these dead bodies are beautiful symbols of nature. He thought that someday history classes will teach our children that in the ancient cultures people had barbaric rituals of cutting and displaying dead flowers. Hopefully this sacrifice will appall the children of the future as we are appalled by human sacrifice.
As we explore these philosophical ideas we will find new emerging concepts
in our own minds. This is how movements and groups began to form, such
as a group called "A Council of all Beings" which put together
a book called Thinking Like A Mountain (1988) where many authors
have published their writings. Among them was John Seed who wrote in an
essay called “Beyond Anthropocentrism.” He states that we
need to expand our thinking and broaden our concept of protecting the
Mother Earth. He says we must learn to think in a new way. "I am
part of the rainforest protecting myself. I am that part of the rainforest
recently emerged into thinking." This union of humans and nature
can feel like quite a relief. We are not separate from nature. This according
to Seed is usually a great relief to people. Furthermore, Seed writes,
"We are the rocks dancing. Why do we look down on them with such
a condescending air? It is they that are the immortal part of us."
John Seed became well known for his wise words, but the council was not
so lucky and stayed small.
Some of the most progressive environmental movements have been Earth First!,
The Sierra Club, and Natural Conservancy. Dave Foreman was the founder
of Earth First! He also participated in the Sierra Club and Natural Conservancy.
His visions of the Earth were some the most radical in his time. In his
book Confessions Of An Eco-Warrior (1991) he wrote about humans
as animals and their role in the real world, the wilderness, opposed to
the artificial world of materialism. His love for the Earth as a living
organism inspired many “eco-warriors” in his time and beyond.
Earth First! is still very active today; however, some of Foreman’s
more radical ideas of the “warrior” have been put aside to
make way for more peaceful and nonviolent centered views. “A warrior
recognizes that there is a greater reality outside life that must be defended,”
wrote Foreman in Confessions Of An Eco-Warrior (1991). This defense
is still very much alive. Dave Foreman had hoped to make people realize
that they needed to change their personal lifestyles to be in balance
with the rest of the Earth and it seems that his impact did change many
people who were already involved in the deep ecology movement. The term
deep ecology was first used by Arne Naess who made the study of ecology
change from being a shallow study of the ecosystem to a deep philosophy.
Some of the main ideas in deep ecology are that we are not separate from
nature and we should not think we own the earth. Naess developed complex
systems to achieve self-realization with the path of deep ecology.
Deep ecology and radical groups like Earth First! helped support movement toward great achievements like the now progressing idea of Earth liberation. Rights for nature began with animal liberation which has achieved the Endangered Species Act but is often viewed as too narrow, yet it is so basic. It is in our own best interest to give nature rights because, as Edward Abbey puts it in his book A Voice Crying In The Wilderness (1989), “I am in favor of animal liberation. Why? Because I'm an animal.” Furthermore, we are also connected with the plants, rocks, waters, and gases of this Earth Mother. Likewise, if plants have feelings, thoughts, and/or sentience then the animal rights activists may have stopped too soon. Jeremy Bentham has the famous quote regarding animal rights, which is in Environmental Ethics (1998), “Do they suffer?” and if they do, then they must have rights just as people do. Now, with the research found in The Secret Life Of Plants (1973) we begin to wonder if plants, like animals, can suffer too, and thus feel. If they do, then our scope of rights may expand beyond animals to plants, and if they go that far there is no reason why rights should stop with individual creature. Since it is well known that all aspects of the Earth Mother are interconnected, then human rights, if respected, would encompass all parts of the Earth Mother.
The first plants and “natural objects” rights pioneer may have been Christopher Stone who wrote in Should Trees Have Standing? (1974), “I am quite seriously proposing that we give legal rights to forests, oceans, rivers and other so-called ‘natural objects’ in the environment—indeed, to the natural environment as a whole.” The battle to achieve rights for all parts of nature is well discussed in the book The Rights Of Nature (1989), which is written by Roderick Frazier Nash but contains countless quotes from famous people. Among Nash's writings he quotes Theodore Roszak (1978) writing, “Nature must also have its natural rights.” He also quotes John Muir (1867) as saying, "How blind to the rights of all the rest of creation!" and David R. Brower (1971), “I believe in the rights of creatures other than man.” These quotes go on and on as Nash shows us how we can no longer ignore the rest of nature. We must expand our views of rights just as we have in the past to think of women and black Africans as more than merely property. We have seen this emerging recently. On the internet you can now find groups fighting for the human rights to cleaner air and cleaner water.
The list of philosophers who wrote about Mother Earth could continue endlessly, but such complexity might make the entire philosophy seem arbitrary. A few more important philosophers include, John Muir, who wrote about his personal accounts in the wilderness in various books. Other famous figures include Stephen Jay Gould, Edward O. Wilson, Holmes Rolston III, Tom Regan and Peter Singer. Further exploration of deep ecology, environmental ethics, and ecocentrism or holism is a good idea if this subject fascinates you.