Monday, January 9, 2006

Is Nature a Brute?

Over at GreenInk, there's been an interesting discussion about cougars, wolves, nature, ranchers, human society and the planet. In arguing that the natural order isn't all it's cracked up to be, one comment suggests that nature can be brutish. My response? In strictly human terms, one could certainly look at it that way.

During the discussion, it was pointed out that people die from preventable disease and, though it may not be "natural" to try to prevent such, it was incumbent on society to attempt to do so. In this way, this particular commentator was trying to show that nature itself could well be improved upon.

From my standpoint, I think the problem with such an argument is bound up in this person's understanding of natural process. By nature, humans have been bestowed with the capacities to think sequentially and to formulate complex thoughts. We are thus able to understand, in a limited way, the workings of the human body and those behaviors, environmental stresses and organisms that might injure or conquer our bodies.

Therefore, it is not unnatural in the least for humans to try prevent disease. In fact, because all beings develop mechanisms to try to insure their very survival, it would go against nature if we did not try to prevent the destruction of our species.

Still, with all that said, it does not negate the question of whether or not nature or life itself can be brutish.

Things happen in our lives that we don't understand. A child is born with a debilitating condition (to read a marvelous book that deals with one family's struggle to understand their child's disabilities, I highly recommend you read Aidan's Way) or dies at a young age. A person happens to be in, what we call, the wrong place at the wrong time and dies tragically. A person, in the prime of their life, is struck down by a horrible disease or is waylayed by circumstances.

If such events involve people we know and/or love, the personal pain that we feel can often be brutish. There's no way to get around this and I'm not saying such feelings are trivial. They bore deep into our beings and sear us with a burning sword.

Once the immediacy of the pain has tempered, it's important to step back to realize that our personal tragedy fits somehow into the wide mosaic of reality. While it may seem senseless to us -- primarily because we have a most provincial view of the whole of reality -- it fits in to the constant ebb and flow of nature, that process that seeks to harmonize all life.

Some may say that's not very comforting. I guess it all depends on one's perspective. Personally, I've never found any solace at all in the Christian notion that the reason a person dies tragically is due to "God's" plan. Since no one seems to know what that plan entails, I don't see how that removes the brutish feelings one experiences.

In the end, there is no way fully to escape the human perspective of the brutishness of death, whether it be tragic or merely inevitable.

In the world of sentient beings, everything eventually dies. In other words, from the standpoint of nature (Tao, the Way) it's truly not brutish at all.

It just is.

[At a later time, I'll discuss if death is something we must necessarily fear.]

12 comments:

  1. that process that seeks to harmonize all life

    How is this substantively different than "God's plan," other than the fact that there's not a guy called God behind it?

    You say from the standpoint of nature (whoever that is) death and suffering aren't really brutish...but who is nature? Do you think it's conscious? And if it's not, how does it even have a standpoint?

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  2. Sara
    You askm"Who is nature" like you would ask who is magnetic force or who is rain. Why does it have to be a who? Is your God a who? Some kind of big guy with a long white beard who's picture is on the ceiling of the Sistine chapel?

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  3. If it's not a who, how is it really a perspective? These things exist, but they aren't sentient - they don't care about anything. I do, though, and if my feelings are hurt or my husband dies, I don't see why the fact that it's a part of nature should matter to me.

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  4. Sara,
    You ask fair questions. I think Dino gave an appropriate answer. "Who" is a human-based question. Because many view themselves as distinct and separate entities, they believe that every other entity in the universe must be distinct and separate too.

    If, on the other hand, one views life as a whole and that all things are manifestations of one cosmic reality, then "who" would never be asked. As Dino suggests, it would be like asking, "Who is the rain?"

    As to you last point, "I don't see why the fact that it's a part of nature should matter to me", you're right. It doesn't have to matter to you. Nature exists whether we want to acknowledge it or not -- though it's kind of hard not to since it envelopes and nurtures us.

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  5. Of course nature exists. I guess my question is - so what? What does it mean to me, besides having air to breathe and food to eat and water to drink? It's pretty useful, but utility and goodness aren't the same thing.

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  6. The reason you should care is that YOU are part of nature and nature is part of you. If you want to better understand yourself, then you need to come to understand how nature works, moves, glides and sings.

    In other words, nature is not some nebulous thing apart from you. Nature is wind, rain, air, cougars, wolves, viruses, rocks, water, homo sapiens, etc. Everything is part of nature. How can you care for yourself if you don't concurrently care for that which makes you possible?

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  7. I'm not having trouble understanding that I exist in the world where I live. I appreciate what nature is and that it's just a word for everything there is, but nature per se doesn't have a particular meaning to me. You say:

    "Once the immediacy of the pain has tempered, it's important to step back to realize that our personal tragedy fits somehow into the wide mosaic of reality. While it may seem senseless to us -- primarily because we have a most provincial view of the whole of reality -- it fits in to the constant ebb and flow of nature, that process that seeks to harmonize all life."

    Why is it important to step back? I don't think I have to step back from a personal tragedy to realize it's occurring in nature/reality. It seems like you're saying that our pain should be alleviated by our recognition that it is a fact amongst other facts, an occurrence amongst other occurrences, a natural thing happening in nature. I should think that when a person dies, it's pretty evident that it happened. The existence of or the occurrence of something is not its own validation. For that matter, something truly tragic has no validation and that's why it hurts.

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  8. If adjectives are part of humans' limited view, then it makes no more sense to say nature is "truly not brutish at all" than to say it is. Surely the only meaningful question to decide is whether, in the way humans can intuit nature, it might fairly be called brutish or not.

    Attempts to escape our epistmological limits can only take place on a rarefied intellectual plane of supposition but not direct experience.

    Anyway, I think all sentient creatures experience the brutishness of nature; even the most pampered of humans knock against that character sooner or later.

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  9. Sara,

    Why is it important to step back? In the immediacy of a tragic loss, we tend to focus solely in on our own feelings. We may feel lost without our beloved and we may feel angry that they have left us to cope with the world without them. At such a time, it's hard to understand how God or Tao or Allah or whomever could allow us to feel such pain and agony.

    As we come to grips with our loss, its good to understand that all beings die and return to the ultimate source. When leaves die, we rake them up and put them in the compost bin so they can nourish the ground anew. In this same vein, when a person dies, their life energy returns to the Tao to nourish the whole of reality.

    Life is about cycles. We live on earth. We die on earth. But the life force is perpetual. So, there's nothing wrong with mourning; in fact, it's healthy. All I'm trying to say is that, for me, it's reassuring to realize that nothing or no one ever completely dies. Their physical body may waste away, but Tao is eternal.

    Idler,

    From my perspective, the reason people look to religion and/or philosophy is that we each know inherently that there is something greater than our solitary existence. I also think that most people would agree that whatever it is, it's genuinely beyond the ability of the human mind to comprehend.

    While none of us can completely comprehend it, we each long to get closer to it or tap into it. To do so means to move beyond the limitations of emotions, intellect and words, to move to a higher consciousness or plane. Some people do this through prayer, others through meditation.

    If a person is lucky enough to ever so briefly tap into this essence, then words like good or bad, right or wrong, kind or brutish hold no meaning.

    When a flower thirsts for water and it rains, does this mean the clouds looked kindly upon the flower or that the flower had been good?

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  10. Trey,

    I stand by my comment (quibble, if you like) that it makes no sense to say that nature is or is not brutish, from a transcendent viewpoint. Otherwise I wholeheartedly agree with what you're saying.

    For sentient creatures nature is a pretty brutal place—which is something that deserves to be emphasized at a time when many foolishly idealize nature.

    But ultimately "nature," or however one might collectively refer to the phenomena of the universe, might be said to be indifferent. To say otherwise is to anthropomorphize, as do "animal rights" activists. We rightly criticize cruel humans for their perversity, but to speak of animal "rights" is to project a human concept on non-human creatures. After all, should the survivors of a mouse be able to sue a cat for civil damages?

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  11. Idler,
    I see no reason to quibble. Different people will understand and express the same concepts in different ways. I'm okay with describing nature or Tao as indifferent. It's not precisely the way I would describe it, but if it allows us to further our discussion, then let's go with it.

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  12. Trey,

    Just to be clear, my parenthetical statement was meant to say that my comment might reasonably be considered a "quibble." I didn't mean it as a challenge to quibble with me. Just so you know I'm not as indifferent to courtesies as nature might be!

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