I recently re-read pragmatist philosopher Williams James' easy The Moral Equivalent of War. It's an essay that I've read a number of times and I think it has merit. In brief, he suggests that young men have always benefitted from military service in terms of the development of character. As a pacifist, James argues for a some form of national service for all young people that will garner the benefits of service in the military, but which will serve the public good—not unlike the forms of national service introduced by Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s. James' proposal seems reasonable, but that’s not what drew my attention on this read. He says this army of the “whole youthful population” will be enlisted against Nature [his capitalization and italics]. He then refers to the “immemorial human warfare against nature.” His words echoed much current public rhetoric regarding the "war" in which we are currently engaged against the novel corona virus. The language of war is the fall back human response to any crisis, from literal boots on the ground wars, to a war on poverty, a war on drugs, and a war on terror.James' war on nature is even more all-encompassing. Though I am big fan of James' pragmatist philosophy, I dissent from the sentiment of "humanity against nature."
It strikes me that this line of thinking is a root of so many of our historical and current troubles. It is not just James. Since ancient times a strong current of human thought its that the human species is different than, higher than, and more important than nature. The theme is so strong as to suggest that we humans are really not part of nature—that nature is essentially not us, and we are not it.
In non-religious writings the "humanity above nature" argument is often framed in terms of rationality. Our developed brains and conscious thinking make us so different to everything else that is that our difference leads us to a deep antagonism with, and a desire to control, nature.
In religious writings the argument is usually framed in terms of humanity being somewhat godlike, and because godlike then only "partly natural." This notion is built on idea that the divine is by definition not natural but rather supernatural. In many traditions this supernatural divine being also has the ultimate power of creation and destruction. If humanity is shaped in the divine image, then humanity too becomes both a creator and destroyer. Of course, it may well be that humanity creates the divine in its own image. Because we are smart and destructive, then God is too. God is like us only bigger and more powerful. If God is above nature and we are in God's image then we are above nature too.
I published a paper a few years ago in which I played with the tropes of "Divine Child" and "Earth Creature"—the former being the refrain that because humanity is in some sense divine, that we are above nature; the latter a minority view (at least in the Greco-Roman, Judeo-Christian traditions) that says being human is a more earthy, natural affair. The former suggests conquest, the latter suggests harmony. James' immemorial war against nature clearly belongs to the former tradition.
And that leaves me uncomfortable. Nature has been around a lot longer than the human species. I dare say that nature will remain a lot longer too. In the great scheme of things we have been around just a short time. And still we have the hubris to think that nature will bow to our will, that we can control nature, and that we will "win the war."
What if we replace the hubris with the modesty that says we are merely a part of nature and need to find ways to get along with it— brother sun and sister moon, brother wind and sister water, in the words of St. Francis? What if the divine is imaged not above nature with the power of creation and destruction, but a part of nature, in nature's beauty, intricacy and ambiguity? What would a harmonization with nature look in like in terms of the Covid-19 virus and other areas of human tension with nature?
Stay well and healthy,
+Ab.Andy