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THE DOMINATION

OF

N A TU R E


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his page intentionally left blank


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T H E

D O M I N A T I O N

OF

N A T U R E

William

Leiss

M cG i l l -Q ueen ' s U n ive r s i t y P re s s

M on t r ea l & K ings ton London

B u f f a l o


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McGil l-Queen 's Universi tyPress 1994

ISBN

0-7735-1698-9

Legal deposit second quarter 1994

Bibliothque nationaledu Qubec

Printed

in

Canada

on

acid-free paper

Reprinted in paper 1998

First published in 1972 by George B raziller; first publishe d in

paperback in 1974 by Beacon

Press.

This book has been publishe dwiththe help of a grant

from

the Canada C ouncil through its block grant program.

CanadianCataloguing

in

Publication Data

Leiss,

W illiam , 1939-

The dom ination of nature

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-7735-1198-9

1.

Man -

Influence

on

nature.

2.

Science

and

civilization.

3.

Technology

and

civilization.

4.

Philosophy

of

nature.

5.H um an ecology. I.Title.

BD581.L44 1994 113 C94-900223-2


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for m y parents,

Ethel

Bertha

Walter

and

William

Leiss,

Sr

(1907-1953)


7/269



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CONTENTS

Preface to the 1994 R eprin t ix

PART O N E

In Pursuit of an Idea: Historical Perspectives

1

The

Cunning

of

Unreason

3

2 M ythical, R eligious, and Philosophical R oots 25

3

Francis B acon

45

4 The Seventeenth Century and

After

73

PART TW O

Science, Technology,

and the

Domination

of

Nature

5 Science and Dominat ion 101

6

Science

and

Nature

125

7 Technology and Dominat ion 145

8 The Liberation of N ature ? 167

Appendix Technological R at iona l i ty: M arcuse

and His Critics 199

Notes and References 213

List

of

Works Cited

223

Index

233


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Preface

to the

1994 Reprint

The

Domination

of

Nature

was first

published twenty-three

years ago and, al though it had not been designed to do so,

caught the first wave of widespread interest in environmental

issues.

1

It was recognized then that "environmental con-

cerns

include

not

only such things

as

contaminated sites,

the

use of toxic chemicals in industry, and protection of old

growth forest and endangered wildl i fe species but also the ef-

fects

of envi ron m ental pol lutants on hu m an heal th. Some of

the strongest images used in presenting these concerns were

based on the notion of a unified planetary fatefor instance,

our r ide throughthe cosmos on "Spaceship Earth"an d w ere

supported

by scientific

concepts such

as

ecosystem

and

bio-

sphere. R ecently en viro nm en tal issues have reappeared near

the top of the

lists

of

public concerns

in

many industr ial-

ized countries, reinforced once again by planetary dynamics

1.

A s this is a reprint edition, th e

book

itself has not

been altered.

I am

indebted

to

Lori Walker, Ph.D. candidate

at

Simon

Eraser, for

assist-

ance with

the

materials referred

to in

this Preface.

ix


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X

T H E

D O M I N A T I O N

O F

N A T U R E

such

as threats of global warming (or cooling) and ozone

depletion.

Global politics has played its part in this increased con-

cern. The sudden disintegration of the former Soviet Union

and

its

Eastern European satellites revealed

a

legacy

of en-

vi ronmenta l degradation of almost unthinkable proport ions.

Nature has

been "under

siege

there

due to the

shockingly

careless treatment

of

huge quant i t ies

of

envi ronmental con-

t aminants

and a series of m adcap econom ic-developm ent

schemes that paid no heed whatsoever to ecosystem im-

pacts.

2

It is

expected that

the

already existing burden

on the

planetary biosphere

wi l l

become even heavier when full in-

dustr ial development is achieved in some of the world 's most

populous

countries, especially India

and

China.

One of the

basic requirements for such development is energy. In China

this wil l be supplied by coal, because of the great abundance

of

reserves there. The result ing atmospheric loading

from

air

pollutants m ay more than cancel out, for the globe as a

whole , whatever

all

other nations

can do

collectively

in the

same period by inve sting considerable sum s in po llution-

reducing

technologies.

In

contemplat ing the

prospects

for changing all this on a

planetary scale we are faced

wi th

the "supertanker effect": a

fu l ly

loaded supertanker commanded toexecute a

180-degree

turn wil l

be forced by its m o m e n t u m to cont inue moving in

the

original direction

for

some considerable distance. Sim-

i larly, given the existing and expected pattern of human ac-

t ivity

on a

global scale

with

respect

to

fossil fuel consump-

t ion, destruction of tropical rain forest and other elimination

of wildlife habitat , air and water pollution, agricultural soil

productivi ty

depletion, and other factors, coupled with the re-

moteness

of a unified

polit ical consensus

on how to

assign

2. M. Feshbach and A. Friendly, Jr, Ecocide

in the USSR:

Health

and

Nature under

Siege (New York: Harper Coll ins 1992).


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Preface

xi

responsibil i ty for

these

effects or the

measures needed

to re-

place them with less damaging ones, we can see how far we

are

from

being able to give the order to execute an about-

turn.

(Which is not to deny than any mo v e in the right direc-

tion, however small, is welcome.) There is some reason to

believe that the geopolitics of the

twenty-firs t

century

wil l

become increasingly concerned wi th the supertanker

effect

in

the

environment ,

and

even that this

is

what wil l characterize

the n ext century best : a cen tury of env ironm ental cris is on a

world scale.

O n

a

more theoretical plane, environmental concerns

are

unavoidably connected with our being as a natural species,

with

all aspects of the relation between humani ty and i t s

natural environment. Here the overriding question is how it

can be

appropriate

to

separate what

is

merely

one

na tura l

en-

tity among countless others from its embeddedness in the

larger order that sustains itto conceive it as standing apart

and

against i ts sustaining homeand then to relate i t back to

thatorder as if i t were autonomous. As we know, this is how

the dominant religious tradition of Western civilization

frames

the relation between humanity and nature. But a sec-

ular tradition grounded in the modern natural sciences cannot

do this, since it must treat human consciousness as simply

the idiosyncratic but logically possible result of a particular

path

of natural selection. In this secular tradition the proof

of our

uniqueness

is not the

revelation

of a

divine plan

but

rather our ever-increasing abili ty to manipulate natural pro-

cesses

to

accomplish

our

self-chosen ends:

for

example,

altering the genetic makeup of individuals to eliminate inher-

ited diseases. Interestingly, both the religious and secular

traditions raise

the

same broad issues:

Do we as a

species

have

a "responsibility" to the rest of na tu re ? A re we obliged

to

respect

the

au tonomy

and

well-being

of

other natural

entit ies? If so, what action does this responsibili ty require?

These and other closely related themes have received ex-


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x i i T H E

D O M I N A T I O N

O F

N A T U R E

tensive treatment by various scholars since The Domination

of

Nature w as first pub l i shed . The i r work may be divided

into tw o categories: s tud ies that deal w ith intel le ctu al his tory

(how the "atti tude" or concept of mastery over nature arose

and

developed)

and

those that deal wi th

the

pract ical out-

comes of this "at t i tud e" (w ha t dam age has been done in its

name ,

and

w h a t

w e

m u s t

do to

repair i t) .

In

the first category, the role of our Judaeo-Christian

legacyepitomized

in the

in junct ion

to

h u m a n i t y

to

"master

the

Ear th" found

in the first

book

of

Genes isin shaping

m odern a t t i tud es towards nature

has

been considered exhaust-

ively. The resul ts are s u m m e d up de f in i t ive ly in Je remy

Cohen ' s Be Fertile and Increase,

Fill

the

Earth

and Master

It.

3

Cohen show s tha t

w e

cannot

(as

some once thought)

lay

the

b lame

for an

uncar ing a t t i tude towards

the

natura l envi-

ronm ent and it s no nh um an creatures on the endu ring inf lu-

ence of biblical texts. This

def ini t ive

work supports the

general thrust of my argument in chapter 3 of The

Domination of

Nature:

Francis Bacon, in forming the modern

consciousness

of the

idea

of

mastery over nature ,

was not at-

tempting

to

transfer

the

immensely inf luent ia l Judaeo-

Christ ian cultural inheri tance

in its

original religious form

to

a new context , but rather w as a t tempt ing to

transmute

it into

3. (Ithaca: Cornell Universi ty Press 1989); see a lso Alan Rudrum,

"Domination over

All the

Earth: Early Modern Thought

and

Ecological

Crisis" (un pub lishe d, Sim on Fraser

Universi ty,

Department

of

English

1990). There h av e been at least tw o in tere stin g atte m pts to explore em -

pirical evidence for a correlation between adherence to a Judaeo-

Christian faith

and a

"mastery-over-nature orientation,"

and the

relation

between these two and varying types of concern about contemporary

environmental problems: C.M. Hand and K.D. Van Liere, "Religion,

Mastery-over-Nature, and Env ironm ental Concern," Social Forces 63

(1984): 555-70,

and

Rona ld

G .

Shaiko, "Religion, Poli t ics ,

and

Environmental

Concern." Social Science Quarterly

68

(June 1987):

244-61.


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Preface xiii

a whol ly di f ferent form, a form appropriate for the age of

secular

science

and

technology that

w as

dawning .

In the in-

tervening

period others, such as Carolyn M erc ha nt, ha ve

looked

at

Bacon's work

from a

quite

dif ferent

perspect ive

and

have uncovered in its language and imagery a discourse

saturated with gender-based representation: nature

is the fe-

male to be dominated and violated.

4

Other studies of the history and philosophy of science

since

the

Renaissance have also reinforced

one of the key

themes

in

Part

1 of

The

Domination

of

Nature:

that un de r ly-

ing the

revolution

in

world-view (Copernican astronomy)

and

in fundamental concepts in physics and chemistry was an-

other, even more radical transformation

in

thought , namely ,

the demand that proof of progress in the sciences of nature

should be sought in the practical e f f i c a c y of discoveries, in

particular

in

their demonstrable capacity

to

enhance

the

qua l -

ity

of

human l i fe .

We owe

this immensely

significant

change

to the strenuous efforts of the alchemists, especially the fol-

lowers

of

Paracelsus,

w ho

warred against

the

sterile

na tura l

philosophies entrenched in the universities. Their outlook

eventually

infused

the

work

of

those seventeenth-

and

eighteenth-century t i tans who laid the foundations of modern

natural science. Almost

all the

most important work, interest-

ingly

enough, was undertaken by private scholars and acad-

emies entirely separate from the university establishments of

their day.

5

During this same period, as we know

from

Kei th Thomas 's

exhaustive survey, the theme of the mastery of nature was

diffused

widely

in

English social thought. Thomas charts

its

rise and fall over the course of four centuries, beginning in

the

Tudor and Stuart age when "the characteristic attitude

4. The

Death

of Nature (San Francisco: Harper & Row

1980),

chapter 7.

5. Allen G .

Debus, Man and

Nature

in the

Renaissance (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press 1978), chapter 8.


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X i v

T H E

D O M I N A T I O N

O F

N A T U R E

was one of

exaltation

in

hard-won human dominance"

and

when

man's dominion over nature "was the sel f-consciously

proclaimed ideal of early modern

scientists,"

expressed in

"aggressively despotic

imagery."

6

It is a fascinating story,

for

what seems to have happened is that the growing sense

of

command ove r

a

wider terri tory (the voyages

of

discovery

and the subjugat ionof native peoples in the new world) , and

the simultaneous awareness

of a

greater human capacity

to manipulate nature 's physical and chemical processes

producing very concrete material benefitsserved to rein-

force this convenient rationalization for t radi t ional forms of

brutal

exploi tat ion

of

both other humans

and the

entire ani-

m al

world. "The ethic of human dominat ion removed animals

from

the

sphere

of

hum an concern.

But it

also legitimized

the

i l l-treatment of those humans who were in a supposedly an-

imal condit ion."

7

A nd

yet, ironically,

as

Thomas shows, per-

haps just because the new dominat ion theme highl ighted

these rationalizations, giving them a systematic form and

thus

crystall izing them

in

consciousness,

it set in

motion

a

reaction against itself that

led to

diametrically

opposed

sen-

t iments : opposition

to

t reat ing other humans

like beasts, re-

vulsion against cruelty to animals, a sense that even plant life

w as entitled to some protection against human depredation;

in

short,

to the

beginnings

of

that at t i tude which

sees

nature

as a collection of autonomous entit ies with intrinsic worth.

Thomas concludes that

the

tension between

the

ability

of hu-

mani ty to enlarge i ts well-being by dominating i ts surround-

ings,

on the one

hand,

and a

nagging gui l t over

the

con-

sequences of this domination for the rest of nature, on the

other,

is

"one

of the

contradict ions upon which modern

civil ization

may be

said

to

rest.

8

6. Keith Thomas, Man and the

Natural W orld: Changing Attitudes

in

England

1500-1800 (London: Allen Lane 1983), 28-9.

7. Ibid., 44.

8. Ibid.,

302-3.


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Preface xv

Others also have been concerned

wi th

what they perceive

to be the

de tr im en tal aspects

of the

centur ies

o f

hum an deve l-

opment based on the not ion of mastery over nature . Barry

Cooper

has

argued forcefully that this notion i tself

is

inap-

propriate, for nei ther nature nor modern technology ( the

m ode through wh ich hu m an i ty acts on nature) ought to be

considered to be the

slave

of hu m an des ire.

9

Anothe r def in-

itive contribution along these l ines

is

Albe r t Borgmann ' s

Technology

and the

Character

of

Contemporary

Life,

a phi l -

osophical meditat ion

ful l

of

splendid insights that contrasts

the shallowness of technological devices

wi th

the deep ex-

perience represented by wilderness.

10

M ax Oelschlaeger 's

The

Idea of Wilderness is a more recent essay along these

same lines, with a broader sweep.

11

Another important essay,

which emphasizes the inherent diff icult ies w e face in any at-

tempt

to

overcome

the separation

be tween humankind

and

its

na tura l envi ronment , is Nei l Evernden ' s

Natural

Alien.

12

Finally, there is a large and sti l l-growing li terature in the

fieldof "envi ronmental

ethics

( including a scholar ly jou rnal

by

that name), which includes the very important phi losophi-

cal argu m ents on anim al r ights and the r ights of other ent i t ies

by

Peter Singer, Tom Regan, Holmes Rolston III , Chris-

topher Stone,

and

others.

13

Some wri ters have proffered solut ions based on

different

att i tudes toward

the

re la t ion between humani ty

and

nature.

9.

Action into Nature: An Essay on the Meaning of Technology

(Notre

Dame: Univers i ty

of

Notre Dame Press 1991), 226-34.

On the

same

themes com pare W illiam Leiss,

Un der Technology's Thum b

(Montrea l :

McGill-Queen's Univers i tyPress 1990), chapters 4, 5.

10.

(Chicago: Univers i ty

of

Chicago Press 1984),

see

especially chapter

22,

"The Challenge of Nature."

11.

(N ew Ha ven : Yale Univ ers i ty Press 1991).

12. (Toronto: U nive rs i ty of Toronto Press 1985).

13.

For one

genera l summary,

see

Holmes Rols ton III , Environmental

Ethics

(Philadelphia: Temple U nive rs i ty

Press

1988).


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x v i T H E

D O M I N A T I O N

O F

N A T U R E

Specific themes of interest on this plane are, for example,

deciding w h a t

are our

dut ies

(in an

ethical sense)

to

an imal sor

to the

entire

set of

l iving enti t iesand

to the

fo rms of the physical environment that sustain all

life

pn

ear th ; knowing how our at t i tudes toward the natural

order

m ay be shaped by deeply rooted cu ltur al dete rm ination s, such

as representations of gender; and recognizing that focusing

on the

concept

of a

na tura l

order

that subsists entirely apart

from all human technolog ica l manipula t ionssuch as the

idea (and the reality) of wilderness, or "nature in its primeval

character," to use Alber t Borgmann 's phrase

14

could ac tu-

a l ly

help us to reorganize our social order in sensible ways.

Those

w ho

have advanced these

and

related themes

in

recent

years share one conviction: it is past time for our culture to

abandon, once

and for

all,

the

not ion that humani ty r ightful ly

can and should exercise absolute dominion over the rest of

nature for i ts own

benefit .

Paul Taylor ' s

Respect

for Nature: A

Theory

of En-

vironmental Ethics takes

the

fur ther step

of

uni fy ing envi-

ronmenta l and human ethics through the general concept of

"respect

for nature," which is explained thus: "One w ho

takes the attitude of respect for nature toward the individual

organisms, species-populations, and biotic communities of

the

Earth's natural ecosystems regards those entities and groups

of entities as possessing inherent worth, in the sense that

their value or worth does not depend on their being valued

for

their usefulness

in

furthering human ends

(or the

ends

of

any

other species). When such

an

attitude

is

adopted

as one's

ultimate moral attitude,

I

shall speak

of

that person

as

having

respect for nature.

15

This attitude generates four morally

14. Technology and the Character of Contemporary

Life,

186.

15. (Princeton : Princeton Universi ty Press 1986), 46; italics in original.On

page 95 Taylor explicit ly contrasts "respect for nature" with the "con-

quest" of nature. Compare the different approach in Leiss, Under

Technology's Thumb, ch. 6, especially pages 87-90.


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Preface

xvi i

binding rules that should guide human conduct in its treat-

ment of

natural life:

(1) the

duty "not

to do

harm

to any en-

tity

in the

natural environment that

has a

good

of its

own" ;

(2) the duty "to let wild creatures live out their

lives

in free-

dom," i.e., in a wild state; (3) the duty not to deceive wild

animals, e.g., by setting traps; (4) the duty to make restitu-

tion for the violation of the foregoing rules through a "coun-

tervailing good, for example, recreating a destroyed

ecosystem

in

another place.

Sinc3equite obviouslyhumans

must

destroy other enti-

ties

and

their habitats

in

order

to

survive

and

develop, these

rules must

be

integrated with

the

rightful interests

of the

h u m a n species. Taylor seeks

to do

this with

a

series

of pr in-

ciples designed to reconcile the competing rights of hu-

mans and other entities: for example, the principles of self-

defence, proport ional i ty, and minimum wrong. The basic

thrust

of these principles is to art iculate

limits

on the asser-

tion of human interests vis-a-vis those of all other natural en-

tities. Taylor's principles

are

s u m m e d

up by

Bi l l McKibben

in The End

of Nature

as the

hope that humans

can

still make

"the necessary mental adjustments to ensure that we'l l never

again put our good ahead of everything

else's.

16

Doing this

might ,

he

suggests, make

it

possible

to

retain

the

nature that

stands apart f rom human interests as an autonomous being or

collection

of

beings.

In

the past two decades some practical frameworks for set-

ting l imits on our social and economic behaviour have been

described

under the

headings

of

steady-state

economics and

"sustainable development." Although the latter phrase in par-

ticular quickly entered the liturgy of politics in North

America and elsewhere, little more than lip-service has been

paid

to

either

of

these concepts. This should occasion little

surprise, for the job of actually halt ing or reversing envi ron-

16. (New York: Random House 1989), 213-14.


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T H E

D O M I N A T I O N

O F

N A T U R E

menta l degradat ion on a world scalewhich requires s tabi-

l izing

the h u m a n

populat ion

at

some sensible level

and

ensur ing

that

none are driven to despoil their surroundingsin

order to eke out m ere su rviv al w ill be a labour of ce nturies.

H u m a n i t y ' s en t i t l emen t

to

mastery over nature

is a

subterra-

nean theme that runs th roughoutthe collective consciousness

of the modern era. By "the modern era" I mean the epoch of

world

history that begins

wi th

the

Renaissance

in

Western

Europe

and is

defined

by a

miss ion

to

enhance secular power

in

the

mater ia l world .

Its

collective consciousness

is

f ramed

above all by a

thoroughly secular natural science. Scienti f ic

theory

w as joined first to a practical and e m pirical orientation

through

crude technologies, housed

in

dom estic laboratories,

and later to an im m ense indust r ia l apparatus

from

which use-

ful

inn ov ation s ha ve cascaded endlessly. This m odern con-

sciousness

eventua l ly over f lowed

its

European boundaries

and gradual ly infiltrated

all

other civilizations, requiring tra-

ditional

cultures

to find

some

way to

accommodate them-

selves to its representation of the relation between hu m an ity

and the

rest

of

nature.

The idea that humani ty could achieve mastery over the rest

of

nature through th e accumulat ion of scientific and techno-

logical knowledge, first

fully

articulated by Francis Bacon at

the

beginning

of the

seventeenth cen tury, displeased m any

in-

fluential figures in the

ruling intellectual eli te

ofBacon's day

and

did not become widelyaccepted in European civilization

unti l about

the

middle

of the

eighteenth century. Although

not

itself a

product

of capitalism, the idea of mastery over

nature meshed nicely

with

it, and the victory of capitalist so-

cial relations over older institu tion al form s of economic life,

first in Europe and then elsewhere on the globe, also ce-

mented the trium ph of mo dern science over com peting sys-

tems

of natural philosophy.

xv


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Preface

xix

The affinity between capitalism and modern science is not

hard

to

fa thom.

In its

pure form capitalism erodes

all

"natu-

ralistic" or personal ized foundat ions of t radi t ional economic

behavioursuch as inherited

caste

determinat ions of labour

supply, elite monopolies based

on

blood relations,

or deeply

rooted cul tural f rames (gender, region, language)and at-

tempts to base economic activity solely on the abstract im -

perat ives of market-driven supply and demand over the

widest possible geographic domain, ult imatelyuni t ing the en-

tire

globe into a single market. Modern science is

similar ly

inherently universalist ic in

scope,

and l ikewise strives to

expel from

its

practice

all

personalized factors such

as the

alchemists ' belief that moral perfection was aprerequ isite for

understanding natureand cul tural f ramesfor example, the

demand

that

the

results

of

scient i f ic inquiry must confirm

the

t ruths

of some faith. A dialectical movement operates in

both. Each demands that th e idea of determinat ion by the cir-

cumstances that confront

us

directly

be

continual ly ques-

tioned:

in

economic life,

the

idea that productive forces must

be limited to wha t can be accomplished within predetermined

limits, such

as the

relation

of

feudal lord

and

serf

or a

divi-

sion of labour based on gender; in the understanding of na-

ture,

the

belief that

the

laws

of

nature must

be

consistent with

the laws of God or metaphysics. In other words, each de-

mands that immediate human interest

be

suspended

or an-

nulled, so that a process of development driven by an

autonomous inner logic (laws

of

supply

and

demand, laws

of

nature) can unfold. Mediated by this autonomous logic, the

suspension itself

can

then

be

cancelled,

and

human interests

can be

served

on a

qualitatively higher plane: modern science

and technology

can

deliver

a

level

of

control

over natural

forces undreamed-of

in

other systems

of

natural philosophy,

and a

m arket-oriented econom y

can

deliver

a

level

of

mate-

rial abundance so far beyond what other economic systems

can supply that it becomes an object of universal envy.


21/269

X X

THE D O M I N A T I O N OF N A T U R E

Mastery over natureh as been a subordinate element in this

constellation of forces, largely because it has always been a

means to

another end:

the

increase

of

human wel l -be ing

in

a material sensemore

and

better goods, energy, machines,

and heal th. In itself it has been neither the m ain m otivational

impetus

for

scientific inquiry

nor an

overt ideological interest

of do m inan t classes and inst i tut ions. R ather, m astery over na-

ture has been a more or less tacit presupposition of modern

ideologies w ithin their system s of explicit rationalization for

concepts such

as

ind ivid ua l freedom , social justice, econom ic

development through market forces, imperial ism,

and

elite

or

class privilege. The dominant consciousness in the modern

era was formed around the new system of economic relations

(capitalism) and the opposit ional movements that it engen-

dered, which sought either to modify it to varying degrees or

replace it altogether with some variant of socialism.

17

After

this

opposition

w as

transposed

to the

level

of

international

conflict fol lowing the Russian Revolut ion, it gradually ab-

sorbed the entire globe into the contest, with each side seek-

ing

to align client states from the economically under-

developed areas within its sphere of influence, so that (with

some exceptions) so-called "national liberation" struggles

became

a

study

in

minia ture

for

that greater contest.

Yet be-

17.

M arx opened

his

pamphlet The

Eighteenth Brumaire

of

Louis

Bonaparte (1852) with these f amous

sentences:

Hegel

remarks

some-

where that

all great,

w orld-historical facts

and personages occur, as it

were,

twice.

He has

forgotten

to

add:

the first time as

tragedy,

the

sec-

ond as

farce."

(Hegel's

remark

is in the

third part

ofLectures on the

Philosophy of History.)

This

m ay

well apply

to the

environme ntal deg-

radation produced

first by

capitalist industrialization

and

later

by the

command

economies

of the

formerly socialist

states.

The first was a

tragedy that

w as

later ameliorated somewhat

as a

result

of both th e

wealth generated by capitalist economies and a growing popular de-

m a n d for environmental protection. The second was an utter farce, in

that

the degradation did not even generate the means for i ts own

remediation.


22/269

Preface xxi

neath

this bitter ideological battle over which

of

these

tw o

divergent paths to econom ic and social "m odernization"

should

prevail there w as something shared, namely, a belief

that

steadily increasing human control over natural forces is

the

mater ia l foundat ion

on

which the' superiority

of

modern

over premodern civilization depends.

That historical dialectic, the contest between capital ism,

with

its

image

of

individual f reedom,

and

socialism, with

its

collectivist vision of justice based on class solidarity, which

above all else

defined

the history of civilization in the t w e n -

tieth century,

finally

has run its

course.

18

Its

energy came

from th e

opposition

of two

radically different

and

compet ing

conceptions of both what constituted social justice withinan

industrialized economy

and

w hich inst i tut ion s w ere best able

to realize i t . But that energy is now exhausted and the histor-

ical dialectic

it

suffused

has

collapsed.

Its

exhaust ion

is re-

flected

in

th e

fact

that this opposition is no longer capable of

generat ing creative polit ical solutions to practical problems.

In part this exhaustion

of

creat ivi ty

is a

sign

of

success, rep-

resenting the resolution of great contending global forces.

The

opposition between capitalism

and

socialism

on a

world

scale resulted in a historical compromise, a hybrid form of

political economy that includes important features of both

systems

and is

therefore "beyond capitalism

and

socialism.

This hybrid

is

w h a t

I

have called elsewhere (using C.B.

Macpherson's phrase) the "quasi-market

society,

a social

form in which fully developed market relations coexist with

a state apparatus that oversees the national economy and

18. An

earlier

version of the

fo l lowing pages appears

in

"The

End of

History, and Its

Beg inn ing Aga in ;

or, the

Not-Qui te-Yet-Human

Stage

of

H u m a n History,

in J. H.

Carens, ed., Democracy

and

Possessive

Individualism (Bu f f a lo ,

N Y :

S U N Y

Press

1993),

263-74.

Compare

the

rich essay

by

Barry

Cooper, The End of

History (Toronto: Univers i ty

ofTorontoPress 1984),especially the

brief comment

onpage71 on the

relation

between hu ma n i ty and nature.


23/269

T H E D O M I N A T I O N O F N A T U R E

takes responsibi l i ty

for

major social programs through trans-

fer paymen t s .

19

A ll

societies

in the

First World" already

have

this structure, albeit

in

severely stunted form

in

some

cases. Recent upheavals in the "Second World" will propel

those nations erratically towards it, and even many regimes

in the "Third World" already recognize it as an objective to-

wards which they must s t r ive. The historical victory of so-

cialist forces has not been, as the nineteenth-century vision-

aries hoped, the replacement of capitalism by an entirely

different

social form, but rather their abili ty to require capi-

talism to transcend its predatory phase and accept a welfare

state apparatus

as the

price

of its own

su rv iva l

in a

hybrid

political

economy.

20

It is tw i l igh t , du sk : the owl of Minervahas taken flight.What

w e

may call the

spirit the

driving force, the spark of

creat ivi tyhas

gone out of the dialectical opposition that

formed

a

historical epoch. And now we may understand it .

For in Hegel 's bold conception, when a decisive historical

form

is

still infused with energy, at t ract ing adherents

to one

side

or

another

of the

dialectical opposition that defines

it, no

calm and "objective" assessment is possible since the hu m an

actors are blinded by the passion of their commitment to the

realization

of

particular goals.

It is

only when

the

spirit goes

out of a historical form that philosophy (ref lec tion) arrives to

paint its

"gray

ingray, its

poor attempt

to

grasp

the

vanish-

ing substance

of an

exhausted form.

21

19. Wi l l i am Leiss, C.B. Macpherson (Montreal : N ew World

Perspectives

1988), chapter 4.

20. Ibid., 119-23.

21.

Hegel's

Philosophy of Right, tr . T.M. Knox (Oxford: Clarendon Press

1942), 12-13.

xx


24/269


25/269

X X i v T H E D O M I N A T I O N O F N A T U R E

more

or

less, what specific polit ical insti tutions

are

av ai lable

for

that purpose (various forms of representat ive government ,

electoral and

mul t i -par ty

systems, and so on).

Let

us be

very clear

on

this point: democratic insti tutions

are not easy to achieve or to mainta in in good working order,

and

there are those who continue to risk death or long impris-

onmen t on their behalf . Yet the

basic

forms for those inst i tu-

tions h ave been created already, and there w ill not be m an y

new

options permitted to the participants as this endeavour

unfolds.

The historical "spiri t"the striving towards a

fuller,

more universal synthesishas gone

from

the form we know

(capitalism versus socialism)

and is

already

at

work else-

where,

so to

speak.

If one

takes this perspective seriously

(and I do), it is not possible to claim to kno w , "obje ctively,"

what the new dawn

wil l

bring. As Hegel suggests with his

notorious expression the "cunning of reason, the working-

out

of

h u m a n i t y ' s

essence

in

history

is

impossible

if it is

assumed that human agents can understand the nature of a

historical epoch

as

they experience

its

creat ive moment ;

rather,

the

"movement

of theIdea

occurs behind their backs.

(Marx sought to dissolve this apparent paradox with his con-

cept

of the

proletariat

as the first

fully self-conscious histor-

ical agent.

The

enormous motivat ional force

of

this concept

cannot, however, conceal i ts ult imate failure.)

In the epoch

defined

by the opposition between capitalism

and

socialism, those

of the

human actors

in

this drama (both

individuals and social classes) w ho attempted to understand

it necessarily understood it from a particular perspective. To

use

Macpherson's terminology, they understood

it as two

radically different, indeed antagonistic, views of the relation

between property and democracy. I must emphasize that I am

not suggesting that such an understanding was false. On the

contrary, it was precisely what was appropriate to that epoch

during the t ime when it was suffused wi th the historical spirit

as a creative force.


26/269

Preface xxv

B ut

that epoch has ended. And the unders tanding

which

had been appropriate to it is

aufgehoben,

preserved and can-

celled.

A new

orientation

is

needed

to

prepare

us for the

dawn , so

that

we may

begin

to act

creatively

in the

face

of

thechallenges

that will

present

themselves to us. Now, stand-

ing

in the twi l ight ,w e can comprehend the epoch just draw-

ing

to a

close,

not as it showed itself to social actors

throughout the

last

tw o

centuries

but as

hum a n i t y ' s a tte m p t

to assert finally its technological mastery over nature, to ren-

der

nature,

in

Francis Bacon's memorable phrase,

the

"slave

of mankind." At the end of the epoch

defined

by the opposi-

tion

between capitalism

and

socialism, when

the

ideological

aspect

of

that opposition

has

exhausted i tself completely,

the

concrete result of that opposition shows itself as the a t tempt

to assert humanity 's unchallengeable mastery over nature.

Mastery

over nature means

the

extraction

of

resources from

the

natura l environment

to

turn them into commodit ies

for

the satisfaction of needs, without apparent limit and wi thout

any

regard

for the

appropriateness

of

those needs

or the

means chosen to satisfy them, judged according to some cri-

teria for a "truly human" existence. In short: to get wha t w e

want (or

wha t

w e

think

w e

need

in

order

to be

happy)

by

t ransforming

the planet into nothing but a supplier of our

wantsan

abundant, unlimited, never-ending variety

of

goods.

We can now see

that this last form

of

mastery over nature

developed when

the

predatory phase

of

capitalism

w as

cur-

tailed, when the welfare-state apparatus and the ideology of

managed

capitalism promised abundance to all citizens and

sought to cement theirallegiance to the economic system by

demonstrating that

a

steady

rise

in

everyone's

standard

of

l iv-

in g

could be achieved. Before too long many socialist ideo-

logues took up the challenge, for example the pathetic boasts

of Niki ta Khrushchev,

w ho

promised

to bury

capitalism

by

outproducing

it . Here,

too,

the

promise

of an

abundance

of


27/269

i

T H E D O M I N A T IO NO F N A T U R E

goods was to be the means for securing the population's al-

legiance to the regime. For both the route was the same,

namely

industrialization

and the

intensified extraction

of

nat-

ural

resources.

And the end

result

was the

same

for

both:

the

original

ideological

patina faded and thesocial systems have

been judged on the

truth

of their promises. Both have been

found wan t ing ,in different respects, but so far their course is

unchanged;

moreover, that course heading

is

accepted

by

most regimes in the economically underdeveloped world,

who

are determined to achieve the sam e ends (abun dance of

goods for all citizens) by the same means (industrialization

and exploitation

of

natural resources).

They cannot succeed.

In

trying

to

deliver

the

goods,

first

the industrialized world, then the Second and Third World

nations, have threatened

the

continued viabili ty

of the

plan-

etary biosphere. There

is

simply

no

real possibility that

the

entire world's population, at any time in the

future,

can ob-

tain thematerial standard of livingnow possessed by the ma-

jority of inhabitants in industrialized nations. The attempt to

achieve this goal by means of humanity's technological mas-

tery over nature will fail. The new epoch will show itself to

us, in the coming years, as a century of global environmental

crisis. Catastrophic environmental degradation will present

this crisis to us as an inescapable fate. When we grasp this

fate

conceptually, as historical actors, we will begin by re-

jecting the idea of mastery over nature which we have inher-

ited

from the preceding epoch. In doing so we shall finally

grasp

the

taskalthough

not yet the

solutionat hand:

to

find

adequate political forms

for an

appropriate representa-

tion

of the relation between humanity and nature.

Vancouver and Salt Spring Island

1993


28/269

P A R T

O N E

In

Pursuit

of an

Idea:

Historical Perspectives


29/269



30/269

1

THE

CUNNING

OF

UNREASON

The

movements

of the stars

have become

clearer; but to the

mass

of the people the

movementsof their mastersare still

incal-

culable.

BRECHT,

The Life of

Galileo

1. Recurring Mythologies

In Greek mythology the character of Daedalus combines

bold ingenuity in craftsmanship with a restless, amoral dis-

position.Banned from Athens for the murder of hisnephew,

whose

talents had excited his jealousy, he fled to Crete, where

he delighted the royal court with his animated dolls. Having

incurred King Minos's displeasure there, he was imprisoned

in the

Labyrinth,

but he was

soon

free

again

and

with

his son

Icarus escaped

from

Crete

by

fashioning wings

of wax and

feathers.

The reckless Icarus was drowned, but Daedalus

continued

to

mock

his

adversaries, producing

an

array

of

clever devices to

celebrate

the powers of his boundless, undi-

rected creativity.

In the seventeenth century

Francis

Bacon turned to the

familiar themes of ancient mythology in order to find a

medium for his new

philosophy, surmising that

the

cloak

of

antiquity

might render his innovating ideas more

acceptable

3


31/269

4 IN P U R S U I T OF AN I D E A : H I STO R I CA L P ER S P ECTI V ES

to his

contemporaries.

In The

Wisdom

of the

Ancients

(1609), he interpreted the story ofDaedalus as a lesson con-

cerning the natureof them echanical arts , and he emphatically

stressed the point that these arts "have an ambiguous or

double use, and serve as well to produce as to prevent mis-

chief and destruction; so that their virtue almost destroys or

unwinds

itself."

The

tale indeed shows that human society

is

indebted to mechanical skills for the increase of material pro-

visions

and the

adornments

of

culture;

but on the

other hand

"we plainly see how far the business of exquisite poisons,

guns, enginesofw a r, and such kind of destructive inventions,

exceeds

the

cruelty

and

barbarity

of the

Minotaur itself."

The fable of Icarus failed to im press B acon : D aedalus's

admonition to his son to fly neither to o high nor too low

seemed but a vulgar reminder to steer a middle course be-

tween extremes. But the fable of the Sphinx he found "truly

elegant

and instructive, an allegorical representation of

science itself. The enigmas the Sphinx proposed resembled

the

baffling complexities

of

n ature w hich

so far had

refused

to

yield her secrets and her treasures for the improvement of

h u ma n life. The Sphinx cast her riddles not in the form of

idle games, but rather in the context of a life-and-death

struggle which impelled men to action. The story of the

Sphinx

revealed forB acon the t ruth that the essence of science

ispractice.

Those

w ho

failed

of the

trial were destroyed,

but

the

successful Oedipus

won a

kingdom: "All

the riddles of

Sphinx, therefore, have tw o conditions annexed, viz: dilacera-

tion

to

those

who do not

solve them,

and

empire

to

those

that

do. . . .

1

Three

centuries later two of

Bacon's

fellow countrymen

took

up the

m ythological them es once ag ain.

In

1923,

J. B. S.

Haldane, biochemist, geneticist, and (with J. D. Bernal and

Joseph Needham) member of a remarkable trio of unortho-

dox

British scientists, read to the

Heretics'

Society at Cam-

bridge University an essay entitled Daedalus, or Science and


32/269


33/269

6 I N P URS UI T O F AN I D E A :

HISTORICAL

P ERSP ECTI V ES

tered with a blast of unbridled pessimism. At the outset he

announced

he was of the

opinion that "whether,

in the

end,

science

will

prove to have been a blessing or a curse to man-

kind, is to my mind, still a doubtful question." Haldane had

in fact been faithful toBacon's interpretation of the Daedalus

myth , for he had stressed th e unpleasantor negative

effects

of

scientific and technological progress. B ut Russell, wishing to

broaden the

limits

of the debate, utilized the story of Icarus

far differently. The

errant

f lyer

represented

not

jus t

a

par-

t icular misjudgment but the fate of an entire civilization

which

had

dedicated

itself

to the

pursuit

of

scientific progress.

The situation in Russell's view was rather simple:

Science

has increased man's control over nature, and might therefore

be supposed likely

to

increase

his

happiness

and

well-being.

This would be the case if men were rational, but in fact they

arebundlesofpassionsand instincts."

3

Russell

agreed

with

Haldane that one of the principal social

effects

of

sustained scientific innovation

had

been

to

increase

the size of organizational units, particularly economic sys-

tems, in accordance with the rules of efficient production.

The terminus of this "inexorable logic would be the political

unification

of the

world.

His

demurrer concerned

the

nature

of

the

process

by

which world-government most likely would

be

achieved,

and to

Haldane's innocent fantasy

of a

biologist

he opposed the sober prognosis of a

Realpolitiker:

Before very longth e technical cond itions w ill existfor organiz-

ing

the

whole world

as one

producing

and

consuming unit.

If , when that t ime comes, tw o rival groups contend for

mastery, the

victor

may be able to

introduce that single

world-wide organization that

is

needed

to

prevent

the

mutual

extermination

of civilized nations. The world which would

result would

be, at first,

very different from

the

dreams

of

either liberals

or

socialists;

but it

might grow less different

with the lapse of time. There would be at first economic and

political tyranny

of the

victors,

a

dread

of

renewed upheavals,


34/269

The Cunning of Unreason 1

and therefore a drastic suppression of liberty. But if the first

half-dozen revolts were

successfully

repressed,

the

vanquished

would

give

u p

hope,

and

accept

the

subordinate place assigned

to

them

by the

victors

in the

great w orld-trust.

. . .

Given

a

stable world-organization, economic and political, even if, at

first,

it

rested upon nothing but armed force, the evils which

now threaten civilization would gradually diminish, and a

more thorough democracy than that which

now

exists might

becomepossible. I believe that, owingtomen's

folly,

a world-

government will only be established by force, and will there-

fore

be at first

cruel

and

despotic.

But I

believe

that

it is

necessary for the preservation of a scientific civilization, and

that,

if

once realized,

it

will gradually give rise

to the other

conditions

of a

tolerable existence.

4

This drastic remedy w asrecomm endedby the fact that science

had

increased

the

power

of

rulers

and the

ability

of men "to

indulge their collective

passions

to the

point

at

which

the

destruction

of

civilization

itself

was a

likely possibility. Russell

conjectured that

the

United States might become powerful

enough to impose its hegemony on the rest of the world and

initiate

the

gradu al evolution tow ard

a

tolerable world-govern-

m ent. B ut, appalled by the logic of his own argument , he

yielded to total despair and concluded with the remark that

perhaps, in view of the sterility of the Roman Empire , the

collapse of our civilization would in the end be preferable to

this alternative."

In these essays the garb of

myth

has worn thin: the allu-

sions

to the figures of

Daedalus

and

Icarus provide

no

imagi-

native distance, for the same pressing reality which con-

stitutes our everyday experience also appears here. It is a

decisive measure of what has happened during the last two

hundred years that we can no longer think about the

future

withoutestimatinginw ha t respect theconditions ofh u m a n life

will be fundamentally

t ransformed

by the

achievements

of

science and technology. Braced by optimism or pessimism,


35/269

8 IN P U R S U I T OF AN I D E A : H I ST O RI C A L P E RS P E C T I V E S

anticipating

Utopia or itsopposite, w e are compelled to accept

the

fact that

the

state

of our

scientific

and

technological

capability will

exert a determining

influence

on the qualityof

whatever

future

is instorefor us.

It was not always so. For two thousand years after the

appearance

of

Plato's

Republic

men's expectations

of a

better

order, at least insofar as their earthly ambitions were con-

cerned, were based upon

the

possibility

of

radically altering

social relationships within the l imited framework of a pre-

industrial,

ag ricultu rally based econom y. Whether a decent

society, characterized by peace, harmony, and the satisfac-

tion

of essential

h u m a n

needs for all individuals, was a real

possibility under such conditions is of course a debatable

question.

5

With the advent of the industrial revolutions there

arosetheprom iseof a farm ore luxu rious estate, and gradually

the conviction spread that the prospects of maximum leisure

and

enjoyment were dependent upon sustained scientific

and

technological progress. To be sure, the older vision never

entirely disappeared

in

modern t imes:

the

tradition

of

Utopian

speculation down

to the

present embraces both

the paradise

of

limited consumption, largely restricted

to an

agricultural

economy, and the paradise of expanding needs and satisfac-

tions, tied to a n indu strial system .

6

The

secular versions

of the

Utopian

dream have maintained

that

the

natural environment

of the

earth contains adequate

resources for human happiness and the satisfaction of needs.

H um an m isery arises prim arily out of a fa ilure to order social

relations justly; given

a

harmonious society,

the

arts

of men

can

easily

compensate for the

material deficiencies

inherent

in the spontaneous providence of nature. Yet there is a

quali-

tative

difference

between the preindustrial and the industrial

ideals with respect to the degree of human control over

nature which

is

considered necessary

to

insure happiness.

In

the latter case thepossibilitiesofuniversal hu m an freedom are

explicitly linked with the success of an industrialized produc-


36/269


live apparatus based on a technology which has mastered the

technique

of

converting

the

potentialities

of

nature

to

h u m a n

use in a systematic way. In fact, George Kateb claims that

"technology still is tha t w hich gives credibility to U topian

speculation, that which alone makes interesting and relevant

the

Utopian hope

in the

tw entieth century."

7

The

exploitation

of the powers of nature, upon which all h u m a n art (however

"primitive" it may be) depends in some measure, has ap-

peared increasingly important in the social visions of the

modern world.

But ,

in an

ironic reversal,

the

great instrum ents upon w hich

that exploitationdependsnamely, science and technology

have also been classed am ong the obstacles barring the advent

of

a new

society.

To the

list

of

Utopia's traditional adversaries,

such

as war and injustice,

have been added

the

negative fea-

turesofhuman relationships arising out of the organizationof

advanced technologies. Kateb adds: "And it is nothing but the

development of technology and the natural

sciences

that is

responsible for the crystallization [o f modern antiutopianism]

that has taken place.

8

The popular dystopian novels of

the tw entieth centu ry have con sistently emphasized these

undesirable prospects duringthe entire period whenthe most

dramatic technological innovations emergedalthough one

must

admit that whatever fears they aroused do not seem to

have affected the

pace

of

technological application. Recently

much attention has been directed to a new danger

posed

by

these same developments, namely, the threat of ecological

disasters.

At a 1968 UNESCO conference, a gathering of two

hundred scientists concluded that the impact of modern tech-

nologies on the natural environment, "if allowed to continue,

m ay

produce an extremely critical situation that could seri-

ously harm the present and future welfare of mankind, and

become irreversible unless appropriate actions be taken in

due

t ime."

9

The exact nature of this threat to the ecological structure of


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10 IN

PURSUIT

O F A N IDEA : HISTORICAL

PERSPECTIVES

biological

life is as yet

unclear.

One

must also concede that

the

nightmares

of the

counterutopian novelists

are not

neces-

sarily

the

premonitions

of an

inevitable

future. But the

record

of the past

offers

us no justif ication for underestimating the

seriousness

of the

present situation. Like

the

sorcerer's

appren-

tice, conf ident

of our

mastery over nature

w e

have unleashed

incredibly powerfu l

forces

and

have been caught

in the

ensu-

ingmaelstrom.

The

Haldane-Russell exchange

is by no

means

the

most

extreme formulation

of the

problem that

has

vexed social

thought and

action throughout

the

twentieth century:

How

are we to understand and control the

social

impact of modern

science

and technology?

Philosophy,

literature, sociology,

history,

science fiction, and other intellectual domains have

all

endeavored to expose the principles governing the hidden

dynamic

of

scientific

progress and social development, while

under

the bannersofsocialism, technocracy, futurology, and

ecology, groups have sought

a

common ground upon which

an institutional fabric capable of containing this dynamic

might be erected. Accompanied by an exponential rate of

growth inscienceandtechnology whichhas consistently ren-

dered prediction unreliable, these theoretical and

practical

efforts

have barely managedtokeep abreast ofeachnewstage

of theproblem.

In the

following pages

we

will

be

concerned primarilyw ith

the theoretical aspects of the question posed above, that is,

with the analysis of some of the ways in which men have

represented to themselves the relationship between the accom-

plishments and thedreamsoftheir scienceson the one hand,

and

their expectationsofsocial improvementon theother. At

times it

migh t seem

as if

added confusion arises

out of any

attempt

to discussa contemporary issue in terms of its long

historical

preparation, especially where

the

history

of

ideas

is

atstake. There is agrainoftruthinthis impression: concepts


38/269

The

Cunning

of

Unreason 11

both

clarify

and conceal the nature of the phenomena which

they

are supposed to represent. For example, the idea of the

"natural rights of man" announced the coming of a new

political

order and simultaneously helped to mask the reality

of an economic

system

characterized by bitter exploitation

and

class conflict. Similarly,

as

Russell argues

in his

essay,

m en

regard science

as

increasing their control over nature

and consequently their happiness

and

well-being, thereby

blinding themselves

to the

fact that

by

vastlym agnifying their

ability to indulge their collective passions they threaten the

destruction of civilization. Thus concepts such as the "natural

rights of

man"

and

control over

nature both

clarify

certain

generalized objectives

and

also inhibit

the

awareness

of

fundamental contradictions which thwart the realization of

those selfsame objectives.

The

problem

of

understanding

and

rationally directing

the

social impact

of

modern science

and

technology

has so far

resisted the analytical power of the received social theories.

B acon could not have kno w n how prescient w as his portrayal

of science as the Sphinxallowing some liberty for our own

transformation of his intentions, of course. Having developed

the material means for the satisfaction ofneeds so desperately

sought in earlier ages, w e now find tha t desires, wh ich are said

to be

insatiable,

can be

manipulated

to the

point where

the

very

concept

of

hum an needs

is

called into question. Even

the

most industrially advanced nations no longer exercise inde-

pendent discretion as far as their socioeconomic development

is concerned, since an international competition in economic

and military activities determines the tempo of technological

change.

In one of his

last essays,Theodor

Adorno

referred

to

the

"inextricable fatality" which seems to characterize social

change

at

present

and

which resistsprecise

definition, appear-

ing as an internal concentration of the various dimensionsof

existence that disguises its t rue nature under a pervasive

"technological veil.

10

This is

just

the conclusion that emerges


39/269

12 IN P U R S U I T O F A N I D E A : HISTORICAL P ER S P ECT IV ES

from

Jacques Ellul's The

Technological Society,

which, for all

its faults , illustratesin great detail the tendency of a uniform

mode of th inkingvaluing above all else the formulation of

efficacious

techniques

for

accomplishing whatever tasks hap-

pen to beposedto

penetrate

all

areas

of

social

life in

recent

times.

Yet we

m ust imm ediate ly enter

acaveat: as

amply demon-

strated in the wri t ingsofRussell,

Ellul,

and many others, this

subject matter encourages the unfortunate propensity of writ-

ers to set forth

conclusions

at

once vague

and

dramatic.

N o

one

rem ains enti re ly im m un e

to

this practice, despite

the

most

rigorous self-inspection,

especially

in topics like the

present

one, w here extrav agances encoun tered daily subtly accustom

th e mind to reasoning loosely. A partial cathartic is

offered

here in the

form

of an a t tempt to analyze carefully the his-

torical, philosophical, and social sig nificance of a crucial con-

ception

in the

intellectual biography

of the

modern West:

the

ideaof them asteryofnature .

2. Mastery of

Nature and

M an

Found

in the

most diverse sources

from the

Renaissance

to

the

present, fea ture d everywhere

in

recent literature

on

Utopia

and on the social consequences of technological

progress,

the

idea of the mastery of na tu rea phrase that is used inter-

changeably with "domination

of

nature," control

of

nature,

and "conquest of

nature"presents

extreme

difficulties

for

theoretical examination. Often the employment of these

phrases is so loose and metaphorical as to render them

vacuous;

on the

other hand,

the

frequency

of

their

occurrence

and the seriousness of the contexts in which they appear

hardly permit

us to

dismiss them

as

purely literary devices.

Moreover,

in

their length y historical

career

they have acquired

many nuances which

are

usually disregarded, particularly

by

contemporary authors, because the meaning of these phrases


40/269

The

Cunning

of

Unreason 13

seems so unequivocal at first glance. The resulting confusion

is sometimes attributed merely to the use of such expressions,

and in accordance with the tactics recommended by the

devotees of linguistic analysis in philosophy it is assumed that

a vigorous embargo would resolve the matter.

Actually, as we shall see, the terminological vagaries are to

some extent visible indicators of hidden contradictions in the

social reality. In their du al role of clarifyin g and concealing

this

reality, they point to certain connections among diverse

historical tendencies

and

simultaneously obscure

or

distort

other relationships; only a patient restoration of the blurred

sections

can

reveal both

the

entire mosaic

and the

actual

relations among

its

component parts.

One can

understand

Aldous Huxley's impatience when he wrote: "It is absurd to

attemptto use that dreadful old-fashioned phraseto con-

quer nature."

But however dreadful , this expression has

represented

for

many wri ters

a

useful

way of

describing

an

important modern

social

phenomenon; and however absurd,

this attempt

has had

unforeseen consequences

of

profound

magnitude. In the opinion of many commentators some of

the most paradoxical features of modern society are intimately

connected with

the

notion

of

"conquering" nature. Some

examples

will

show m ore precisely

the

kinds

of

issues involved.

The domination of nature is regarded as an important part

of

the modern Utopian outlook. The biologist Rene Dubos

remarks: "What is really peculiar to the modern world is the

belief that scientific knowledge

can be

used

at

will

by m an to

master and exploit nature for his ownends. He adds further

that "the direction of

scientific effort

during the past three

centuries, and therefore the whole trend of modern life, has

been

markedly condit ioned

by an

attitude fostered

by the

creators of Utopias. They fostered the view that nature must

be

studied

not so

much

to be

understood

as to be

mastered

and

exploited

by

man."

12

Paul

B .

Sears,

a

botanist

and ecolo-

gist, seesmuch

the

same kind

o f

development: From

the

t ime


41/269

14 IN PURSUIT OF AN IDE A : HIS T O R ICA L PERSPECTIVES

of

Bacon or, to bequite fair , thatof Aristotle, scientists have

wri t ten

of the possibilities of a more perfect human society.

O f late there has been an increasing emphasis upon the 'con-

quest'

or 'control' of

nature

as a

means

to

that end.

And

in a book that describes one of the most famous modern

Utopias, B. F.

Skinner's

Walden

Two,

the fol lowing

expres-

sions are f o u n d : the conquest of nature,

''triumph

over

nature, scientific conquest of the world, the urge to con-

troltheforcesofnature.

Many additional examples

of a

similar type could

be

cited.

The point is relatively simple: the conquest of nature is accom-

plished through the agency of modern science as a vital ele-

ment in the quest for Utopia. Yet the images associated with

the idea of the conquest of nature have given rise to the con-

viction that, in the pursuit of this objective, certain counter-

tendencies operate which distort or destroy the character of

the

Utopian

dream. This conviction is not to be

f o u n d

solely

in

the writingsof the so-called romantic critics of technol-

ogy, such as Huxley; on the contrary, it is widely shared

among writers of di f ferent philosophical outlooks and pro-

fessional

specialties.

Some time

ago a

conservative political theorist, Yves Simon,

wrote: . . . control over natural phenomena gives birth to

a

craving

for the

arbitrary manipulation

of

men;

A new

lust for domination over men, shaped

after

the pattern of

domination over nature,

had

developed

in

technique-minded

men.

15

More recently,

Robert

Boguslaw, who devoted a

book to arguing that computer technicians represent the

authentic Utopianplannersof our day, concluded hiswork as

follows:

Our own Utopian

renaissance receives

its

very impetus from

a

desire to extend the mastery of man

over

nature.I tsgreatest

vigor stems

from

a dissatisfaction with the limitations of

man's existing control over his physical environment. Its

greatest

threat consists precisely

in its

potential

as a means

for extending

the

control

of man

overman.

16


42/269

The

Cunning

of Unreason 15

The puzzlingaffinity of these tw o t rendshas also been noted

in a studyw hich attempts to trace the historical developm ent

of modern

U topian

though tfrom itsbeginnings in thesixteenth

century. The author notes: "Both the utopists and the scientist

Newton lived

in the formative

period

of a

concept

of

progress

based on the conquest of nature, that is , science. B ut some-

how this concept

has led to the

conquest

of

man, too,

in the

Utopian

societies of Orwell and Huxley."

17

Finally, in a

speech

delivered

to the

UNESCO

scientific

congress men-

tioned earlier,

the

Director

for

Science

and

Technology

of the

United Nations Depar tment

for

Economic

and

Social

Affairs

voiced similar sentiments in the context of a growing con-

cern among scientists about

the

matter

of

w orldw ide environ-

m ental destruction:

In

recent

centuries, however, the world has been increasingly

dominated

by a

dualistic world-view

in

which

the

distinction

between man and his env i ronment has been

particularly

stressed.

This view accepts as a virtual axiom that

man's

foremost task consists

in the

progressive

establishment of

complete mastery over all of non-human

nature.

But, in

recent times, man has tended to become so dominant on

earth that he is now approaching a position where he con-

stitutes one of the principal aspects of his own environment

and in

which environmental mastery would require

the

sub-

jugation evenofhum an na ture byman.

18

These are representative samples

from

an extensive litera-

ture. In them, as in the larger body of material from which

they are dra w n, there is widespread agreement on the follow-

in g points:

(1)

the

effort

to master and control nature has

an

essential connection with

the

modern

Utopian

vision;

(2) the mastery of na ture is achieved by means of scientific

and technological progress; (3) theattem pttom aster external

nature has a close and perhaps inextricable relationship with

the

evolution

of new

means

for

exercising domination over

m en or, alternatively, hu m an activity becomes so m u c h a


43/269


44/269


as

an everyday occurrence. Normal ly both aspects are amal-

gamated

in the

conventional studies

on

this topic, such

as

R. J. Forbes's

The

Conquest

of

Nature: Technology

and its

Consequences.

B ut

these

tw o

f rames

of

reference

for the

mastery

of

na ture

m ay

well

be

incongruous,

and it is

still

necessary to determine the precise sense in which science and

technology constitute a "conquest" of nature.

On the third point there is little agreement. Although the

fond

hopes of earlier epochs have not been extinguished, un-

ease about the

fu ture

now demands

recognition;

the transi-

tion "from Utopia

to

dystopia"

is one of the

major l i terary

preoccupations

of our

time,

19

for the

attempted conquest

of

nature almost inevitably seems

to

result

in frightful new

means

for the

exercise

of

domination

in

h u m a n

affairs. The

same

scientific and

technological order which promises

to

liberate mankind from its

universal enemies (hunger, disease,

and exhausting labor) also enables ruling elites

to

increase

their ability to control individual behavior. In the imagina-

tions

of

dystopian novelists such

as

Huxley, Orwell,

and

Zamiatin, the dangers of the famil iar fo rms of despotism pale

beside the prospect of things to

come:

the subjects of earlier

tyrannies recognized their slavery in the overt controls which

restricted their physical movements and in the terror which

the minions of authority inspired in them, whereas the citizens

of the future,

manipulated

at the

very sources

of

their being,

will

love their servitudeand call it freedom.

Perhaps no one really believes that this is likely to occur.

B ut

even among

th e

ordinary ranks

of

social analysts,

w ho

are normally not givento fictional excesses, some willconcede

that

the

novelists have drawn attention

to a

genuine di lemma

in contemporary society. Like Boguslaw, for example, who

was quoted on this point earlier, they are content to acknowl-

edge

it only in passing, although on the basis of their own

arguments it

would appear

to

deserve more direct attention.

O ne must ask: w hy is there apparently a connection between


45/269

18 IN

P U R S U I T

O F A N

IDEA:

HISTORICAL

PERSPECTIVES

the conquest of nature and the conquest of man ? Is it

inevitable that the

scientific

and technological instruments

utilized in thedominationofnature should produce a quali-

tative

transformationin the mechanismsof social despotism?

The attemptto clarify these issues must proceed in theface

of

th emost diverse attitudes toward th e social processes that

accompany

theattempted human controlofnature.Therange

of

attitudesisbounded at each extreme by increasingly irrec-

oncilable conceptions

of the

idea

of

mastery over nature.

The

following passage illustrates the view of the matter which

simplyignores

all

disturbingelements:

Man's

relationship with

the renewing

elements

in his

natural

environment

is at an

important

stage in history. It

appears

that atotalcontrol of

nature

ispossible in a not very

distant

future. Many

ecologistsdeny this, claimingthat natureis too

complex

to be reflected in the

simulation

of anycomputer

technology.

Such

assertions

indicate

that

we have not yet

managed

to

describe nature completely.

Until the

subject

has been fully

described,

it is not

likely that

the

controller

can

freely manipulate

it with a

superiority

to

naturalpro-

cesses. But the means of acquiring that complete description

are already

well developed,

as are the

economic

and

social

conditions that make a greatercontrol of nature necessary.

20

Here the human control of nature is represented as a purely

technical problem, since the author has abstracted from the

element of interaction between man and nature: nature is

a fixed object, a sphere of pure externality, a stage-set for the

display of human activity. Only the barest hint of another

interconnecting dynamic iscontainedin theallusiontosocial

factors,and the

author makes

no

further mention

of it. At the

other extreme, a psychologist who regards

man's

growing

control over nature

as the

most important revolution

of our

t

domination of nature

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