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Nature, Environment, and Ecology in Early America an American Environment Nature, Environment, and Ecology in Early America An American Environment Environment: The area surrounding a place or being, the natural world in general or in particular. [Anglo Norman envirunement: surroundings, periphery] An Errand into the Wilderness “Yet I have found less noise, more peace In wild America” - Roger Williams, A Key into the Language of America (1643) Whose wilderness? “To examine how the world is gradually settled, how the howling swamp is converted into a pleasing meadow, the rough ridge into a fine field; and to hear the cheerful whistling, the rural song, where there was no sound heard before, save the yell of the savage, the screech of the owl or the hiss of the snake” - Crèvecoeur, “What is an American?” Letters from an American Farmer (1782) Jeffersonian Agrarianism (American Georgic) “Those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God, if ever he had a chosen people.” - Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (1785) Preservation v. Conservation What is our place in nature? What is our relationship to nature? Do we live in or apart from nature? What Is Nature? Nature: Exceedingly complex and difficult to define. [Latin nāscī: to be born] Innate, essential, inherent force, the material world itself resulting from evolutionary processes as opposed to technological processes (may or may not include humans and their things). Nonhuman v. human Nature v. culture Natural v. artificial Rights v. privileges What Is Nature? “Philosophically considered, the universe is composed of Nature and the Soul. Strictly speaking, therefore, all that is separate from us, all which Philosophy distinguishes as the NOT ME, that is, both nature and art, all other men and my own body, must be ranked under this name, NATURE.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature (1836) What is Natural/Unnatural? What is essential? “I advance it therefore as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind. It is not against experience to suppose that different species of the same genus, or varieties of the same species, may possess different qualifications.” - Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (1785) Symbolic v. Real Nature Symbolic Nature Bird: “Before from off this egg I rise, You must to me apologise. Snake: “Let them come a’shore; I’ll Frog: “What rattle them.” impudences Pon’ my vord!!!” Aquatic Expedition Real Nature “Can we after viewing this object, hesitate a moment to confess that vegetable beings are endued with some sensible faculties or attributes, similar to those that dignify animal nature; they are organical, living, and self-moving bodies, for we see here, in this plant, motion and volition.” - William Bartram, Travels (1791) Nature Firsthand “The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe?” - Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature (1836) Ecology? Ecology: Interaction of organisms with their environment. The interconnectedness and interdependence of forms of life. Biodiversity, distribution, cooperation and competition of species, dynamic ecosystems. [Ökologie coined by Ernst Haeckel in 1866, from ancient Greek: οἶκος: house"; -λογία: study of] Anthropocentrism v. Biocentrism “What I have observed of the pond is no less true in ethics.” - Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854).
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