Abstract
The idea that an authentic life is one lived in, or according to, ‘nature’ is a common and recurring theme in Western traditions of thought. We begin here with the account of the Fall in early modern Protestantism, and look at how both natural science and the creation of botanical or landscape gardens were conceived as a route to at least partial redemption. Landscape gardens in turn reproduced landscape painting, as ‘nature’ was rendered in idealised form in order to provide a truly authentic and immersive experience. We then examine pre- and non-Christian sources for framing authentic life in nature—‘noble savages’ and pagan rites, as well as the idea of ‘wilderness’ and its importance for the contemporary radical ecology movement.
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Notes
- 1.
The MOOC is hosted by the FutureLearn platform. All learners who sign up for courses agree to the following: ‘You consent that we and our Partners Institutions may conduct research studies that include anonymised data of your interactions with the Website, including Learner Content’. Futurelean (2016) ‘Terms and Conditions’, Futurelearn, 9 May, https://about.futurelearn.com/terms/ (accessed 07/03/2017).
- 2.
For a full analysis of the learner comments, numbering several thousand, see M. Humphrey, M. Umbach, and Z. Clulow, ‘The Personal and the Political: An Analysis of Crowd-Sourced Political Ideas from a Massive Open Online Course’, Journal of Political Ideologies, forthcoming 2019.
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- 7.
For this and much of the following section we are indebted to the excellent P. Harrison (2007) The Fall of Man and the Foundations of Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
- 8.
Harrison, The Fall of Man, 60. Martin Luther also held the view that Eve ‘had these mental gifts in the same degree as Adam’, Harrison, The Fall of Man, 57.
- 9.
Harrison, Fall of Man, 27.
- 10.
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On Wörlitz , see Umbach, Federalism and Enlightenment.
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- 33.
On Arcadia and its afterlife in the pictorial culture of postmodernism, see M. Umbach (2002) ‘Classicism, Enlightenment and the Other: Thoughts on Decoding Eighteenth-Century Visual Culture’, Art History, 25(3), 319–40.
- 34.
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- 35.
L. Westra (1998) Living in Integrity: a Global Ethic to Restore a Fragmented Earth (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield) claims that “ecosystem integrity is absolutely required for areas covering at least one-third of the global landscape”, 29.
- 36.
For a discussion of the concept of ‘nature’ in radical ecology , see M. Humphrey (2000) ‘Nature in Deep Ecology and Social Ecology: Contesting the Core’, Journal of Political Ideologies, 5(2), 247–68.
- 37.
So for example: “Division of labor, which has had so much to do with bringing us to the present global crisis , works daily to prevent our understanding the origins of this horrendous present.” J. Zerzan (2005) ‘Future Primitive (1994)’, in J. Zerzan (ed.) Against Civilization: Readings and Reflections (Los Angeles: Feral House), p. 220. See also J. Zerzan (2017) ‘Division of Labor’, Spunk Library, https://www.j12.org/spunk/library/writers/zerzan/sp001189.html (accessed 14/07/2017).
- 38.
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- 41.
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- 42.
The tagline of Green Anarchist is, tellingly, ‘For the Destruction of Civilization’.
- 43.
Anon (2004) ‘How Hard It Is to Be Alone in Civilisation’, Green Anarchist , 71–72, 21.
- 44.
R. Lee (2013) ‘In the Wild, We Are Free from Abuse’, Earth First Journal, 27 June, http://earthfirstjournal.org/journal/brigid-2013/in-the-wild-we-are-free-from-abuse/ (accessed 28/07/17).
- 45.
See A. Naess (1989) Ecology, Community, and Lifestyle (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
- 46.
This image is available on the web, but is somewhat fugitive. At the time of writing in August 2017, it can be seen here: https://southwestearthfirst.wordpress.com/, here: https://www.reddit.com/r/PropagandaPosters/comments/1jmpx2/visualize_vast_wilderness_actualize_industrial/, and here: https://sites.google.com/a/wheatoncollege.edu/fysbaker2013/
- 47.
G. Sorel (1999) Reflections on Violence, J. Jennings (ed.) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) [1908].
- 48.
W. Cronon (1995) ‘The Trouble with Wilderness: Getting Back to the Wrong Nature’, in W. Cronon (ed.) Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature (New York: W. W. Norton & Co.), 69.
- 49.
Cronon, ‘The Trouble with Wilderness’, 69.
- 50.
For radical ecologists , ‘wilderness’ is the antithesis not only of industrial and urban environments, but also of the contrived, landscaped garden environments discussed above.
- 51.
The classic argument in this vein is L. White Jr. (1967) ‘The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis’, Science, 155(3767), 1203–07.
- 52.
G. Sessions and B. Devall (1985) Deep Ecology: Living as if Nature Mattered (Salt Lake City: Peregrine Smith Books). For a discussion of radical ecology and primitivism, see M. Humphrey (2007) Ecological Politics and Democratic Theory: The Challenge to the Deliberative Ideal (London: Routledge).
- 53.
J. K. Howat (1987) American Paradise: The World of the Hudson River School (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art).
- 54.
M. Weber (1992) The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism translated by Talcott Parsons (London and New York: Routledge) [1905].
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Umbach, M., Humphrey, M. (2018). The Nature of Authenticity, and the Authenticity of Nature. In: Authenticity: The Cultural History of a Political Concept. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68566-3_2
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