Yi-Fu Tuan - Dear Colleague

February 22 , 2005

Dear Colleague,

I have had a discussion with Nick Bauch on the all-engrossing topic of "nature," which I would like to share with you. Of course, Nick's thesis topic is far more focused, it being the European Union's recent effort to designate certain foods (e.g., a cheese, Parmigiano-Reggiano and a ham, prosciutto di Parma) as natural to certain regions, as having imbibed, so to speak, the virtues of a region, and hence are nonreplicable elsewhere. The broader questions that underlie Nick's particular study are, Why is there this partiality toward the natural? How widely shared is this partiality? Does nature have a value independent of human needs and wishes?

To take the last and broader question first, I would say, Yes, value exists in nature quite apart from humans because consciousness, and with it the ability to evaluate, exists apart from humans. All animals, for instance, have a desire to survive, and this desire introduces a sense of value--a sense of "good" (survival) and "bad" (being eaten). However, only humans can deliberately give value and rights to other members of the creation. I mean, a chimpanzee values his own survival and that of his family, but he can't give value or rights to less fortunate animals as a matter of justice--as a consequence of his having deliberated on the idea of justice. An ethical difficulty with "rights" is that it implies the existence of an asymmetrical relationship. We humans give "rights" to animals, but I have yet to see animals giving rights to humans--the right to hunt and gather in their habitat, for instance. Giving rights to others empowers the giver at least as much as it empowers the recipient. For this reason, humans should be sure that when they dispense rights all over the place, they aren't just on a power kick.

How widespread is this partiality toward the natural? Not as widespread as some of us would like, for it is essentially an elitist posture. Members of the Sierra Club and the Green Party, and environmentalists generally, are overwhelmingly college-educated. As for hard hats and "ordinary Americans" who enthusiastically embrace George W. Bush, I won't be at all surprised if they actually prefer Kraft cheese to Parmigiano-Reggiano and sliced honey ham to prosciutto di parma. I have read somewhere that lots of Americans prefer canned fruits to ones just plucked off the tree. But, like all broad generalizations, there are exceptions. The most anti-nature party is not made up of hard hats who, after all, love hunting in the midst of nature, but rather urban sophisticates. Ever heard of the Decadents of the late 19th century? Oscar Wilde and Baudelaire were the outstanding Decadents of their time. They despised all that was natural. Oscar Wilde wore a green carnation on his lapel in ostentatious protest against naturalness. (See Jean Pierrot, The Decadent Imagination 1880-1900, University of Chicago Press, 1981).

Nevertheless, valuing nature is not just a matter of brain-washing (too much Thoreau) in college. We do have a tendency--surely a natural one--in that direction. Lots of people like furry animals, scented trees, and cool wind. Universally, we enjoy nakedness in sexual embrace, and we certainly don't want to hop into bed with someone in designer clothes. And who doesn't love a drooling, naked baby? Mothers heroically refrain from drinking coffee during pregnancy. Why? Isn't it because they prefer a natural baby to a caffeinated one?

Best wishes,

Yi-Fu