Rethinking nature, culture, and freedom

American Journal of Economics and Sociology, The, Jan, 2007 by Steven V. Hicks

   In his "modest" attempt to naturalize humankind, and in his critique
   of shame about the human body and its natural demands, Nietzsche did
   not make the mistake of overlooking how dramatically different man
   is from other animals! Man is the "over-animal" because he has
   developed an exceptional moral and evaluative capacity. Real
   "progress," we are told, would occur if man left behind the instinct
   for violence and lust for punishment--"gifts" bestowed on humans by
   other animals--and developed instead a greater capacity for justice.
   (12)

And while Nietzsche often criticized arrogant (anti-naturalistic) anthropocentrism, his major concern was about the health and destiny of humanity. Man may not be "the measure of all things," but what man does is to measure, and that means to give value to himself or herself, to others, and to the world. Thus Nietzsche's major theme was how to avoid decadence (or the inability to generate new values), cultural degeneration, and the "advent of nihilism," and not specifically how to avoid environmental destruction and "ecocide."

And yet for those of us who confront with a real comprehension today's ecological, as well as social, cultural, and political crises--especially in light of the tragic events of the 20th century--Nietzsche's work remains a source of inspiration. For he urges us to continue to strive to find new ways to say "yes" to life in the face of so much senseless suffering, even as we sail out upon the "uncharted," "horizon-less sea," the infinite universe "de-deified" by post-Enlightenment science and "disenchanted" by the "Death of God." (13) I suspect that, had Nietzsche witnessed some of the tragic events of the 20th century, especially the astonishingly evil purposes to which National Socialists used the late 19th-century European "politics of nature" (which blended racism, social Darwinism, doctrines of "physiological degeneration," and frequent talk of breeding "nobler" races), he would have renounced certain aspects of his anti-democratic elitism as well as his talk of a "Grand Politics." And had he seen how the genetic revolution in Darwinism, as well as empirical and comparative anthropological research, undermined central aspects of the doctrines of race and breeding that were common in his age, he would have tempered some dimensions of his aristocratic anti-modernism. But even as things stand, his writings strike a cautionary note for those of us who strive to rethink and possibly reenchant our relationship to nature in light of its complete de-deification and modern disenchantment As Nietzsche asks: "When may we begin to 'naturalize' humanity in terms of a pure, newly discovered, and newly redeemed nature?" (14)

By "de-deifying" and "disenchanting" the world, post-Enlightenment modernity made possible advances in science, technology, and industry, the remarkable success of which contributed to eradicating deadly diseases (such as smallpox and polio), and to legitimating and spreading democratic ideals and institutions. Moreover, its methodological principles opened up a space for freedom of inquiry and dialogue that was protected from the dogmatism and intrusions of religious authority. Thus any credible alternatives to modernity's current discontents will need to explicitly affirm and integrate modernity's noblest achievements, especially the freedoms of thought, inquiry, and dialogue, which always threaten conventional mores and traditional institutions. If we are to seriously rethink, redeem, and possibly reenchant our relationship to the natural and cultural world--and thus to restore a profound dimension of significance to it--then, like Schiller, Hegel, and Nietzsche, we must adopt simultaneously an affirmative and a critical stance toward modernity. While denouncing with Nietzsche the dark side of modernity, for example, its tendency toward cultural nihilism and ecological degradation, we ought also to emphasize its many important contributions--scientific, technological, educational, political, economic, social, cultural, and personal. One of modernity's most defining achievements was to differentiate among domains that fold in upon one another in premodern cultures: science, politics/religion/morality, and art/subjectivity. In premodern culture, establishing and defending truth were not independent enterprises, but instead were inextricably related to political and religious authority as, for example, Galileo discovered already in the 16th century. Moreover, individuals were not free to develop their own aesthetic taste and subjective preferences; instead they had to conform to communal practices that were, in turn, consistent with prevailing cultural, religious, and political norms. By contrast, "modernity's nobility lies in the fact that it differentiates among science, morality/politics, and art/subjectivity." (15)