Rewilding our conscience

This is an entry from my journal.

Writing for Psyche magazine in an article titled Rewilding attachment theory by recognising Earth as a caregiver, Vanessa Chakour argues for a broadened understanding of human emotional development:

Aren’t the environments that influence our emotional lives both social and natural? Yes, we are raised by people, but we are also raised by the Earth. As recent research is showing, the natural world can play an important role in our emotional lives, offering a sense of security and belonging, and reducing anxiety and stress. Perhaps there is a missing ecological dimension to Bowlby and Ainsworth’s theory. To really understand our emotional lives, do we need to rewild attachment theory?

The article is framed in terms of scientific discourse which, I think, is fruitful albeit limited. Factsheets are helpful to keep us in check, though they do not inspire most people to behave virtuously throughout. Think of all the well-known facts about the harms of tobacco, alcohol, junk food… People just ignore them and carry on with their lives. Scientists themselves are not adhering to a strictly scientific–cold facts and logic only—modus operandi in every facet of their life: they instead have to assume the role of the scientist for certain tasks but will otherwise exhibit the well-known human behavioural traits.

The story-telling beings

We have emotions beside reason and are forced by the circumstances to operate on the basis of imperfect information. The guide to everyday life cannot be merely scientific, because (i) we do not have all the answers and (ii) those who are consistently sceptical in their lifestyle are the exceptions to the rule. Still, I agree with Vanessa Chakour’s salient point, and think it is worth pursuing a rewilding of many parts of our life.

At first, there will be pioneers who lead a lifestyle that is aligned with natural cycles. Though, eventually, a larger-scale change of conscience has to be rooted in religiosity. There must be a mythological backdrop that appeals to the common folk. Its narratives have to be awe inspiring to capture the imagination of young and old ones alike. Nobody ever did fan art about some data table, while there are countless artefacts across all cultures about fictional characters and stories.

We are story-telling beings: myths are inseparable from the human experience. Our shared ethos has to have such a component of awesomeness through imagination. Furthermore, religion is communitarian in its practice, which fulfils the individual’s need for belonging, ceteris paribus (consistent with the topics of “security” and “attachment” covered in the aforementioned article) and, more importantly, introduces its members to certain ideas without expecting them to already be highly accomplished intellectuals.

The rewilding, then, is not only a matter of tweaking contemporary scientific theories to add nature as a parameter in their models. It is about broadening our thinking to escape from its anthropocentric value judgements. To this end, opposition to religion per se is misguided. It has to be more eclectic by standing against only the destructive forms of religiosity, dogmatism and fanaticism, which engender intolerance towards anything they do not understand or consider alien.

The immanent mind

To think of the Earth as a care-giver, we have to first recognise in it a certain conscience, or spirit, or soul/mind. We cannot treat it as a pile of soil and rock in the same way we do not see a human as a mere amalgamation of flesh and bone. This is perhaps difficult for modern people, because we are conditioned to think in reductionist terms, while large parts of the population grow up in cities with little connection to untouched natural settings.

If human is a system of systems, emerging from, say, the subatomic level, to the organs, to the gestalt form “human”, and if these strata of emergent phenomena eventually give rise to conscience, we have to ask whether there is a terminus to this process. Does the emergence of conscience stop at the stratum of the human organism as a whole? Why? That seems arbitrary. If an organism is a system of systems, and if that can be mindful qua system of systems, then so can greater systems of systems, like forests, oceans, the Earth as a whole, planetary arrangements, galaxies, and more.

It is intuitive to think of mind as a facet of life and life as ubiquitous. If we assume a linear relationship, something must come from something: there can be no cause in nothing. And then we must apply the same logic to this “something”. Ultimately, the linear relationship is not helpful because even if we call this the ultimate God, we still have to inquire about what caused God, where was God made manifest, and so on. It cannot be outside the world, because in that case there necessarily exists a third magnitude which encompasses God and the world. This third magnitude will have to be the greater whole, which itself is not caused by anything (else we repeat the thought). I have thus have come to the same conclusion as the ancient Greeks: the cosmos always is, ever-present and ever-lasting, with no external magnitude to it and thus no sense of internal aspect either. It all is as “all together”, which is the literal meaning of the Greek word for universe (synpan, σύμπαν), from “syn” (together or jointly) and “pan” (all).

Change occurs in the manifestations of the immanent logos (reason, cause, ratio, pattern, language). We understand logos through the particulars, in the same way we observe the laws of nature in phenomena, not in themselves. Forms of life come and go, in an incessant process of transfiguration of the same “star dust” we all consist of. Life is always there, even though the cycle of each manifestation has a beginning and end. “Life” is the totality of interlinked phenomena, which reveal the underlying logos.

Each presence is co-presence, always framed, informed, conditioned, influenced, or otherwise determined, by other presences, such that the individual mind is but the observable aspect of the very mechanisms that underpin all the factors in their interplay. Human does not emerge in isolation from the rest of a world: it is the product of the same processes that unfold all around us. Whatever human does, is in the potential of the cosmos. We can play music with wooden sticks and rocks, for example, because wood and stone have inherent musicality, which is expressed through the actions of the performer, though not bestowed by the performer on them.

Think about rationality. Some will associate it only with humans, while others who have a bit more experience will point out how animals and plants also behave rationally: animals will minimise their motions to conserve energy when it is too hot, for example, while plants will seek to maximise their exposure to the sun. Whatever the case, most people will consider rationality as a quality of familiar forms of life: it is not widespread in the cosmos. I believe this is wrong, as we can always find reason in phenomena, provided we broaden our scope. Consider water, which does not seem to have any behavioural patterns of its own: flowing water will follow the path of least resistence. We would call this “rational” if it were an engineering scheme, for how it manages to make the most with what it has. So rather than think of water in isolation, we have to account for the contributing factors to the phenomenon to arrive at an understanding of the greater organism. Same principle if we were observing a human at its atomic level: there is no apparent rationality of the conventional sort at that level. This does not mean there is no rationality once we zoom out a bit.

The Earth as another organism

The goal then is to have a sense of perspective. For the Earth, we cannot afford to think of, say, a lake in isolation. We have to consider it in the wider context of ecosystems, of how all those factors work in tandem. Part of this endeavour is scientific, though I will stress the importance of a religious counterpart to it, for that is what informs our basis of values.

If, like polytheistic/pantheistic/animistic worldviews, we recognise mind in the environment we inhabit, we will know not to destroy it. Our wellness is connected to its wellness. Our values are key in how we conduct ourselves. The Amazon rainforests, for example, stood there for millenia, with indigenous tribes respecting their habitat. Whereas now, a disrespectful populace who thinks God is somewhere “outside” and thus this world is for us to exploit with impunity, is abusing the land for short-term profit wihout understanding that without our environment we too shall perish.

The Earth and the Sky are our parents in more than a figurative sense: they make our life possible. If we see in them parental figures, we will more likely be disposed to consider the consequences of our actions. Similarly, our wider community is what makes us who we are and we know that our individual actions reflect on how it is pereceived as a whole. This gives us a sense of responsibility, of thinking about the bigger picture, and of not being self-absorbed.

As the parent has a responsibility not to spoil the child, so does the Earth and Sky punish those who do not know their limits. It is thus pertitent to describe natural forces in neutral terms, rather than idolise them as purely good. Notions of “good” and “evil” only apply to a subset of human affairs and are relevant only to the extent that we conform with whatever is desirable in a given culture. Nature simply is and will find a new equilibrium whether we like it or not, with or without us. In the forests we will find food but may also meet our death. The forest is neither good nor bad. This is why, for example, in the Greek religion, Artemis (the personification of the wilds) and Poseidon (the personification of the waters), are not always friendly towards humans.

Natural magnitudes are not there to take care of us alone. That is an anthropocentic obsession we had better discard. They will provide for humans insofar as we know our place in the world and do not take more than we actually need. Same with the idea of providence as a human-focused predesign: providence exists as the already embedded logos in things, which ensures presences will be orderly within the greater order of the cosmos. It has nothing to do with some God qua 24/7 call centre who answers all our prayers, centres the world around us, and tends to our whims—that is a caricature of the divine.

The Earth is an organism which has the capacity to adapt to evolving states of affairs. It is okay for us to, say, cut down some grass to make way for our homestead. The key is to not be greedy, to make up for what we took by giving something else in return, such as by planting more trees and safeguarding the surrounding biodiversity. Again, religiosity is fine because it leaves room for common sense, while dogmatism/fanaticism is fixated on conformity with its own rules and thus becomes intolerant and destructive in the process.

Life at the hut

Having lived here for almost a full year, I can tell how much my environment has further contributed to my calmness and overall disposition. It does not offer much in terms of what most people consider exciting, though it is enough to sustain me and keep me tranquil.

I have a better sense of how things take their time to happen, like an acorn that will grow into a majestic oak tree over the course of centuries. I am thus even more patient and better prepared to accept what is in the here-and-now. The fact that I no longer mindlessly put on some music, is a testament to how the Earth Mother can heal us from unhealthy habits, excessive rhythms, and unrealistic wants.

I opted for this lifestyle in large part because I had to, though I have for many years now been living a more simple life. “Simple” in the sense of having optional dependencies that I am prepared to forgo.

I am missing the communitarian dimension for the time being, which I believe would have to be expressed as religiosity at scale (not for me necessarily, though I do not think only of my case). I miss this not because I cannot find people around, but because they are not recognising in nature the greater organism that envelops us. Even when they are physically close, their conscience is far withdrawn from it. Our values do not converge.

Maybe there will be plenty of rewilded people in my life who have realised that we do not need to be mindless robots in the machinery of profit-making. They will recognise that they have long now been moulded into the artificial intelligence that supports the modern civilisation; “artificial” because it runs contrary to basic human needs, such as living in an open space, getting enough exposure to the sun, breathing fresh air, exploring the open vistas, and operating in accordance with the natural cycles instead of whimsy.