A God Within

by René Dubos

A scientist discusses man's relationship with nature and urges individuals to cultivate positive values to create a meaningful life.

Genres: Philosophy, Unfinished

326 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1972

About the author

René Jules Dubos was an American microbiologist, experimental pathologist, environmentalist, and humanist. He is credited as an author of the maxim, "Think globally, act locally".

Reviews

[Emina Balerina · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is superb and magical! I don't normally read non-fiction, but an author like Dubos is spell-binding and will charm you so thoroughly and unequivocally that you'll go spend hours under shady trees reading this marvel.

[Kim Krisco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Each chapter could be a book. I exploded with insights as I read it – so many that I gave up highlighting it. This book is a catalyst for transformation.

[Walt · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book attempts to very broadly cover the roles of humanity within nature. While most of the book ends up being a debate between the author and himself over the relative importance of individual choice, qualities of the environment, and collective action, the final chapter is an amazing diagnosis of the origins of the environmental crises, specifically as it relates to the fragmentation of community.

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this once, years ago, marvelled at its optimism then. Will it hold now, as we face climate change? I still dip into it for selections when inspiration is needed but have never again gone all the way through. We have a signed copy.

[Grey · Rating 5 out of 5]

One I an currently reading.
Not religious as the title is ambiguous.
Importance of diversity in all things.

[Earl H · Rating 4 out of 5]

Revisited: A God Within, Rene’ Dubos, 1972
Essay by Earl M. Henry
“It is often difficult to retain a faith in the destiny of man but it is certainly a coward’s attitude to despair of events” Rene’ Dubos

Introduction:

This started with the reading of Rene’ Dubos book A God Within and became in a year long journey of attempting to understand what happened to the conservation and environmental movements of the 60’s through the early 80’s. I began with Dubos and many others to attempt to understand based on his conclusion why I sense despair with this question. The only answer is to fill my ignorance gap was to read and ask this question of others. This view is based on my meager attempt to understand and I say thank you to the writers in the bibliography and the many who endured my questions.

The Dubos Awakening

As one looks across the landscape of all the changes of the last 39 years one can become overwhelmed with the entire social, cultural, political, technology and religious changes with either an impressive mood of all is well or in despair. The tendency is to assess in those two frameworks and fail to ask the question how well has humanity evolved by sustaining fitness and interdependence to survive the human journey?

The question asked in 1972 by Dubos and based on his assessment then has human ignorance and arrogance towards the environment prevailed to the point where sustaining the human journey is placed in jeopardy? As one looks across the global landscape this is a profound question that seems to be lost to the human condition Dubos observed then as well as now, ignorance and arrogance prevail. As one wades through the journals of science and media the information overload points to the fact humanity still fails to see the earth as a complex living organism. If humanity had this awareness then humanity would of have written what Dubos astutely called the 11th commandment, “strive for environmental quality”.
In the journey of over thousands of years the ability to change and adapt to our environment has been a path often not taken for various reasons to survive and often the human species is unable to adapt as well as other species which Darwin and others have adequately demonstrated in their research. Instead of adapting our lifestyle, we have continued the path to poorly understand and use resources. Instead we continue to develop technology to assist man in adapting the stone tools, and once we see how beneficial those tools are we continue the refinement of them to the point where one just accepts them as the proper tools of usage. History shows us this process has led to unintended consequences, the digging tool became so refined that today it gouges out the earth for coal and other minerals for energy that we fail to grasp the future impact this journey has taken mankind on. In this manner we allow our ignorance and arrogance to bias our perception of the environment. To live without bias takes a conscious effort to step away and look around and understand the impact of the footprint being left. The tendency is to accept our environment without thought or concern of it. The usual revelation of the environmental geography being part of us is revealed as soon as forces such as social, natural, cultural, or economics begin to impact the place one lives in. Then ones consciousness comes alive with awareness to the place they live in.
Once human consciousness is aroused from apathy to their environment then the context of the environment they live in becomes important. Most often the people who become aware of their environment and take a role of stewardship they become identified as NIMBY, Green, Eco-Terrorist, and etc. They become perceived as saint or neurotic as they process this awareness with reason, altruism, skepticism, and often with great passion for the environment. They now live with a sense of what it means to be human and respect their place among an abundant form of life. In this context one begins to see and learn the importance of geography, culture, and human interactions within the diversity of nature. The one factor we know that is a determinant of who we are is the genetic persona one inherits and how that interacts within the environmental context lived in.

The great discussion then and now is what establishes the person is it nature (genetics), and / or nurturing (family and culture). This is the usual thematic approach to this question but more and more evidence demonstrates that physical environmental factors of geography and that specific environment in early development has dramatic impact on who we are. Just reflect on the writings of Dubos, Thoreau, Emerson, Harper Lee, and Zora Hurston. In each of these writers’ insights we see how the environment they came from impacts their views and writings of the world around them. They show us how the physical environment became a lasting imprint on their thoughts and how they lived their lives. Is the physical environment relevant in the 21st century or are humans blinded by all the technology filling their vision?

What indicator’s does one look toward to determine if the physical environment is no longer relevant in the development of a person? To do this objectively would require surveys from the past that demonstrate that such relevance existed but that evidence has not been found besides Dubos observations of what he sees in 1972. From his lens which appears to give some insight that has this objectivity and deep concern for the future of both the physical environment and human destiny. In his writing he warns of humans having too much dependency on technology as a problem solver because of humans making fast decisions to deploy various technological findings without consideration of their impact on the environment and humanity. As one steps aside and reflects on Dubos’s comments the question of environmental impact from his time to now leaves one with a creepy sense we are not progressing with technological developments as humans of improving the environment quality or sustaining it. The current debates on energy consumption, hydrocarbon emissions, massive waste disposal of human created materials, food engineering, and potable water plus many more demonstrate from Dubos’s original views that headway in these areas are lacking globally.
A practical means of seeing if human progress is taking place is to look in ones community. Reflect upon the weekly trash set out and yes many communities set aside recycled material from other trash. Then walk through neighborhoods or along roads and look at trash thrown about on streets and roads. Now go to a commercial strip mall and go to the backside where a dumpster is parked with the huge amounts of material being discarded and assess the waste. Now to complete the journey go to a local landfill and observe the process and then return in thirty days to observe the increase in the mass of waste dumped. Now this is in one community, out of how many in this country? Then ask the question how sustainable is dumping to the human journey? The tendency is to keep that process out of our view and out of the communities we live in. The statistics associated with the trash humans create along with the human waste is rarely in headlines but consider the following:
- Between 1960 and 2001 America's population grew by 55 percent, but according to the EPA in Municipal Solid Waste in the United States: 2001 Facts and Figures, the amount of garbage produced increased 160 percent.
- Consider the movie Idiocracy (2006) a comedy which humorously demonstrates the future of society where dumbing down prevails to the point where society exist in a dump. Not something one would consider but at the current and projected rate somewhere in the future as one looks at the earth from outer space they will no longer see the brilliant blues of earth. Instead the mounting trash heaps.
- Maybe the trash to treasure movement will prevail to the point of recycling the trash in ways to provide for others who want stuff. This is one alternative to resolve some of the waste but what is needed is more creative means of reducing it overall and educating all consumers to the reality of how this will economically and health wise impact future generations.

When Dubos discussed the importance of place in our lives and how we fail to recognize the immediate environment around us. Our geography of life becomes blurred to the importance of the environment in the formation of our lives. Many will ask the question why does it matter? As the digital age of today fogs our view of the real geography we live in and we perceive the environment one lives in as a social / cultural context created panoramic scenes by technology. Think of places of New Orleans, Low Country of Georgia, costal life of Maine, canyon life in New Mexico, Rocky Mountain life in Colorado, the plains of Kansas, or life along the Great Lakes one sees how each distinct geography has an impact on the lives of the people who live there and connection to family, work, or recreation. The importance of our physical geography becomes a part of us just consider how often people return to a specific place for all types of reunions. Why? The answer is not that obvious because we often fail to recognize the aspects of memory associated with, spiritual experiences, relationships, culture of place, and the unique foods associated with a place called a geographical location.

In this context one learns that the human ecology is highly integrated to the geographical ecology which is rarely discussed today. There are many ways to speculate why in a compartmentalized 21st century that is dominated by Taylorism in social, culture, political, and economic structures. The dominance of
Taylorist thinking has infiltrated every aspect of the human journey to drive everything upon some economic and productive gain without regard to the environment. The reply often received when one confronts Taylorist thinking in regard to abuse and misuses of the environment as one who opposes change and disallows capitalist pursuits of profit. The reality is activist do this not just for their purpose but to protect all even those who fail to see the reality of the endeavors as potentially having negative impact on their lives. This failure Dubos saw as human’s with specialized knowledge often lack understanding of the macro impact of human actions on a geographical ecology and how that can impact the journey of the human and other species. What he saw is the interrelationship of human, and the whole environment have dependencies for such things as water, air, and other nutrients that sustain each of us. Just consider without clean air, clean water, and diverse environments with diverse life how long would we sustain. Just go to Easter Island, and imagine what it must have been like before deforestation, or just drive west from Washington DC to West Virginia and imagine as of the early 1800’s it was so darkened by forest that within that environment one could not see a horizon. As Jared Diamond adequately describes in Collapse, human actions often result in consequences to both the geographical environment and to humanity.

When societies and cultures begin to operate from a premise of ignorance and arrogance using technology, as shown in the movie Avatar then we see the drama of how these flaws run amuck to the devastation of all. That means societies and the environment become the victim of man’s journey to Pandora for the cause of extracting a rare mineral that a corporation can capitalize on for enormous profits by destroying a new species of life without understanding them demonstrates mankind blatant arrogance and greed for bucks. Yes, this is a movie for entertainment that depicts a common theme of the human journey being filled with folly as well as major contributions to humanity, contradictions. This is where Dubos gave insight of how human actions with technology often result in unintended consequences to the environment and all one needs to consider is the oil spills in water and on land, destruction of various natural environments, landfills filled with human technological waste, polluted water, and the unspoken taboo, overpopulation. The later is the taboo nobody wants to speak about globally as humanity now reaches a population of 7 billion.

The solution Dubos used to approach these environmental issues is not politically correct today because he being a Catholic with an allegiance to Benedictine teaching of humans laboring with nature in a holistic approach of knowing how human lifestyles impact the environment and how humans need to take responsibility as stewards of the environment as agents of God’s creation. Dubos realized life is transient and man is permitted to use things for his end but do so with respect. He realized many would push toward a utopian agenda which is a dream that would become lost to many interests. The results from the time he wrote the book point to the many failures due to preconceived ideas that were and still are far from reality. The self delusion factor Dubos recognized with his competent understanding of the human capacity and his scientific background gave him in these later years clear insight to the human dilemma of responding to the environmental issues.

Dubos provides a historical context for us to understand how various human civilizations have misread their environment and never considered the unintended consequences. Today we hear similar voices such as Jared Diamond, Collapse, as well as others who have attempted to awaken the human mind and spirit to reassess our position in nature. Are we to hold dominion over it? Do we understand our relationship with the environments we live within our communities? Are we practicing civil behavior to our environment or does the attitude of having dominion over it prevail via the use of technology? There is a need to better understand this consider over the recent years the various natural disasters and how human dominion has exasperated many of those disasters by using technology as a means to stop the disaster or reduce the impact. What most often has resulted is either creating other disasters or find what was the solution becomes a new problem. All one has to look at is how human’s continue to develop in fragile and unstable environments such as flood plains, shorelines, fragile environments in like arctic, swamps, deserts, and unstable land areas on faults. Are we living as stewards of the environments or as abusers to reap personal benefit?

Conclusion

Based on the evidence given in this 1972 writing the author identified specific facts of the human journey that are endangerments and many of them he saw as irreversible if people believed that technology could fix the damage. This position Dubos points out is a fallacy of scientific thinking and he was not alone in his thinking as others such as Rachael Carson, Bill Mckibben, Jared Diamond, and many others have been the demonized voices speaking out against over dependency of technology to rectify human abuses and misuses of environments. They all warn about attempts to shape the future with such fixes fosters a thinking of if we do it this way we can fix it later. In that context the human journey and thinking subjugates environment over human economic endeavors. Just consider the efforts to address environmental damage caused by all forms of energy extraction, global warming, air pollution, water pollution, chemical usage in consumer products in all segments of life, and farming industry to increase productivity. All of these have significant impact on the environment and human health which have a direct link to our escalating healthcare costs. Is this real progress towards a holistic and sustainable way for the “good life”?

The answer is complex and one must remind self that the human evolution to their environment is much slower in body, mind, and spirit than other natural elements. Human’s change mostly mentally, and spiritually via revolution, or forced physical changes. The human body is slow in response to evolving in response to the environment which studies in biological evolution in human physiology support. We can think of ways to adapt to an environment and we have done so but history often shows us that we do not succeed over the environment but fail with unintended consequences. Those consequences often are to ourselves and the environment and all one has to do in any community walk about your environment and observe then ask the question is this a sustainable place for me and the natural elements? When one evaluates that question do so in a holistic way with imagination? The evaluation needs to include the following other factors that become revealed in the process:

- Are effective and efficient policies in political, economic, social, and cultural systems being developed with fairness and social justice?
- Do planners of urban and rural environments plan with excellence for commerce or humanity?
- In all planning understand the impact on the health of all.
- Are we deploying effective and efficient policies in using natural resources?
- Improve technology development to create zero environment impact and not a legacy for future generations to clean up.
- Discuss population impact on environments and what level is sustainable in each community with appropriate plans to create an environmental and human balance.
- Develop what Dubos saw as an imperative to sustainable community life by knowing one another of diverse social and cultural to create the “good life” and not a life of fear of others.
- Planning goals developed that define universal goals with a sense of emerging change and not status quo.
- Foster empathy of others and environment and not apathy.
- Evaluate trends not as a destiny but to know their impact on humanity and the environment.

The intent is not being green, or some other media mantra. Human’s need to develop a stronger understanding of their responsibility as stewards to learn and become knowledgeable of environments to be informed of actions that ensure a wholesome life for all humanity and species. In our human journey we need to understand knowledge is never fully before us and we are on a journey to learn and search for it. Dubos fully understood for man to despair out of ignorance and want was and an inexcusable endeavor for mankind. Why do we do that when we have the opportunity to better understand and appreciate the environs we live in?

Resources:
Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1994. Print.
Cronon, William. The Trouble with Wilderness: Or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature. New York: Norton, 1995. Print.
Diamond, Jared M. Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. New York: Viking, 2005. Print.
Dubos, René J. A God within. New York: Scribner, 1972. Print.
Mckibben, Bill. "Resisting Climate Reality." New York Review 7 Apr. 2011: 60-64. Print.
Worster, Donald. Nature's Economy: a History of Ecological Ideas. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1994. Print.

[Mole Mann · Rating 4 out of 5]

If Samuel Johnson were living today and wanted to drive briskly in the company of a pretty woman, it would be in a fast motor car rather than in a chaise, on a smooth parkway rather than on a country lane.
A pretty good book on the human condition and the constantly changing nature of society. It's very explicitly pro-environmentalist (which I agree with) and is largely focused on human nature rather than divine nature (which runs counter to the title but there is a saying about covers). Overall, I can easily recommend this to whoever can find a copy.

[Randy Hines · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not really sure what I read, but I think it was interesting. Nature is shaped by humans, and humans are shaped by nature. The context is worthwhile in that it is the philosophical byproduct of a microbiologist. Otherwise to me as a tourist it was like reading Emerson: superficially profound, but not much stuck.

[Rodney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, This book changed how I view life and people! We have so much to learn about ourselves.