Political Nature: Environmentalism and the Interpretation of Western Thought

by John M. Meyer

Concern over environmental problems is prompting us to reexamine established thinkingabout society and politics. The challenge is to find a way for the public's concern for theenvironment to become more integral to social, economic, and political decision making. Twointerpretations have dominated Western portrayals of the nature-politics relationship, what JohnMeyer calls the dualist and the derivative. The dualist account holds that politics--and humanculture in general--is completely separate from nature. The derivative account views Westernpolitical thought as derived from conceptions of nature, whether Aristotelian teleology, theclocklike mechanism of early modern science, or Darwinian selection. Meyer examines thenature-politics relationship in the writings of two of its most pivotal theorists, Aristotle andThomas Hobbes, and of contemporary environmentalist thinkers. He concludes that we must overcome thelimitations of both the dualist and the derivative interpretations if we are to understand therelationship between nature and politics.Human thought and action, says Meyer, should be consideredneither superior nor subservient to the nonhuman natural world, but interdependent with it. In thefinal chapter, he shows how struggles over toxic waste dumps in poor neighborhoods, land use in theAmerican West, and rainforest protection in the Amazon illustrate this relationship and point towardan environmental politics that recognizes the experience of place as central.

224 pages, Hardcover

First published July 20, 2001

Reviews

[Rhys · Rating 4 out of 5]

Meyer offers an interesting reading of Hobbes and Aristotle as they relate politics to 'nature'. The author surmises that there is a dialectic in both authors in which nature is constitutive of politics (in the broad sense of human endeavour) and that politics shapes nature.

He offers some advice to environmentalists to deal with both the 'place' and 'experience' of nature in politics:

"Place is key because it is the “environment” in the relevant sense so often contested politically. Place and experience are constituted through, and serve to mediate, the nature-politics relationship. They are the political nature that is the basis for, but not the authoritative principle of, an expansive environmental politics. This environmental politics consists of our struggle over the creation, use, preservation, alteration, and degradation of place. This struggle is defined by our relationships to these places and our experiences in them, in all their complexity and diversity" (p.138).

In essence, he advises against more depth (as in promoting an 'ecological worldview'), but rather more breadth (to include nature in the complexity of politics as it exists).

[Jamie Barringer (Ravenmount) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book presents some interesting perspectives, though it was not one of my favorites to read, out of the stack of books I had to buy and read for a graduate political theory course. The focus in this book on policy choices more than just straight environmentalism was great with respect to our class, but this book is pretty dry reading.

[Hazel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really dense, but it had interesting points. I read this for a class.