Elements Of Nature And Culture

Culture-Nature dualism often refers to the compromise of a particular culture or tradition in order to preserve the environment. This is predominantly illustrated when analyzing Indigenous culture in Canada and how it is rapidly being altered and challenged by certain influences, including the oil and gas sector, climate change, and environmental protection groups and legislations. Questions are often raised about whether or not we have a responsibility to protect First Nations culture.

According to Deborah McGregor, the term “environment” encompasses many different aspects of nature. From a contemporary perspective, the environment means the components of the earth such as: land, all layers of the atmosphere, all organic and inorganic material, and interacting natural systems. However, for indigenous populations, “environment” is more than the surrounding physical attributes of nature. The term “world view” emerges from the intense bond between indigenous populations and the environment. As a result environment also encompasses how one views and experiences the world (McGregor, 2015). Unfortunately, McGregor (2004) finds that traditional ecological knowledge surrounding environmental

I’ve come to realize that everyone’s perspective of wilderness comes from media, stories and their personal experiences. As people have given meaning to wilderness, I also have given wilderness a different meaning. Wilderness can be viewed as a place of escape where we can go and run away from our problems. I see wilderness

‘The sheer popularity’ of stimulating nature or using nature as ad space ‘demands that we acknowledge, even respect, their cultural importance,’ suggests Richtel. Culturally important, yes. But the logical extension of synthetic nature is the irrelevance of ‘true’ nature— the certainty that it’s not even worth looking at. (Louv lines 9-19)

According to William Cronon’s “The Trouble with Wilderness”, the main concerns with the wilderness term being humanly constructed and lack of concern with the local environments. Cronon emphasize much of the historical and philological meanings of wilderness as a human construct via spiritual and religious perspectives. He desired for people stop putting so much emphasis on the above and beyond that is out of our reach and focus on the present. He pushed this into the idea of one should start putting emphasis and care into one’s own environment rather than just focusing on environments beyond the local one. He believes change should start locally.

What is nature? The answer to that question is unique not only on a cultural basis but also unique to every person. When many people are confronted with different viewpoints or opinions on a particular subject, they often have the desire to conform that person’s opinions to their own. This creates a binary way of thinking. You either agree or disagree. This binary really is not effective, however, when discussing the topic of what is nature or what is natural because it is not a question that has a clear answer. We all have different connotations attached to the word nature. None of these connotations are wrong. They are just different. They are a product of our religion, our biology, and the experiences of our life. There have been many provocative thoughts expressed about what is natural that have either directly or indirectly defined nature to us. Whether it is an ancient story passed down through oral tradition throughout generations or modern writing, we have always looked to define nature not just for ourselves but for others around us. And this has caused only gridlock and confrontation.

Throughout today’s society there are several different cultural perspectives which form theoretical and practical understandings of natural environments, creating various human-nature relationship types. In this essay, I will describe and evaluate different ways of knowing nature and the impact of these views on human-nature relationships. From this, I will then explore my own human-nature relationship and reflect on how my personal experiences, beliefs and values has led me to this view, whilst highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of each and reflecting upon Martin’s (1996) continuum.

Nature is a reality of life. The definition of reality could be everything that cease to exist in an individual’s life. Because reality means something that is neither derivative nor dependent but exists necessarily, nature should be a part of every individual’s life. As individual human beings, we tend to forget the beauty that nature has given us and only see objects and subjects we want to see. Nature has existed since the beginning of time and the bible story of Adam and Eve may suggest that an individual came from nature. In the Genesis 2:7, Adam was created by God from the Earth’s dust and Eve was created from Adam’s rib. An individual should be able to connect with nature, because the individual was first created by Earth’s dust.

Similar to Cronon’s Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature, Evernden discusses the concept of nature in today’s society and the impacts of mixing meanings of the term nature. Evernden begins by elaborating on the term nature and using the concept of nature to support contrasting ideas. The author continues by philosophically analyzing two questions about nature: What does the word nature mean? What is nature? Evernden then discusses several definitions and understandings of the term nature. A few of the definitions of nature mentioned are as follows: nature meaning kind; nature as a danger; nature as an assertion of relationships. He relates these concepts to the term phusis, and then goes into detail about the Greek origins

Nature refers to our genes and things we inherit from our blood relatives genes. This could be anything from our eye color, weight, height, or weather we are shy. Nature is our genes which is personal characteristics and what we look

She argues that human culture’s universal devaluation of nature and the association within all cultures of women with nature is the clue to the problem. Culture is the tool through which humans are able to ‘transcend the givens of natural existence, bend them to its purposes, control them in its interests’ and it is this ‘human ability to act upon and regulate, rather than passively move with and be moved by’ nature which Ortner considers evidence that humankind regards itself as inherently superior to our natural surroundings. She admits that this opposition is not equally clear in all societies but maintains that the universal presence of ritual practices is evidence of human awareness of our ability to manipulate the natural world. Further, woman is in all cultures viewed as closer to nature than man, Ortner postulates, due to her physiology, the social roles she is confined to as a result of her physiology and the psyche she develops through living her social role.

The people nowadays also abuse on what nature can provide to them. People are influenced by the western Culture, Man is more powerful and can have dominion over nature and that nature as they see become merely an instrument to satisfy human needs and wants. This kind of thinking or we can say attitude towards nature is called the “Anthropocentric Attitude”. Man reduce the value of nature as it is and it’s important because nature has made all things specifically for the sake of man and that the value of non-human things in nature is merely instrumental. An opposite thinking would be the Eastern Culture, for they value nature very well and they treat nature being one with them. This thinking or attitude is known as “Ecocentric

In life we are all confronted with the idea of nature along with society. Although both have their pros and cons they work together to give us freedom and order among individuals.

Nature as w e know it means different things to different people. To an economist, natural is often seen as a resource to be transformed and put in readiness for human use. An alternative view is that humans are stewards who should care for natural things as well as making use of nature’s bounty. Another view is that nature of animism, which sees nature as a living thing, something to be respected and not controlled. Some native American’s view the earth as a sacred place could be called animist. Another alternative view is that the entire planet earth is a self correcting system based on a symbiotic relationship between the earth and the living beings(Peacock,

I would define nature as the world around us without any type of human involvement. I believe that nature is anything natural to the earth. It is the plants, animals, rivers, forests, birds, weather, etc. It is a gift given to us from god. Most people believe that nature is just centered on the thought of the ocean and forest. Nature to me is the life source for all living creatures it provides us with the four essential things that we need to survive which are food, water, air, and shelter. However, we are so disconnected from nature we do not see the constant damage that is destroying our home.