Human Dominion and Separation from Nature

There are many characteristics that the Native American cultures of North America shared, and many that they differed from. One of the things that the Native Americans did share however was their attitudes toward nature. The Native Americans never felt superior to the world, they would consider themselves as a part of nature, but they always kept in mind that they weren’t the center. They didn’t believe that human beings were inherently superior to animals, or other forms of life. However, (bringing in the Europeans thoughts briefly), according to the Christian-European they didn’t share the same attitudes towards nature. Their myths on nature, was that creation was centered on Adam and Eve, who sinned, and were banned from the Garden of Eden,

Though Buell’s language is dense, he organizes the vast territory of “American thought” into structured chapters, which is helpful for the homocentric reader. The first four chapters are the most didactic and the easiest to glean purpose from. In this section, Buell lays out the historical and theoretical contexts of environmental writing, after which the section is aptly named, and how we have approached it in the past as well as how we should approach it in the future. The reader truly enters into ecocentrism with Buell’s discussion of Pastoral ideology, an idealization of natural existence after which he admits his entire is book modeled (31). One of the strongest elements of the book comes through in this discussion of Pastoral ideology,

“Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our like-ness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”(Gen . 1.26)

In contrast, in the story of Genesis God gave man dominion over all the creatures of the Earth. (Genesis 1:28) The man to this day, hunts animals of all kinds and disrespects nature, with clear-cutting of forestry and pollution.

“Nature” is an essay written by Ralph Waldo Emerson, and published by James Munroe and Company in 1836. [1] “Nature” has a total of 41 pages. The essay consists of eight parts: Nature, Commodity, Beauty, Language, Discipline, Idealism, Spirit and Prospects. Each part takes a different perspective on the relationship between humans and nature. In this essay, Emerson emphasizes the foundation of transcendentalism, “a religious and philosophical movement that developed during the late 1820s and 30s in the Eastern region of the United States as protest against the general state of spirituality and, in particular, the state of intellectualism.” [2] “Transcendentalism suggests that the divine, or God, suffuses nature, and suggests that reality can be understood by studying nature.” [3] “Transcendentalism is closely related to Unitarianism, the dominant religious movement in Boston at the early nineteenth century. Transcendentalism evolved as an organic consequence of the Unitarian emphasis on free conscience and the value of intellectual reason.” [4] Emerson divides nature into four stages: commodity, beauty, language, and discipline. These define the ways by which humans use nature for their basic needs. The historical significance of “Nature” was that transcendentalism club led the celebration of the American experiment as one of the individualism and self-reliance. [5]

In Paul Taylor’s essay, “The Ethics for Respect for Nature,” he argues that… In this paper I will first describe Taylor’s concept of “respect for nature.” I will then explain the part this attitude plays in rationally grounding a biocentric outlook on environmental ethics. Lastly, I will present Rosalind Hursthouse’s criticism of Taylor’s view, and state how Taylor might respond to this criticism.

The biggest point that is revealed about human nature from the first two chapters of Genesis is that humans are made in the image of God. This is seen within the creation narrative since everything that God made was good which included the humans. Also, it is because of their original human nature being in the image of God as to why humans are viewed as being the pinnacle of creation, as shown since they receive the most attention of all of the parts of creation (Diffey, 2015).

Have you ever wondered what America was like before we got here? The Native Americans know, and they wrote many stories describing how they feel about nature. These writings show they worshipped nature greatly and never wanted to disturb it in any way. Then, the Europeans came and disrupted their whole way of life. The invaders, at the time, did not have much respect for the land around them, and the Native Americans did not like that. They thought they might be friendly but ended up not respecting them. They told the Americans through writings like How can you buy or sell the sky?. Some others writings they used to show the Americans their appreciation towards nature were Walum Olum, Song of

With authors such as Herman Melville, Edgar Allan Poe, Washington Irving, Henry David Thoreau, and Jack London paving the way to great literature within each of their respective eras, each recognized nature as a force in their writings. Within each literary era, Native American, Romanticism, Transcendentalism, and Realism, nature is recognized, despite its different interpretations. As humankind has grown along with technology, nature has begun to change into a much more polluted, toxic version of what it once was. This begs the question: How will nature impact American literature as the years go on? Works Cited

Nature are always a hot topic in American Literature. Emerson and Thoreau contributed their views of nature through their books. They show how one lives with integrity in nature and in society. Emerson is clearly more comfortable with the idea of anthropology, such as Thoreau's moments at Walden and his early journals. However, Thoreau continues to explore the virtues of nature's difference, the wildness, as he calls it, with correspondence or nothing more with the needs and desires of man. Indeed, Emerson's ideas have been unfairly appropriated to justify exploiting and exploiting capitalism for social problems and long-term consequences at the root. the root of many environmental problems. We can still find a way to understand when people

The first thing to discuss with this interpretation is the translation of the word dominion in particular, which can also be interpreted as “a complete mastery over,” or “to rule over,” read radah. If looking at the etymology of the word, which means “to accompany,” which when put in context of the Earth, is obviously pointing to the fact that we humans should not be sucking the Earth dry of all its resources and opportunities. Instead, it seems to be pointing to the fact that we should talk care of and watch over the Earth and all its inhabitants, much like a shepherd over his sheep like God and Jesus are described as many, many times throughout the bible. One must consider the obligation of protecting the Earth, as it is all God’s creation, and we are co-protecting it with him . All life has its own purpose on this Earth, otherwise God would not have put it there. The express purpose of Genesis: 1:27 is to say that humans were created in the image of God. This points to the parallel of God being the shepherd over humans as humans should be the shepherds over Earth

And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and everything that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good. - Genesis 1:25.

Genesis 1:26, God said “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the bird of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animal of the earth, and over every creeps upon the earth.” I think this is the image of human dignity. We can simplify this by saying that we are smarter than other creatures in this earth. In my opinion from a person who doesn’t have any religion, I don’t believe in this. Because I always believe that human has been developing in a long way of evolution, and now I just learnt a new conception which is god created human. It is really interesting but

God created light, and it was good. God created day and night, and it was good. God created the Earth and the oceans, and they were good. “Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind’ in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth” (Genesis 1:26). Everything that God created was good, but some of his creations were agents of evil and others were victims. God gave humans dominion over the plants and the animals, and that was created to be good. But, this dominion is misunderstood as it is read in a literal sense, and not within context of the time that the bible was written. Humans are not given dominion in the sense of sovereignty and control, but rather humans are to respect plants and animals, they are to “till it and keep it” (Genesis 2:15). Pope Francis in his encyclical Laudato Si’ says that “tilling” “refers to cultivating, ploughing or working, while “keeping” means caring, protecting, overseeing and preserving. This implies a relationship of mutual responsibility between human beings and nature. Each community can take from the bounty of the earth whatever it needs for subsistence, but it also has the duty to protect the earth and to ensure its fruitfulness for coming generations” (¶67).

Defined as the belief that man’s relationship with reality can be understood through observing nature, Transcendentalism first emerged in the first half of the nineteenth century in New England. Not only was it considered as an American intellectual, spiritual, cultural, literary, and philosophical movement, rooted in Immanuel Kant’s transcendental doctrine, but also as an alternative to sensualism and empiricism. Ralph Waldo Emerson can be viewed as the brilliant pioneer of Transcendentalism and his thought-provoking essay “Nature” embodies the true connection between man and nature. Broadly speaking, transcendentalism is the inherit goodness of humans and nature based on the spiritual and mental essence of being without depending on the senses or change by the experience of sensations. “Nature” exemplifies how industrialization has adverse effects on man’s relationship with nature. Emerson demonstrates the unrequited, bountiful love nature gives to man through life and creation, who takes it for granted. Asher Durand Brown’s “Kindred Spirits” conveys the quintessential message: how man communes with nature. Both pieces differ greatly in terms of abstract details, but contain a similar hidden meaning that epitomizes man’s relationship with nature. In the following paragraphs, I am going to show how the two pieces are connected.