In Nature Natural? – 1491 Redux

(10/10/2009) - If I had to pick one of my essays that I liked the most, Is Nature Natural?  would have a good shot at winning.  Over the past week, I’ve been glued to the pages of Charles C. Mann’s 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, and flashes of my argument in Is Nature Natural kept coming back to mind.  Not because Mann addressed them directly, but because

In Is Nature Natural? I basically argued that the duality between Man and Nature is highly dubious, and that moral arguments that rely upon this duality are wrong.  And, because the Man vs. Nature duality is often foundational in the arguments put forth by conservationists for the protection of nature, their arguments are wrong:

“I’ve been an “environmentalist” for my entire life. I watched the T.V. shows Nature and Nova on PBS, hiked in the woods, recycled, lamented the spread of human development, and donated money to environmental causes. For the most part, my behavior has followed in the footsteps of other environmentalists, repeating their behavior though not necessarily understanding why. And enjoying it along the way.

“But what is Nature? Implicit (and sometimes explicit) in the environmental movement, Nature is the world in its theoretical state without human interference. We may visit it, but it is separate ...Wikipedia agrees: “Manufactured objects and human interaction are not considered part of nature unless qualified in ways such as ‘human nature’ or ‘the whole of nature.’”

“In this essay, I will argue that this definition, inherently people-centric, is not a useful paradigm for environmentalists. Philosophically, this dualistic definition of nature leads to one of two ultimate conclusions: the elimination of Nature or the destruction of Civilization. The world may hang precariously stuck between these two options, but one or the other will occur at some point (Though, in the case of human civilization becoming omnipresent, it could always revert back). Under this definition, it is no surprise that nearly all human members of Civilization do not side with Nature, especially when it threatens their livelihood.”

1491 is a great book on lots of different levels.  On one level, its an excellent survey of the most recent scholarship and research on pre-Columbian societies in the Western Hemisphere, as well as the previous research that is being challenged.  One of the things that makes Mann’s book more than a good term paper is that he subtly (but not deceptively) weaves in his own narrative into the evidence and makes the case for why this new research matters in the world outside of academia.  Its true journalism, not the fake and dull “objective” writing that masquerades as journalism in so many publications.

The argument Mann makes is simple: the vision of the New World as a pristine, untouched wilderness that has been corrupted (or improved) by colonization from the Old World is a pure fiction.  The Western Hemisphere was thickly settled with people who managed their environment to their own ends.  The image of the New World as an empty world of Nature that European settlers brought under the reigns of civilization isn’t quite accurate.  Instead, they were building upon the ruins of civilizations.

In Mann’s picture, the New World was heavily populated in 1491, and not just in the areas already recognized to have large groups of people, such as the Aztec empire in Mexico and the Incas along the spine of the Andes.  Millions of people lived in complex societies all across the Amazon rainforest, California, the Mississippi watershed, the Southwestern U.S., and the Eastern seaboard.  In the North, Indians (Mann, along with many native groups, prefer this term instead of something like the awkward “Native Americans”) cleared trees to grow maize, beans, squash, tobacco, and other crops.  Where they weren’t growing food, they burned underbrush and worked to maintain herds of deer, bison, and other game. 

In the Amazon, Mann features two particular groups.  The first lived in an area of savannah and built miles of dikes and levies in order to control seasonal flooding.  In the Amazon, Indians carefully managed the fragile forest soil through a technique that used partial burning to create areas suitable for long-term farming.  They also cultivated trees in the forest that provided useful products.  Estimates vary, but some researchers believe that it is likely that a large percentage of today’s Amazon is so full of trees that produce food edible for humans because humans planted them hundreds of years ago – a sort of tropical orchard.   

Mann argues that these civilizations all fell for basically one reason – disease.  Many of the researchers he interviews (though not all) estimate that the New World’s population fell by roughly 95 percent in the century and a half following contact with Europeans, equivalent to about 20% of the globe’s population.  And many died without any direct contact, or at least very minimal contact, with settlers. 

Mann also challenges narratives, like those found in Guns, Germs, and Steel, that argue Indians fell to Europeans for a combination of reasons – disease, but also a lack of equivalent technology.  Mann argues instead that disease was the sole cause for a difference in power, and that technological differences weren’t as great as some think. Incan metallurgy, for instance, was about as advanced as it was in Europe.  However, instead of making tools and weapons, Incans made jewelry and trinkets.  He didn’t say it, but it seems to me that the reason for this is that there aren’t many trees to cut down in the Andes, nor are there animals to drag metal plows.  Instead, their technology focused on weaving and textiles – their system of writing used rope, and their cloth armor was strong enough that conquistadors quickly discarded their metal breastplates to wear it.   

Pre-Columbian Incan government seems to have been better (or maybe just differently) organized than their European counterparts.  There is no written or archeological evidence that the Incans had any sort of money, or even markets.  Though details are still sketchy, it seems as if people were relatively self-sufficient, and acquired what they could not produce themselves from government warehouses or other public depots.  Every family also put in time on work crews, traveling across the empire – which stretched over a thousand miles – to help build roads, buildings, and walls. 

I think that this new picture can help us see a third path – one between Nature and Civilization as conjured up through our classical conceptions.  This third path is one where humans don’t eschew development simply for the sake of maintaining in illustrious, pristine wilderness, but develops in tandem with the planet’s other species.  Not just preserving healthy ecosystems, but developing and managing them in a way that benefits both “Civilization” and “Nature”.