First, the only way to return to a naturally perfect world is to ditch our technology or be wiped out by it. And I doubt that will happen anytime soon. Modern technology has become too integrated into our lives that its abandonment would most likely mean our extinction. Not that this would necessarily be bad for the environment, but it's just not plausible without nuclear war. But then let us examine the version where we hold "dominion", or "potential mastery" over nature. In this version, we can use nature for whatever we want. When Cronon writes his essay on Nature as Eden, he mentions that both environmentalists and developers will invoke Eden to appear that their own cause is more just. As Slater puts it, "Edenic images are both powerful and useful." But why can't both sides be right in presenting Eden? We will either be finding a way to master nature or to preserve it as it was meant to be, but in both cases, we will be fulfilling one type of Edenic narrative.
The Kayapo, an Amazonian tribe, are criticized by many romantics and environmentalists as screwing up nature by allowing modern technology to become a part of their lives. Slater asserts that many cases within the Amazon disprove how it acts as a sort of Eden our culture holds it to be, at least by the conventional narratives she displays it against. However, does not hesitate to counter the people who assert that the Kapayo are abandoning Eden by utilizing technology. While from my view she seems to be contradicting herself, I do agree with her latter point, but perhaps for a different reason. She claims that the Kapayo have not abandoned their Edenic association to the land in spite of the new technology, but I think that this new technology blended with the tribe is the perfect embodiment of the second Edenic narrative, not something that detracts from Eden. In contrast, the other much more primitive tribe, the Yanomami, are much more like the "savages" Teddy Roosevelt describes as similar to "Adam and Eve before the Fall", drawing on the first type of Edenic interpretation. Clearly, everyone can have a piece of Eden, even in the Amazon. It just depends how you want to translate it.
In the end, I think anything, even nuclear war, can be twisted to make a case for finding Eden. But the simple fact is that until we can agree on an interpretation of what Eden should be, it should not be used for anything short of Biblical studies. In today's societies Eden has lost the perfection we associate with it because we want to use it to justify anything we do. Suicide bombers use Paradise, a variety of Eden, as an excuse for their actions, so do ecoterrorists who fight in defense of the environment. Essentially, Edenic narratives and imagery can be used to defend anything (depending on whether we master it, replace it, ally ourselves with it, or rediscover it) and if this search for Eden ends up destroying the human race, should we be in such a race to rediscover it, especially if we are just going to Fall again?
Sam: I particularly like your closing sentences. I think they are quite effective at using rhetorical structure (e.g. parallel grammar structure in the parenthetical and the rhetorical question) to make your point. I'm still a little confused, though, about where you see Slater contradicting herself--it's not clear to me whether this is present in her actual account or in your reading of her.
ReplyDeleteInvoking the spectre of nuclear war in the context of Edenic narratives is rather surprising, and we'd need some more explanation. Are you suggesting that Edenic narratives can extend to dreams of political utopias, in which nuclear war becomes the agent of ensuring security? Or are you referring to the willing self-punishment narratives trotted out by deep ecologists, who see Eden as the erasure of man, even post-apocalypse? The slippage between something like the Fall and (radioactive) fallout is certainly an interesting one.