Nicolas Pol - Response to Class 3

 Hellen Keller's story in class was profoundly inspiring to me, especially when she recounted that her knowledge of the world, as well as herself, was only available once she understood how add language to the physical entities around her. 

Something that Hellen Keller probably discovered later in life, though, is that language is not objective. In fact, language can be rather deceptive. 

I think that a good example of this would be Western culture's perception of nature, and the language that has surrounded it. To Hellen Keller, nature likely rests at a textbook definition. Yet for the environmentally conscious, the language that surrounds nature has undergone a battle of appreciation and disdain. 

In Ancient Greek and Roman cultures, natural phenomena were revered by people as holy, as anything of the natural world was attributed to deities. If slaughter of lamb or ox was necessary, entire religious ceremonies would be held.

From the fall of Rome, nature was seen as something dark and dangerous. At night, real threats lurked inside the woods, such as bandits and wolves. To live within nature was undesirable, as life would be fraught with hardship and lack of security. This must have been partially why the Feudal system was so popular, as people were afforded protection from local mercenaries. 

It was not until the late 18th century that Western culture began to appreciate nature again. The beauty of nature inspired the feeling of the sublime, which was a general feeling of being overwhelmed by the infinite size, scope, and age of nature. This would be known as the Romantic era. 

The Romantic era also brought on a dark side towards nature, though, which was manifest destiny. According to manifest destiny, humans had the God-given right to territorialize the "Wild West," which was really the home of thousands of tribes, each of them having knowledge of the land for thousands of years. This great movement, which sought to uphold the beauty of nature was at the same time destructive. 

Interestingly, these changing attitudes towards nature was all possible by the weapon of language. Nature itself did not change from the time of the Ancient Greeks. Yet in terms of language, everything has changed. And since language is the lense in which we see through, nature has shifted with our imagined changing vision.