Ralf Waldo Emerson’s “Nature” as it relates to Religion and Ecology

 A blog on an outside reading

Emerson’s views of nature and wilderness are faith-based and human centric. It appears that to Emerson, nature is a creation of God placed for man. Other details and depictions in the text make it apparent that Emerson’s view of nature is largely pastoral. He talks of the beauty of fields. Emerson’s pastoral nature is a tame and naive view. His personal religious believes are confining the land to consumption rather than being in communion with the land and other extra-humans surrounding him.

In Chapter One of  “Nature” Emerson states that “Nature never wears a mean appearance”. When Emerson states this, multiple counter-examples immediately flood into my mind. I have had a couple of  experiences with nature in which I feared for my life. When I was a backpacking instructor, I faced a stream crossing were the water doubled in height, changed colors, and rapidly accelerated. I was experiencing flash flooding downstream from a forest-fire area. While out on a run in West Virginia I ran into a black bear that stared me down, pawed the ground, and test charged. It could be the case that Emerson has had such paralyzing experiences with extra-humans, but neglected to mention them for purposes of persuasion. 

His religious and societal beliefs trained Emerson to believe that extra-humans are “others” and that humans are observers of  “nature”. Emerson is wrong, humans are intimately connected and tied to the extra-human around them. Maybe if Emerson had worked the fields with hand tools rather than just roaming them he would come to understand the human reliance and interconnectedness with extra-humans. He might not have run ins with bears, but he might have come to understand soil, worms, and wheat. Emerson’s spirituality was flawed became he held himself aloof from the extra-human neglecting to truly interact with the world around him.



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