In a late-stage-capitalist dystopia, is nature overrated?
I am surrounded by nature, but have to drive a car for about ten minutes in order to actually experience any real semblance of nature (in which I can exist completely unimpeded by cars and technology). Even then, my favourite nature spots are becoming busier, as urban sprawl gradually eats away at the land surrounding the forest, and the people inhabiting those developments want to experience nature as well…
I live surrounded by forests, but most of it is undeveloped private land, or land that is inaccessible or unable to be safely accessed by foot. It’s the illusion of living in nature. I am a prisoner of capitalism and these barriers to nature – ownership and access – are the prison walls. I can pass through, seemingly free, but these barriers strip me of a connection to nature that is unsullied by the byproducts of human society.
A ten minute drive might not sound that far removed from nature. But that is merely the closet forest of reasonable size where you could conceivably get completely lost in nature. I have to go (read: drive) even further to experience a different section of nature.
If you remove the car from the equation, I’m actually completely isolated, for there are only roads with no pedestrian paths, making for a very long and potentially dangerous walk for me to experience nature. For me, I do have a car, although driving in a car is my least favourite activity. I would far rather walk, bike or run than to drive somewhere. Though, that doesn’t matter because there is no pedestrian infrastructure where I live. My preferences are without purpose or agency.
Thus the car – and only the car – provide me a connection to nature, even as the car is completely antithetical to the virtues of nature, and likewise, to all of the qualities I am seeking out of a experience with nature.
It’s a necessary means to an end, but only so far as it is a byproduct of unbridled capitalist exploitation of nature, enabled by a lazy and myopic culture of individualism and materialism. That is, it is a means to an end which is a threat to the very existence and well being of that end.
I think that all living things have an innate connection to nature. People, at varying levels, have to at least to some degree, concede their connection to nature – whether willingly, cognitively or not – in exchange for all the amenities and of modern society both imposed on them for simply being born in that society or opted-into with their decisions and actions.
These concessions are largely absent from the conversation, and largely accepted, so that one must be crazy to even bring it up and wholeheartedly ponder the merits of them.
Which begs the question, is nature overrated? Does it even matter? Are modern amenities totally worth it – a worthy trade off?
I’m wondering this as I look out my window, early snow enumerating, dancing with my anxiety, widening the barrier to nature with extra bonus tasks like shovelling myself out. I wonder this as I watch the snow plow seal the end of my driveway with a concrete surf of snow and ice, further building that barrier. I can feel the pain in my lower back gently flaring – a testament to my struggle.
Defeated, I retreat to my bed to perseverate for a time.