Michel Serres

Michel Serres

The Natural Contract

Disclaimer;

I had a surprisingly difficult time expressing myself in regards to the readings of Serres and Merchant. I think I was reasonably successful in the class discussion of Merchant – perhaps more than in any other class – in being succinct and clear in my verbalized notions. I am so overly passionate about the issues surrounding the environment and our degrading personal experience with it that I come up mute from overload. I was long bitter and vocal about the disasterous violence we as humanity execute on the earth as though we are rightfully entitled to it as our plaything or unlimited resource. As though what we are doing as a collective past, present and future is not by choice but a natural sequence of events that we are not responsible for, that there is simply no other way but this unstoppable machine. A particular notion that I encountered as a teenager while eagerly reading all environmentalist mantra available to me was one by none other than David Suzuki. His simple statement that refutes our excuse that we are “slaves to the economy” was ludicrous as we had created this so called economy – that is was our man made craft and that we could in no way be shaped by it as it was shaped by us. This struck in me the true nature of the idea of accountability. That we had as a group followed ourselves for so long that we had no notion of where it began and where it could go – simply that we were going along with it. But the It is us! I had an epiphany years ago while grumbling about my work at IKEA and contributing to the massive consumer affair that it is and that I was so fundamentally against – if I could take my reign of this beast could I help direct it from within to positive gain? It seems so – and though I’ve been challenged by my peers in the art world and in the arena of environmentalism, idealism, vegetarianism and otherwise – by foregoing the passivity of my former years and by attempting to shape the machine that moves with such economic power to actually facilitate positive change – I have tangible actions to be proud of. All the same my idealist and unrealistic self would stop it all in a second in the name of returning it to itself.

In my painting work I have spent much time observing and recording landfills and rubble sites in a romantic notion of recording or “bearing witness” to the changing landscape. It is sorrowful and disturbing and strangely beautiful all at once. Maybe if not beautiful but monumental?

In my personal life I have spent much of my time outdoors desperately searching for solitude and that invigorating sense of belonging and peace that I feel when out of earshot of civilization. Whether canoeing Algonquin Park or hiking in Utah or simply escaping for hours or days into local mountains – I have a terrible anxiety that the opportunities and authenticity of our experience with a true unmarred earth are forever gone. I resent the “recreational” aspect of this pleasure and see it as the highest point of spiritual escape I have known.

How dare we privilege humanity over all else!

Notes from reading and class discussion.

“culling”
perspective of local/global
time/present/history

Science as autonomous beast or entity.
Violence towards Nature.

To protect against nature or and/or ourselves.
“interpolation”
language, contract
mastery of nature (Bacon, Empirical science) vs Violence on Nature (Serres, Merchant)

The Divorce of Science and Culture.

Properties of human nature : long range thinking
Survival
Fast paced progression

6 “ could the West –which hates children, since it produces so few and doesn’t want to pay for the education of those remaining”