Again, my apologies about the lateness of my post. I, like Dylan and others, was not as engaged my these readings as a whole compared to the readings we had last night. However, a few points that Cronon made lept off the page at me and had me remembering discussions from Art Of Prediction last year. The point about nature almost being pitted against modern cities and urban environments in environmentalism rang true for me. It's a point that's driven home in dozens of movies and stories like Pocahantas, where nature is shown as something that should be preserved and kept the way it is, and that human interaction with nature can only be positive if we don't try to drastically change things.
"One of the long-standing impulses that environmentalism shares with its great ancestor, romanticism, has been to see human societies, especially those affected by capitalist urban-industrialism and the cultural forces of modernity, in opposition with nature." (Page .
The other point Cronon made stated that in fact nature CANNOT remain static, that it always moves forward, regardless of human interaction. I'm not positive which historian from Art of Prediction said that time is a progressive entity, but i THINK it was Carl Marx. If i'm wrong about that then i apologize. But if time is a constantly progressing thing, then nature and humanity cannot remain at a standstill, whether in harmony with each other or not. Cronon believes that the utopic vision and belief that some people share of humans and nature coexisting is foolish.
"Any vision of a past human place in nature that posits an ideal relationship of permanent stability or balance must defend itself against almost overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Descriptions of historical eras in which human populations were supposedly in eternal equilibrium with equally stable natural systems are almost surely golden-age myths." (Page 9)
The quote that concurs with Cronon's statements is the first quote, from Richard White. "It is in the midst of this compromised and complex situation-the reciprocal influences of a changing nature and a changing society-that environmental history must find its home." It seems like White thinks that E.history has to settle into a small niche in order to be comprehended by people who arent in fact environmental historians. I half-agree, because i'm having a ton of trouble wrapping my head around all these ideas. I feel like asking environmental history to settle into a space that small is like asking me to fit into baby clothes. its just not gonna work.
Like Will (Freedberg), i found myself rolling my eyes when Merchant tied in race, gender, and class to e. history, i felt like she was forcing....not a square peg into a round hole....more like a big round peg into a small round hole. I couldn't quite follow it, but gigi's post helped me understand it a little better. i think it links back to the whole microhistory thing, that looking at the stories of the "common people" will give us a better impression of that period in history.
its funny, i felt like my first post was too short, and that this one's a little too long. ah well.
I think the question of why environmental historians feel the need to justify the study is really interesting
This is exactly what I think! at what point does justifying the study become more important than the actual study itself? could the original purpose be lost because of this? though What Will said here goes a step deeper, such as "does environment play a role in history?" to "how does environment play a role in history?" to finally "Why do we care if Environment plays a role in history.
After looking back at the Merchant piece, I found something that I really can buy into. She mentioned the fact of different cultures having different views of the environment and different ways of treating the environment-such as leaving it in a more natural state vs. plowing into the earth to grow crops.
This statement convinces me more of the role in environment and which groups of people advanced and dominated faster than others.
Where Merchant focused on gender really relates to a reading I also did last night for Gay and Lesbian Literature. The reading described the stereotypical roles of masculinity and femininity, and in a way mirrored Merchants views of men and women’s connection to nature or the environment, which I found neat. The Idea of conflict because women could have access to resources to accomplish needs, like Michaela said, could be considered a threat to men’s’ power.
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