Critiquing western nature-devaluation need not mean romanticizing nature

Evidence

To reject the western construction of nature as an inferior sphere of exclusion is not by any means to adopt an ‘abstract pro-nature stance’ in the sense of agreeing to abandon oneself to necessity, to accept anything which may happen without resistance, nor to agree to any moral precepts such as ‘Nature knows best’, whatever they may mean. We do not have to accept a choice between treating ‘nature’ as our slave or treating it as our master. We do not have to assume that nature is a sphere of harmony and peace, with which we as humans will never be in conflict. A rejection of the western treatment of nature implies a careful, critical and political look at the category of nature. In short, what is involved is not, as assumed in Mills’s argument, a simple reversal of the value of nature which embraces the category without further deconstruction. — Val Plumwood, Feminism and the Mastery of Nature, 161

Categorization

• XREF: Refutes a common stab at ecofeminism (that it mandates passive ‘nature knows best’ trust, or opposes abortion); a useful dialectic anchor alongside Merchant. — connects to: Counter-mythology keeps colonised identity defined in relation to the coloniser — Val Plumwood, Feminism and the Mastery of Nature, 764; Romanticized nature and desire directly translate rather than oppose capital — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 460; Western modernity is a hegemonic particularism disguised as universalism — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2: Identity…, 153

Broader Connections

• Romanticized nature and desire directly translate rather than oppose capital #responds-to (0.75) — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 460
• Western modernity is a hegemonic particularism disguised as universalism #responds-to (0.70) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 153