Human mastery over nature dialectically increases human dependency on matter.

Evidence

This counter-finality inherent in the practico-inert is Sartre’s way of solving the problem raised in the previous section in connection with Engels’ notion of history, namely the production of a negative fact out of a positive one (i.e., the creation of a mining proletariat with its misery out of the pure positivity of a geographical area rich in coal, or out of the scientific invention of extractive processes). For in this profoundly dialectical reversal, every act by which man seems to progress further and further toward a control of nature or matter only results in increasing his dependency and putting him ever more deeply into the latter’s power. — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 495

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s Frankfurt-School framing: this is Sartre’s version of the same reification/dialectic-of-enlightenment paradox Adorno and Horkheimer diagnose, and to Lukács’s notion of reification. — connects to: Separating nature from value stripped humans of intrinsic worth too — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism: A Critique of…, 399; Mastery over nature becomes mastery over other humans, weakening the individual.; Dominating nature chiefly becomes power over other humans — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism: A Critique of…, 703 (+4 more)
• DEFINE: Crisply defines ‘practico-inert’ and ‘counter-finality’ through the concrete coal-mining example.

Broader Connections

• Dominating nature chiefly becomes power over other humans #expands (0.85) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 703
• Mastery over nature becomes mastery over other humans, weakening the individual. #expands (0.82)
• Separating nature from value stripped humans of intrinsic worth too #complicates (0.72) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 399
• Human domination of nature increased our isolation from other species #expands (0.70) — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 486