Material ecological change undermined the organic social metaphor
Evidence
The power of the organic metaphor derived from the unifying structure it imposed on social and cosmic reality. But as the ecology and economy of farm, forest, and fen were altered by new forms of human interaction with nature, traditional models of organic society and modes of social organization were likewise being undermined and transformed. — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 337
Categorization
- XREF: Directly pays off the book’s central thesis that material changes in land use caused the ideological shift from organicism to mechanism — connects to the eco-justice course thread on land/place as driver of worldview. — connects to: Metaphors destabilize when the practices they describe change; Material ecological changes and the organic social order’s collapse paralleled the cosmos’s mechanical transformation. — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology,…, 436
- ADDENDUM: Supports the Grafting & Growth essay’s framing of trees/infrastructure as material forces that shape social metaphor — here fen drainage and enclosure undercut the body-politic image.
Broader Connections
- Metaphors destabilize when the practices they describe change
#expands(0.85) - Material ecological changes and the organic social order’s collapse paralleled the cosmos’s mechanical transformation.
#corroborates(0.80) — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 436