The organic-to-mechanistic shift reconstructed nature as dead and subordinate
Evidence
Between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the image of an organic cosmos with a living female earth at its center gave way to a mechanistic world view in which nature was reconstructed as dead and passive, to be dominated and controlled by humans. … Similarly, when women today attempt to change society’s domination of nature, they are acting to overturn modern constructions of nature and women as culturally passive and subordinate. — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 51
Categorization
- DEFINE: States the book’s core definitional claim: mechanistic worldview as the moment nature was made dead and passive rather than living female.
- XREF: connects to: Mechanistic erasure of nature’s agency foreclosed whole dramas of human exchange — Val Plumwood, Feminism and the Mastery of Nature, 512; Organic and mechanical views of nature interpenetrate rather than oppose cleanly — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology,…, 445; The mind-nature divide structurally blocks assigning intrinsic value to insentient creatures — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism: A Critique of…, 361 (+6 more)
Broader Connections
- The mechanical worldview reduced environment from complex existence to mere material object
#expands(0.95) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 487 - Severing the organic bond turned nature from partner into passive object
#exemplifies(0.90) — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 514 - Organic and mechanical views of nature interpenetrate rather than oppose cleanly
#complicates(0.80) — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 445 - The mind-nature divide structurally blocks assigning intrinsic value to insentient creatures
#expands(0.80) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 361