The organic utopias opposed Bacon’s exploitative science by observing and emulating nature
Evidence
In Andreä’s community, nature was “aped” in order that her principles might be emulated and the earth and sky married together. Science served the human interest in Christianopolis because it was taught to all people in the community and because it was used in conjunction with natural harmonies rather than for exploitative purposes. Nature was not altered and tortured, as it would be in the laboratories of Bacon’s New Atlantis, but observed and emulated. Natural science and the mechanical arts in the City of the Sun and in Christianopolis served the artisans and peasants because of the high status accorded them in the community and because of the great regard paid to the crafts and manual arts. — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 389
Categorization
- XREF: Connects directly to ch13’s Bacon-as-stepmother analysis and the organic-vs-mechanistic science split that is this book’s core polemic for the ecofeminist strand. — connects to: Bacon’s utopia authorized the manipulation of living organisms for experimental gain — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology,…, 732; Bacon classified nature as free, erring, or bound, justifying constraint of wayward matter — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology,…, 677; Bacon’s bureaucratic utopia mirrored the mechanical philosophy’s passive-inert universe — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology,…, 741 (+2 more)
- ADDENDUM: Supports the ‘On Sacrifice’ or ‘Grafting & Growth’ thematic of alternative human-nature relations — observation/emulation versus extraction mirrors the trees-as-infrastructure framing.
- SEED: Possible essay angle: two rival scientific temperaments (Baconian torture vs Andrean emulation) as templates for the polyad’s listening/observation-as-method thread versus instrumental extraction.
Broader Connections
- Bacon’s bureaucratic utopia mirrored the mechanical philosophy’s passive-inert universe
#corroborates(0.85) — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 741 - Bacon’s utopia authorized the manipulation of living organisms for experimental gain
#complicates(0.80) — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 732 - Bacon framed scientific method as the capture and enslavement of a female nature
#complicates(0.80) — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 676 - Bacon’s program framed nature as a slave to be bound and constrained by science.
#complicates(0.80) — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 670 - Bacon classified nature as free, erring, or bound, justifying constraint of wayward matter
#complicates(0.75) — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 677