Anja Murray: Who do we think we are? Time to look at how we connect with nature
BurrenBeo trust is an environmental charity working to connect people and place, conserve natural, built and cultural heritage, and engage communities with landscape through stewardship programmes. Picture: burrenbeo.com
Who do we think we are?
This question: 'Who do we think we are', is at the core of our current ecological and climate crises. Asked to challenge the assumed position of humans as rulers of the world, with automatic ownership rights over the land and everything else, it cuts to the heart of whether we are owners or stewards. The question has been answered differently though the ages by creation myths and religions, by poetry and philosophy. It is a question we would be doing well to revisit now, as a society, while ecosystems are unravelling all around us and excess greenhouse gasses clog the atmosphere.
‘Who do we think we are’ is a question that was repeatedly asked this past week in the Burren in County Clare, where I was lucky to spend a week with biologist and environmental philosopher, Matthijs Schouten, and a small group of people from across Ireland. The five-day immersive workshop was facilitated by the BurrenBeo trust, an environmental charity working to connect people and place, conserve natural, built and cultural heritage, and engage communities with landscape through stewardship programmes. For this event, participants attended from many sectors, ranging from music and the arts, through to education, media, farming and business.
On a recce trip for the upcoming #Burren #Winterage cattle drive & @BurrenEco Food Fayre. Huge thank you to farmers Michael & Ellis Shannon who will host us this year on their stunning winterage farm. Save your date: Sun 29 Oct. Booking link coming soon! https://t.co/0HyE5dXJfT pic.twitter.com/Z6Jf6nXUd8
— Burrenbeo Trust (@BurrenbeoTrust) September 21, 2023
We tested the limits of our raingear as we visited intricately carved early-medieval Celtic crosses, clambered over coastal limestone pavement, hiked through the stunning heights of the Burren National Park, and sheltered together among lichen-clad Hazel trees, all the while stopping at regular intervals to learn from insights garnered over Matthijas’ 5 decades as an academic and teacher. He even spent a spell as a ‘Philosopher in residence’ for the Dutch equivalent of the Department of the Environment!
As we went from site to site, musicians huddled alongside micro-chip makers, listening to Matthijs’ stories examining the evolution of our current cultural framework, all the while thrashed by wild Atlantic rainstorms. We were regaled with stories from across centuries of history, each telling of the changing narratives and values of human society through time.
We know that many early human cultures revered the natural world as essentially sacred. There are indigenous nations still in existence today that maintain this perspective, seeing every element of the world as infused with spirit. They have a reverence for all beings, human and non-human, and a belief in the balance between all components of natural ecosystems, rightly considered as fundamental to stability. These concepts are echoed today, at least in part, in our understanding of ‘sustainability’.
The beliefs of Bronze and Iron Age Ireland and some early branches of Christianity also upheld that humans are but one component of the great community of life, and there are, apparently, gospels that allocated value in equal measure to humans and other, non-human beings. Early Christian monastics had a deep appreciation of the intrinsic value of each and every element of life and the commonality of humans and other species, as depicted in the poetry that survives from these times.
Later expressions of the Roman church, alongside Judaism and Islam, taught that humans are distinct, separate, and decidedly superior to the rest of the nature, free to exploit without consequence. Thus grew world views that gave people an ethical basis to run riot over nature, annihilating ecosystems that people had lived in relative harmony with for tens of thousands of years. All of this has of course been facilitated by the power of fossil fuels and driven on by industrial systems of inequality and oppression, though the conviction that humans are separate from, and superior to, the natural world is at the core of the broken connections characterising modern times. These narratives are very much still in effect. The basic question, ‘who do we think we are?’, is now more pressing than ever.
All of this might sound somewhat abstract, hippy-dippy, or even irrelevant to some. The conservation movement has been careful to distance itself from the more philosophical aspects of our current climate and biodiversity crises. The tendency is to stick to hard science; facts and figures pertaining to the declines of certain species; quantifiable thresholds of pollutants; and the ever-rising parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. An entire sector made up of environmental scientists, biologists, and conservation professionals, among others, studiously censor ourselves from veering into any professional discussions that involve feelings, philosophy, or spirit. These are areas that our scientific degrees have trained us to ignore, and the thought of bringing ideas of love, care, emotional connection, or belonging, into climate or biological discussions is way outside our comfort zone. We are afraid of not being taken seriously should we raise ethical or philosophical quandaries in public.
Yet it is becoming undeniable that in order to change the course of our trajectory of mounting destruction, quantifiable as it is in scientific terms, we must look more deeply at the theoretical perspectives, including that question ‘who do we think we are?’. For these are the narratives framing how we function as a society. They dictate the formation of and implementation of policies and laws and make unacceptable behaviours acceptable.
New frames of seeing our place in the world, drawing on the past and looking to the future, that do not shy away from feelings, philosophy, or spirit, are the maps that will help us find our way out of the mess we are in and navigate back to connection.
I have in recent years become increasingly interested in how we connect with, and value, nature, because I do not think that enough of us will care enough about the damage we are causing to the web of life without a better balance of scientific understanding with emotional insight. While I have touched on some of these aspects in my book, , this week of immersion in the beauty of the Burren landscape, absorbed in a novel combination of philosophical and biological history, has prompted me to challenge my aversion to these conversations in public realms.
It is crucial that scientists and policymakers, as well as artists and cultural creatives, shine a spotlight on the history and evolution of modern narratives, like counselling for our culture. Without this, the transformative changes that are required of society are unlikely to take hold.
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