The Authoritarian Image of Nature

Nature is made to conspire with spirit to emancipate us.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature

Nature is not the end, not ultimate, not absolute. It's a means to an end. It is up to us to remove the cultural chains that keep us trapped in a world of phenomena, not allowing us to question the absolute. So how do we remove those chains? With reason. The eye of reason lets us penetrate the tallest mountain and look beyond the surface of the ocean. It lets us recognise nature for what it is: material, substance, and, as such, merely a pointer to a seemingly never-ending chain of cause and effect.

Yes, we are a part of nature and we ought to play our role in it. My argument is that it doesn't end there. We haven't understood our role yet. Culture defines nature as phenomenon, accident, effect and not cause, result and not beginning, the fruit and not the germ. Stopping here would be surrendering to the limitations of our sensual perception. Nature is not the ultimate end as we commonly portray it, but it serves as a means to overcome itself in pursuit of an end until that end turns into a means to a new end. However, we seem to find the thought of never arriving so horrifying that most of us refuse to resist the effects of culture on the human mind that has kept us in the same prison forever.

We rather talk about a revolution for a lifetime than spend a fraction of our lifetime on making ourselves worthy of a revolution. Nature is sacred, and because it is it comes with the obligation to question its sacredness. If we don't take on this obligation and let dominant culture shape its image, nature remains nothing more than that: an image; something we imagine to be a certain way. But imagination is not reality — it is illusion.

In a way it is the romanticization of an authoritarian system. And just like with any authoritarian system, where the acting forces flow from top to bottom, as opposed to reflective forces flowing omnidirectionally, the status quo can never be brought into question. Or as Emerson puts it: "[...] so long as the active powers predominate over the reflective, we resist [...] any hint that nature is more short-lived or mutable than spirit."

I am not trying to diminish nature's stunning beauty. It is perfect the way it is. So it is us who must learn to move beyond the extremes and ultimates towards an open and ever-expanding horizon. If we don't, we risk spinning the wheel of illusion in perpetuity. If we do, nothing less than the liberation from our self-imposed tyranny comes into sight.

I want to close this piece with the words from my dear friend and teacher Choku-san: "You can and should doubt everything, so long as you also doubt yourself."