On the "Natural"

"Here was neither peace, nor rest, nor a moment's safety. All was confusion and action, and every moment life and limb were in peril. There was imperative need to be constantly alert, for these dogs and men were not town dogs and men. They were savages, all of them, who knew no law but the law of club and fang."  - Jack London, The Call of the Wild  

Somewhere, somehow, along the tangled web of human development we got this fantastic notion into our heads that there is such a thing as 'nature,' meaning:  Na-ture: [n] 1. the material world esp. as surrounding humankind and existing independently of human activities. Or 2. the natural world as it exists without human beings or civilization.  <http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/nature>  As opposed to ‘man-made’, or the artificial, meaning:  ar-ti-fi-cial: [n] made by human skill [as opposed to the natural].  <http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/artificial>

I propose that this construct, being itself artificial, is illogical, out-dated, and counter-productive both ecologically and ecologically, for two reasons.

The first is simply, from a physical and material perspective, the realm of human intervention is incredibly intertwined with the ‘natural’ [if untouched, ‘pure’ ecosystems actually exist anymore to be a factor in world ecology] as to be inextricably linked.  One might say, from chemical and physical processes, they might be the same phenomena, indivisible except as an abstraction.

The other reason is that this abstraction seems to create an odd division that sets the natural against or in opposition to human economic development.  Ecological systems are to be mined, or plowed as resources, but not enhanced for the future.  You can be either ecologically savvy, or economically prosperous, but you can’t be both.  A seemingly pervasive ‘us against them’ mentality, that actually prohibits mankind from achieving an ultimately sustainable ecological and economic model.  This is a fallacy.  As with any economic model, if you reinvest in the means of production, you see the return in dividends.  Good stewardship is the best capitalistic policy.   More investigation into the origins of this.