Wednesday, June 14, 2017

Is industrial culture to blame?

I wonder if the appeal of artisanal activities within industrial economies lies partly in the human tendency to see spirits in objects. I don't think I would be as likely to see an industrially made table or bench as a person as I do in the case of my homemade benches and table. Their irregularities, and the intimacy with them that I developed while making them, accommodating myself to and appreciating their imperfections, caused me to form a bond with them. The surfaces of factory made goods are too slippery to allow such a ready purchase. I do think, however, that over time, one can develop this kind of attachment to an industrial product, it just takes more time for the bond to form. I recently put a dent in the fender of my previously dentless car; it is mine now in a way that it wasn't previously.

Given the easy way I ascribe personhood to nonhuman objects, I wonder if humans are not like baby ducks, ready to imprint onto whatever they see first. Maybe the desire to ascribe personhood to inanimate things (I use nonhuman and inanimate here indiscriminately to cast a wide and varying net) expresses itself to neurotic degrees in some people as a way to counteract the depersonalizing effects of industrial culture, a kind of allergic reaction to the alienating character of a society in which bonds of this kind have been stripped away, or are highly stressed by the demands of daily living in an economy and culture that does not privilege them. Or maybe it is merely adaptive, meaning that human beings have always included the nonhuman and inanimate into their social lives, and to do so is vital to human life. I can think of no better approach to one's environment than to relate to it intimately, and with mutuality and compassion, both for the welfare of the nonhuman and inanimate as well as for the sake of other humans. Adopting an animist or neo-animist approach to human-environmental relations could be the best prescription for healthy living in the future, first and foremost with respect to adapting to or mitigating the effects of climate change.

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