The Virtue of Natural
Lately I've been hearing a lot of people defend certain behaviors as right because they're considered "more natural." Both sides on the homosexuality debate use this tactic, as do proponents of the nuclear family, proponents of free love, scientologists, biologists, and even a few pragmaticists. J. Morgan frequently whips out the supposed "virtue of naturality" whenever I get excited about a cloned dog, a sexy xbox, or any advancement in technology that makes my life less "natural" (and more "fun.") Lately, the phrase was thrown around like gospel on Barnabas' blog, where various people argued for or against their version of contraception based on the idea that it was a more natural way to control reproduction or sex.
I don't like this phrase because I don't understand why anything "natural" is necessarily better. Very little that we do is "natural", in the really literal sense of the word. It's not "natural" to wear clothing, or correct your vision, or drive in cars. It's not natural to eat out of a can, to use a microwave, or to study whales. And who's nature are we talking about, anyway? Christians are especially fond of exhorting each other NOT to live by their "natural" impulses, until those "natural" impulses lead them to "unnatural" behavior.
I think we've either got to stop appealing to the imaginary virtue of "naturality", define what we mean by "natural" much better than we are, or embrace some sort of "fight club" mentality in which meeting our most basic physical and emotional (natural) needs is our only real priority. I'm not prepared to stop wearing deoderant or using my laptop, so I'll go with the first option.
Of course I'm over simplifying - post a comment.
posted by RJ @ 9:18 AM
10 comments
10 Comments:
I agree. I think its a particularly useless term because in the right perspective everything is natural. Are ant hills natural? They are made by ants, so if they are natural then we can say that things made by creatures are also natural. Therefore skyscrapers are natural. Microwaves and computers are natural. You could also argue, using Barnabas's referenced post, that the human mind is natural and therefore the progression of society is natural. Creating contraceptives is a natural result of our societal growth and the desire to have sex without the risk of having children is also natural. There is no such thing as something "unnatural" because humans are as natural as ants. There is nothing on the earth that was not created by something that ocurrs "naturally" in the universe. And if creation is unnatural then ant hills, bee hives, etc. are also unnatural.
I totally agree with Redbeard. Throwing around the term natural doesn't really help anything at all. And, who is to really say what is natural anyway? For example, it may be natural for me to go up and talk to a complete stranger, but to another person being natural might be painting civil war soldiers in a cabin in the woods with no human contact.
can someone please explain how cloning a dog will make your life more "fun"?
all joking aside i think you made an important distinction about defining what is natural and in whose opinion. Because "natural"...ness is just that: an opinion.
But, if you take the literal definition of the word "existing in or produced by nature" then it comes down to your opinions of what meets those qualifications. If you think about it everything exists in nature (if it didn't exist, how would we know... how's that for a logical fallacy?) so everything must be natural. On the otherhand, if you take a more "everything was put here by someone or something" opinion then everthing must be unnatural since nature had no hand in the production of these things.
Redhurt, I really hope I never made an argument where I extolled the virtues of naturalness (or even appeal to nature as an authority). If I did, it was not my intent in any way; I am really perplexed by that appeal myself. I will be interested to see what sort of defense an appeal to nature gets.
Sorry if I'm putting words in your mouth then, jmorg - I thought that's what you were saying in our cloning discussion and the resulting medicine dialogue that ensued shortly thereafterwardlyed.
My only contribution to this question will be this. Partially hydrogenated oil. Those three word alone should make us long for a more natural existence. My acupuncturist told me that partially hydrogenated oil (aka transfat) is so unnatural that it cannot even be digested by the human body. So, it just sits there...and floats around your digestive tract, your belly, your bloodstream....
so gross. Can we at least agree on that one??
Rocks are pretty natural, and I'm pretty sure the human body can't digest those either...
ok, mair, I'll agree. But I'm not going to go run around naked and never shave again just because I can't digest some of the foods I eat, but you're in luck, because I bet Josh will.
Why didn't Barnie or Hans comment on this ever? Did they not see it? This seems to get right at some of the basics of a lot of their arguments.
I think they were still reeling from the assault on pregnancy on Barnie's blog.
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