Assignment 3: Taking Thoreau's lead, can you imagine ways in which our technologically affected lives can be wedded with a sensual acuity for nature?

“Grass is hard and dumpy and damp, and full of dreadful black insects.”

I came across this sentence by Oscar Wilde, taken from his essay “The Decay Of Lying - An Observation”, in my English class a long time ago. I remember exactly my surprise upon reading it, and this surprise is the reason why I still remember the quote at all: The fact that someone would be so blunt, so honest as to admit that they are actually not that fond of nature astonished me. I had read so many poems that praised the beauty of nature, and felt like art in general was always in favour of nature, either imitating or praising it. “People tell us that Art makes us love Nature more than we loved her before; that it reveals her secrets to us; and that after a careful study of Corot and Constable we see things in her that had escaped our observation. My own experience is that the more we study Art, the less we care for Nature. What Art really reveals to us is Nature's lack of design, her curious crudities, her extraordinary monotony, her absolutely unfinished condition”, Oscar Wilde's essay goes on. The man-made as superior to nature? What a megalomaniac and arrogant idea! What are we, after all, compared to the great and sometimes destructive power of nature? In “Sounds”, the fourth chapter of “Walden”, Thoreau shows that the relation between nature and man with all his inventions doesn't have to be a competitive one. He lets the man-made and the natural become one in a beautiful metaphore: “Sometimes, on Sundays, I heard the bells, the Lincoln, Acton, Bedford, or Concord bell, when the wind was favorable, a faint, sweet, and, as it were, natural melody, worth importing into the wilderness. At a sufficient distance over the woods this sound acquires a certain vibratory hum, as if the pine needles in the horizon were the strings of a harp which it swept.” (Thoreau 66). But is it still possible to reconcile nature and technology so easily nowadays? What has the majority of people rather experienced—Wilde or Thoreau?

My idea of the connection between technology and nature it is instinctively a quite negative one. Looking at all our modern technologies, are there any that actually coalesce man with nature? There are certainly instances that would earn general consent: modern science constantly brings new discoveries concerning the way nature works, disclosing mysteries and discovering new wonders; nature documentaries show us more than we could ever see with our own eyes; magnificent high power telescopes admit us fascinating views of planets and galaxies. But as always, there are two sides of the coin. Do we really get a closer connection to nature because our knowledge about it has increased, because we can “optimise” our perception of the surrounding world?

Thoreau enjoys the way the sound of bells coalesces with the sounds of the woods and thus, in a way, becomes one with nature. We live in a time when technology is so omnipresent that birds have actually been reported to imitate ring tones. Would Thoreau celebrate this coalescence of technology and nature? He would probably rather be alarmed. After all, there is a huge difference between the 19^th century and today. In Thoreau's time, the impact of industrialization had still been moderate, the fatal consequences for nature not yet being apparent. Today things look differently: pollution, global warming and nuclear disasters are prove of the high price we pay to satisfy our hunger for technology. Furthermore, one relation must not be forgotten: the more technology we consume, the more energy we need, and this energy is—and I sincerely hope that is it legitimate to say “still”—to a large part produced in a way that harms nature.

Thoreau's idea of the man-made and the natural supporting one another is a desirable one and shows what should be aspired by mankind: the brotherly cooperation or at least coexistence of technology and nature. Still I can't help but think that it is also a utopian idea. The power and divinity of nature is not something the average human being in our society appreciates. Instead we worship technology: mobile phones, laptops, games consoles and television is what we spend far more time with and what we enjoy most. Yes, nature is beautiful, impressive, sublime, and should by all means be preserved. But let's admit it: most people would rather go to the cinema, surf the web or skype a friend than actively engage with nature. In the end, I think that technology rather alienates us from nature.

Works cited:

Thoreau, Henry David. Walden or Life in the Woods. USA: Popular Classics Publishing, 2012. Print.

Wilde, Oscar. The Decay of Lying. New York: Brentano, 1905 [1889]. UCLA. Web. 31 December 2013 <http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/comm/steen/cogweb/Abstracts/Wilde_1889.htm>