In “ We Have Never been Modern by Bruno Latour, he describes a world in which man and nature are two entirely separate things while in reality we are one in the same. Similar to a newspaper with its many articles about similar topics us humans are one topic in the large umbrella that is all of nature. Latour suggests that we have two goals as a society, purification that is keeping humans separate from nature and translation, which is creating labels for everything around us. The rock outside of Suffolk hall can be viewed as part of nature or as part of human civilization when in reality it is both. However, few people think this way because we are so modern and do not understand that humans are part of nature similar to everything around us.
In “The trouble with Wilderness” by William Cronon he says that we must preserve the environment. The wilderness we know of today is not real wilderness; it is merely an escape from everyday life. We have lost most if not all connection we once had with the environment. We are an urbanized society and Cronon suggests that we keep that in mind and not to pretend that our home is the wilderness when our home is the civilization we have built. Instead of having to go out to the “wilderness” to appreciate nature we can look within our own cities. Everything there is part of nature from the birds perched on windowsills to the rocks on the ground. The rock outside Suffolk hall exemplifies nature similar to everything around us and shows us that we do not need to leave our homes to see the nature around us.
In Donna Haraway’s “The Cyborg Manifesto” she states that we should remove all boundaries between us and become more like a cyborg. The cyborg is not a machine; it is “a hybrid of machine and organism.” She states that in today’s society we are all cyborgs, and that the cyborg is an image of imagination and reality, it shapes everything we do and have done including the traditions of racism and male dominance in our society today. Specifically she states, “The cyborg is a creature in a post-gender world.” Meaning that she wants everyone to be equal. Nobody should be subject to a title that they may not want to have. It is easy to see that Haraway is a feminist in how she defends it so often. Also she mentions the difference between socialist feminism and radical feminism in that socialist feminism has to do with class structure and alienation while radical feminism deals with gender structure and sexual objectification.
Everyday as I return from my classes I pass a large boulder outside my residence hall. It is just a normal boulder but every time I look at it I cant help wonder if it was placed there for decoration or if it has always resided there. It seems as if it was always its home but then you look around and see the plants and dirt that has been dug up around it and start to second-guess yourself. Some people may see the boulder as nature and nothing more whilst others may see it as merely a decoration for the outdoors. The boulder also begs the question, what else is living around or because of this rock. There could be dozens even hundreds of insects living in the ground under this rock. For instance there could be an anthill under the rock because it provides protection from the rain or even a beehive under it. As unimportant as the rock may seem to some people it is these small integrations of the natural world into the artificial world that give a place its character and can make people feel at home whenever they see a landmark, even if it is just a boulder. It is at this point where you realize that sometimes the natural world and the artificial world can be one and the same, they can merge together and show us that the boundary is not always as obvious as it may seem.
