The "Pages" of Nature

A major concern for Rachel Carson in Silent Spring is to force a reevaluation of humankind’s anthropocentric tendencies. She not only wants us to reconsider our separatist attitude towards nature, urging a more diverse and connected conception of the environment and our role in it, but in several passages she argues for a larger incorporation of nature into the configuration of institutions that were anthropocentrically created and maintained. In other words, Carson argues for a total erasure of the binary between man and nature--she pushes us to view nature not as a backdrop to human institutions but as a contributor and consideration in the formation and the functioning of these institutions.

Take, example, Carson’s question of morality in the chapter “Needless Havoc:” “The question is whether any civilization can wage relentless war on life without destroying itself, and without losing the right to be called civilized” (p.99). This reference to loss of civility brings to mind its implication: barbarism. By classifying the acts of pollutions and degradation of nature as violent and barbaric, Carson implies that nature has its own rights and that these acts infringe upon them. She extends the anthropocentric models of ethics and morality to incorporate an agent, which is traditionally viewed as a non-agent. In fact, she erases this very distinction between the two.

A more complicated example of this erasure of the human and nature binary is Carson’s metaphor of nature as a book (p.64). Carson here argues that nature is something which can be read, something that is “eloquent” and possesses “integrity” which warrants preservation. Carson laments, however, that these “pages lie unread” (64). But for Carson nature is both subject and author of a complicated story that man participates in and observes. In choosing to describe nature in these terms Carson involves nature in one of the most anthropocentric institutions: reading and writing. By implying that nature is not only subject in this institution but also agent she forces a reevaluation of the role of both man and nature in this institution and collapses the two into the same role. In her lamentation that we have failed to recognize this dynamic between the two, that we have failed to “read” these pages of nature, she argues that this understanding is not outside of our grasp and forces a responsibility onto humankind to take in these words and gain a better understanding of its subject.