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Nature’s control

A big part of history can be explained by the desire to separate OURSELVES from the natural world

The europeans found in the formula “rational being”, a truly fruitful definition for this goal.

The reasoning (in latín ”ratio” also means count) should guide the dominance that humans would exercise over the environment.

This imperative grew considerably since the 18th century when sciences as Botany, Chemistry or Biology set forth the idea of turning nature into a comodity at the service of humanity. They went from “ agro” to “ hortus”, from landscape to gardens. They imposed the idea of an organized and abstract beauty upon nature.

What was inherited was the Anthropocene, a new period of geological history in which humanity has imposed its mark on a planetary scale. In turn, the ideal of service to humanity has imposed the combination of natural and economic needs. For this, we implement accounting and economics, from which in a way the concept of planetary boundaries derives.

Adam naming the animals (Ambraham bloemaert; Museo del Prado) reminds us of the force of the biblical mandate “fill the earth and subdue it”