Customer Reviews

The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and the Scientific Revolution : A Feminist Reappraisal of the Scientific Revolution

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This is a book on the important topic of ecofeminism. The author wants to show how the modern destruction of nature and our environment ties in with the subjugation of women during the same period. However, to understand how these assaults occurred, we have to first examine the history of ideas. As Merchant shows, these destructive attitudes toward women and nature reflect changing ideas of how we think about people and our place in the world. What characterizes this new way of thinking which began about 500 years ago is the idea that trees, colors, ideas, people, in short, the entire cosmos, are really just the mechanical actions of matter in motion, no matter how much things may seem otherwise. From this modern perspective, the natural world and everything in it really amounts to a gigantic machine in motion, thereby debasing our ordinary experience of that world. Nonetheless, this reduction of things to numbers greatly helps the rise of modern science, especially technology, by showing how mathematics can be applied concretely and experimentally to just about everything there is. Moreover, during this period, how people think about society also changes. Society too is conceived as a colossal machine, a human one, possessing definite structures, with components conceived as self-contained and independent little atoms, who associate with one another not because of inner need but because of external advantage. Thus, moral philosophy too, follows modern thinking by becoming a credo of "it's okay for the selfish man to get ahead in life", while economic science becomes a means of determining how we can all get ahead without destroying the social fabric. Or, put another way, we're really only interested in ourselves, but cooperate with others as a means of gaining our own ends and avoiding a consuming war of all against all. It's not too hard to see the seeds of destructive assault in such thinking.

Nature thus undergoes a profound change from the traditional conception of nurturing mother to one of dead machine, that is, from an object of affection to an object of subjugation and exploitation. Correspondingly, the traditionally moral way of looking at our natural surroundings changes to a non-moral, strictly neutral, it-is-there-to-be-used point of view. Moreover, these new aggressive attitudes are associated with how men should act, are supposed to act; while women,on the other hand, are thought of (like nature) as passive, there-to-be-used objects of exploitation. Such thinking thus enables industry and technology to historically combine in an ongoing assault upon the environment, on one hand, and women, on the other. What is needed, of course, is a new way of thinking that will end these horrific abuses - What has changed, can be changed. Unfortunately, Merchant treats this fascinating subject in a lifeless manner. She walks through the historical precedents in dry, uninspired, and thoroughly descriptive fashion, leaving the impression of an embroidered postgraduate dissertation. Her thesis cries out for greater color, synthesis and argumentation. As a student of the humanist philosopher Theodore Roszak, she could use more of his chutzpah.

Merchant sets the record straight in this powerful, straightforward book. She illustrates the abuses of political power that drove the scientific revolution, dethrones its "father," Sir Francis Bacon, and unravels the presumption of the scientific, paternal myth. This scholarly book provides the reader with the knowledge to ask the right questions and demand answers: about ecology, nature, the economics of science, and the torture and sexualization of the feminine. And even better, Merchant gifts us with the opportunity to imagine something better.

Sadly, this book is actually assigned reading in some colleges and universities, which means students will believe as fact its rather thin argument that industrial development in the world stems from a decline in the value placed on womanhood. The author apparently hasn't studied the very real oppression of women during earlier time periods in history. This is junk social science, and, horrifically has been given credibility it does not deserve. Admittedly, the premise is unique. The 'academics' behind the premise, however, are weak at best, and downright dangerous at worst. Connections are drawn with no grounds other than the author's personal claim that various advances in industry or science are related to anti-faminist attitudes and have sexual undertones.

If you like this book, you'll love the equally distorted sexual references in Spinning Straw Into Gold (by Gould).

Merchant's book is the only one out there which incorporates the history of environmental degradation with the history of ideas and ideology. I had never considered the power of "mechanism" as an ideology; I had assumed it was an objective account of natural processes as they actually occur. So, that was a good point the book brings into the center of the discussion. But the problem is that this idea of mechanism is inadequately theorized in this book. Where did it come from? How did it become the authoritative worldview? I read Merchant's "Radical Ecology" published 20 years later, and the idea of mechanism is still underdeveloped here too. The world is corpuscular, mechanical, lifeless -- why? Says who? Why do they start saying it? There are links here to Protestantism, but Merchant does not realize this.

Merchant puts forth some fascinating ideas about the scientific revolution, and the subsequent quest for industrialization. Her arguments are cogent, and her quotes she has culled make for an interesting read. I was particularly struck by her assertion (p.??) that (in developing the idea of heliocentricism) Galileo placed the male sun as that which the Earth revolves around rather than vice versa (yes, I'm paraphrasing). What bothers me about such statement is less the shear absurdity of it (though I am bothered by that) and more by the fact that Galileo risked his life to expose the Catholic Church as a gang of frauds whereas Merchant experienced virtually no element of risk in writing such drivel. I am not even sure by what convention that sun is even male - because its rays 'penetrate'?!? Overall, an interesting read, though I am unconvinced that Medieval period was anything like Merchant's depiction, and she seems to conveniently ignore the privilege of being able to read/write/publish at all, both of which are the result of living in a technified and industrialized society.

This is, without a doubt, the most boring book I've ever read. The analogies are absolutely ridiculous and the imagery--Please!

The best part of this book was the Preface & Introduction. After that, it went downhill and so did my interest. Had to fight to stay awake from sentence to sentence.