An Unnatural Order: Roots of Our Destruction of Nature

A real eye opener into tracing the historical roots of some of the major problems we face as a species. Broken into shorter sections, so it's easy to pick up and read, and digest in bites. This is an excellent book what really takes the problems we have as a species beyond gender, class, race and analyzes it in relation to the entire natural world, which YES, we are destroying, but also there is a rising counter consciousness that recognizes our interdependence on nature. Thank you for a fine book! I just gifted my second copy to a friend who I think could benefit from reading it.

When I talk of the ideas in this book at parties, my friends and new acquaintances are blown away by the concepts and want to read the book, even if they are not avid readers! The conversation always builds into an enriching connection of ideas that attracts others at the event and moves us all in very positive directions via our communication! This book connects many dots which shine light on our current humanity and it inspires us to move forward in that light to create a better future. I highly recommend that you immerse yourself in it and share! Thanks!!!

Thanx

Can't wait to read it!

I purchased this book during my vegan phase and I appreciate the author's theory on humankind's relationship with animals and our need to dominate. There are as many books as there are opinions on the subject of whether we should or shouldn't eat animals. People, we're omnivores - that's why we have the variety of teeth that we have and only one stomach! But, that doesn't mean we should treat the animals we eat like unfeeling meat-bags. Animals absolutely deserve respect and reverence. After all, the ultimate sacrifice is thrust upon them to nourish us. Humankind would definitely benefit, psychological, humanely, and physically if we strove to rekindle a loving respectful relationship towards all life, especially animals.

Buy a copy of this book for everyone you know!!!

I am amazed that 20 years after the fact I had the pleasure of reading this book. It is more than unfortunate that this book remains so unknown. I will do my best to promote it as I think is one of the most important books I've read that tackles the major issues of society today. Not only does Mason brilliantly map out how we got where we are today, but what we can do tomorrow to get us back to place where we are at peace with the planet, animals, and each other.

I think more and more people are becoming aware that our day to day choices impact the world around us, but too many of us still remain in a bubble. We may recycle, we may buy hybrid cars, but we are missing so much of what is really going on. I think Mason makes us look deeper at culture and our choices, the ones we are aware of and the ones we are not. I can not recommend this book enough. Jim Mason is a true visionary.

In 1892, Henry Salt published the book Animals' Rights. While it was not totally ignored, it took nearly another century for the modern "Animal Rights" movement to begin, after the appearance of Peter Singer's Animal Liberation in 1975.
When reading An Unnatural Order it will be difficult to not get the impression that Jim Mason is a visionary, on par with Henry Salt. We are privileged to have Mason as a contemporary. Years from now people could easily look back on him as the spark that helped reverse the course of destruction humans were on at the end of the 20th Century. Unfortunately, as with the ideas in it-and like Salt's work-An Unnatural Order has been largely ignored. Like a great movie that no one has seen, the fault for this must lay with lack of promotion. This review is appearing several years after the book's publication. This is unfortunate. An Unnatural Order is an important book.
"This book is written in hope and celebration. My hope is that we have the strength to rid ourselves of the destructive strands in Western culture," Mason begins. These destructive strands manifest themselves in the "Nature Question." Grossly simplified, the Nature Question is the intellectual belief that somewhere in our evolutionary past our ancestors broke their bonds with the living earth and put Homo sapiens above all other life on the planet, resulting in our species having no sense of kinship with other life nor any sense of belonging. The earth is beneath us; we are alienated from nature.
Mason continues "It is now time to bring this question into popular discussion, and I hope this book is a start." The roots of our alienation are deep-and deeply explored. Thirty pages are devoted to identifying dominionism. A picture of the world before agriculture-the seed of dominionism-is painted. Using current research and extensive references, a vivid portrait results that is as believable as any anthropologist's.
An all-things-are-connected web is spun, touching animal-human history and relationships; the crossover to agriculture; misogyny and misothery (the author's invention for "an attitude of hatred and contempt for animals and nature"); racism, colonialism, and dominionism. The breadth of his discussion is extensive and not every reader will agree with all of Mason's personal viewpoints. It irrelevant. In the long run one will feel certain that the book hits the mark of verity.
The final chapter brings it all together and offers Mason's broad outline for what needs to be done to turn dominionism around. He shows how the awareness of our social and environmental problems is widely known, citing the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, quoting political leaders and scholars, and referencing a who's who list of environmental writers, who he concludes all have the same message: "Humanity needs fundamental changes in its relationship with nature."
Supplying the missing piece, Mason states: "All having laid down such strong rhetoric, however, the movers and shakers, with rare exceptions, stop dead in their tracks when they approach the Animal Question. The Animal Question is regarded as illegitimate, silly, peripheral." To address the Animal Question reduces ones credibility. Driving home the point, Mason ponders how Christopher Stone's landmark 1972 article "Should Trees Have Standing?" would have been received had he written "Should Chimpanzees Have Standing?" He concludes that the Animal Question "is the very heart" of the Nature Question. The two cannot be separated. In order to make any progress toward healing our dominionist worldview, this gap must be bridged.
In the last few years some headway seems to have been made in this area. For too long the wedge that existed between "animal" and "environmental" groups has done all harm and no good. Since An Unnatural Order's publicatiom, there has been a call for unity as well as a more serious acceptance of the "Animal Question." Peter Singer's 1993 book and continued efforts with The Great Ape Project; the publication of When Elephants Weep by Jeffrey Masson and Susan McCarthy; and E magazine, which, beginning with its September/October 1995 issue, published a three-part series "to promote a dialogue between these two disparate communities," are just a few. Hopefully this is the start of serious progress.
In 1993, Jim Mason's An Unnatural Order appeared. While not totally ignored, there may never be a "modern dominionism" movement. If the message in his book is even remotely accurate, our culture cannot wait 80 years for some as-yet-unborn author to rediscover An Unnatural Order's message.
Joseph Connelly