Our current quest for the natural is multiplying the paradoxes that seem to doom it to failure.
The first paradox is reflected in an expression that itself is not far from an oxymoron: if we must go looking for the natural, do we not end up with just the opposite?
In his Book of the Courtier (1528), a guidebook of sorts for the perfect honnête homme of the Renaissance, Baldassare Castiglione recommends that his readers evince sprezzatura, a natural air of nonchalance that can ‘conceal design and show that what is done and said is done without effort and almost without thought’. He concludes: ‘true art does not appear to be art; nor to anything must we give greater care than to conceal art, for if it is discovered, it quite destroys our credit and brings us into small esteem.’ The natural thus appears to be the result of highly sophisticated art: just how much effort must we make to appear natural!
The second paradox is the following: never have our ultra-urbanised and digitalised lifestyles taken us further from nature than now, yet we are looking to reclaim all the values associated with that nature. Simple, frugal, healthy, vegan, nude, neo-rural: through these adjectives, we celebrate the virtues of the ‘natural’ in our ways of consuming, dressing, eating, fantasising about our ways of life. But the natural does not equate to nature…
The American journalist Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods (2010), created the expression ‘nature-deficit disorder’ to designate the ills resulting from our growing disconnection from nature: ‘Nature-deficit disorder describes the human costs of alienation from nature, among them: diminished use of the senses, attention difficulties and higher rates of physical and emotional illness. This disorder can be detected in individuals, families and communities.’ Louv shows that, far from being a means of reconnecting with nature, celebrating the natural distances us from it: ‘The more a society turns towards the natural, the more it moves away from nature. The quest for the natural is the perfect alibi for absolving ourselves of our indifference to the destruction of nature. It is the illusion of those who have lost their paradise forever.’
In other words, the quest for the natural is denaturing us; we should replace it with the quest for nature. First, because it is urgent: as set out in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework from COP15, we must restore 30% of degraded natural zones and conserve at least 30% of the land and seas of our planet to maintain their habitable conditions.
Then, because reconnecting with nature has numerous positive effects, as demonstrated by multiple scientific studies*: reduction of stress and depression, increase in cognitive performance, production of proteins by the body that improve immunity. There are social consequences too, with the strengthening of links and the sense of community. Nature is intrinsically important to our health, our ability to learn, our well-being, our spiritual and social life. To put it another way, nature is an antidote. Ricard Louv talks about ‘vitamin N’ (N for Nature).
Finally, because this reconnection with nature is the best way of inciting people to preserve it. A study asked adults living in urban areas about their attitudes to nature. Specific questioning made it possible to determine whether these people had lived close to a natural area or regularly participated in outdoor activities in their childhood. The results showed that those who had been in closest contact with nature were the most convinced of the need to act in favour of the environment. The quest for nature is self-reinforcing!
Whilst the quest for the natural ends in just the opposite, the quest for nature is a positive sum game that must be encouraged.
*For example, Ulrich et al. (1984); Lohr and Pearson-Mims (2000); Klemmer, Waliczek and Zajicek (2005); Bunn-Jin Park et al. (2009); Taylor and Kuo (2009); Li et al. (2010).
Sophie Chassat – Senior VP Sustainability, Accuracy
Accuracy Talks Straight #9 – The Cultural Corner