Alienation and Nature

Alienation and Nature
Name
Institution
Alienation refers to the process where individuals become foreign to their environment. The concept is deeply implanted into most religions, political, and social theories of the civilized era, namely, the thought that some period in the past individuals lived in harmony, and there was a rapture that alienated them from the world (Bollen, 2007). In all historical alienation notions, one can find a common structure. This paper aims at analyzing the various reasons why people are alienated from nature and try to come up with a solution on how to overcome alienation.
Individuals in western industrialized nations increasingly view themselves as disconnected from nature (Bakari. 2014). Researchers think these people have developed this sense of being separate from nature for a number of reasons. Several authors argue that people were once physically and psychologically closer to the world than people in industrialized countries are now. Increased scientific knowledge brought about forces of urbanization and industrialization, which split people from their environments. The public, researchers, and philosophers have struggled to define nature, but there is no simple definition of nature. Lack of contact with the natural environment and increased contact with fabricated environments might lead individuals to feel more distant from the environments although human beings are a part of nature (Hodder, 2011).
Since the arrival of Europeans in the shores of most countries one of the biggest reasons of clashing culturally with indigenous people has been their varying attitudes towards the environment. Indigenous people around the globe have been regularly appalled by how European individuals do not respect nature and their systematic exploitation of the natural environment. On the other side, Europeans have continued viewing nature as nothing more than a collection of resources that people should exploit. Most people view natural things as entities with no inner being or life (Melinda and Price, 2008).
Among the European concepts that indigenous people like Australian Aborigines and Native Americans found difficult to comprehend was that of owning natural resources and land. Ownership refers to a position where a person is dominant and superior over something. Since people know that they are alive and conscious, and view natural things as not being conscious or alive, they feel that they are superior and feel like they must dominate nature, like a master dominates a slave. However, indigenous peoples’ perspective of the aliveness and sacredness of nature does not allow them to take the European attitude. Even in their communities, they rarely saw themselves as owning natural resources or land in the sense that people understand the word. These people believed that nobody owns land; therefore, they viewed themselves as taking care of it on behalf of a Great Spirit. Often, the attitude worked in favor of European colonists since native saw the notion of selling land as a joke thus letting Europeans buy land for almost nothing.
Some authors believe that even the ancestors of Europeans viewed the world as sacred until fairly recent times. It seems that people lost this vision because of how Christianity influenced them. Christianity taught them that people are superior over all creation and they are supposed to dominate over everything. Other researchers believe that alienation from the natural environment began later and their soulless worldview resulted from the scientific model created by Newton and Descartes approximately 4 centuries ago (Melinda and Price, 2008). Although there is one cannot doubt that such factors have played a great role in enhancing people’s abuse of the natural environment, this paper will argue that there is another more elementary reason for their pathological attitude towards the environment(Bollen, 2007).
Most adults think that children have an alienated relationship with nature, which is different from that of past generations (Brinsmead, 2008). This disconnectedness is mostly associated with modern issues like fear, technology, and development. Anxiety, disconnectedness, and urbanization are apparent, and seems like young people in this modern world spend little free time outside (Dickson, 2013). Effects of this are thought to include emotional, social, and physiological problems that have dire repercussions on how children treat and understand nature. This form of alienation has resulted in children getting NDD (nature deficit disorder).
NDD refers to a part conversation on child-nature disconnection and relationships. Researchers have long tried to investigate the complex association between nature and children, and the literature is vast and interdisciplinary. Experiences in the natural environment are thought to deeply influence the physiological, social and emotional development of a child. Most of the research reveals that exposure to nature has positive effects. NDD is a theory that adults use to talk about alienation issues. It is a metaphor, not a medical diagnosis.
One researcher argues that decreased contact with nature is attributed to media-induced anxiety, well-meaning environmental regulations, fear of litigation and parental protectionism (Conradie, 2010). The effects of reduced contact with nature include behavioral difficulties, dulled senses, declining academic performance, stress, obesity, and decreased physical and emotional well-being. An author points out various claims that contact with the natural world is restorative, therapeutic, relaxing, and physically and emotionally beneficial and encourages people to connect.
Personal, institutional, and cultural factors have brought about the split where television, technology, decreased natural habitats, test-based education programs, and air conditioning keep children in-doors (Hodder, 2011). Human-nature estrangement is complex and includes underlying power issues, which result in racism, sexism, homophobia and environmental destruction. Due to this, researchers have criticized messages from environmentalists, which ignore these issues and mostly speak to and for affluent white audiences.
Alienation plays a huge role in the environmental problem, and overcoming this requires people to overcome their alienation (Brinsmead, 2008). Over the years, theorists, politicians and economists assert that state non-intervention policies, capital flow and free trade lead to w...