How humans subjugated nature
Everything is always more complicated than you think
“Everything is always more complicated than you think” It started with God asking Adam and Eve to subdue the Earth , says German historian Philipp Blom, and that Christian story is still in our minds. “But we are primates and everything we do is part of nature.’
The human obsession with controlling nature will lead to the destruction of our planet. “Subject the Earth.“About three thousand years ago, the author of the biblical book of Genesis put these words into the creator's mouth. This is how the idea was born that the human species occupies a special place on Earth and therefore has the right to exploit the planet mercilessly.
An idea that developed and spread around the world over the following centuries. Those who opposed it had to deal with colonizers and exploiters who invoked higher powers that had simply defined it that way. According to the Christian story, we are “above” and “outside” nature. That's still in our thinking. In this universal history of man and his environment, Philipp Blom tells the story of the subjugation of nature, whose negative consequences are becoming increasingly visible. Only if humanity can rid itself of the delusion of being above nature, will it have a chance of survival.
PHILIPP BLOM 'Everything is always more complicated than you think' It started with God asking Adam and Eve to subdue the Earth, says German historian Philipp Blom, and that Christian story is still in our minds. “But we are primates and everything we do is part of nature.’
Philipp Blom, historian and author of, among others, The Dizzying Years and The Subjugation. In that last book, published earlier this year, he addresses the age-old human obsession with dominating nature.
