Rachel Freeman Week 1 Overview

 I want to start by saying that I was so confused why a philosophy professor would be qualified to teach an environmental studies class, but in just the first few classes I've come to understand. I didn't realize how much of this class I would be able to connect to ancient political philosophy concepts that I learned in a 100-level class last semester, but it's fascinating how even the most complex worlds of politics and nature can connect to each other. I first realized the connection when we were discussing the difference between humans and animals, and what separates us from mediate versus immediate lifestyles; living versus survival. John Locke describes our separation from animals as just that: beings who always strive for more than what we have, who use the potential of their speech and complex reasoning to creatively make life easier and more enjoyable. While I agree that it's a gift that humans are able to have those mediate relationships with other people and their surroundings, allowing us to think deeper about the meaning of our lives and make something out of our existence that benefits the human race as a whole, I think it is precisely what's causing our downfall, as well as nature's. Locke describes nature as a force to be controlled, used for the benefit of human beings, below us in a way that humans are the only species who can bring nature to its full potential by using the plethora of resources that it provides. This is where we've gone wrong. While we are connected to other animals through our instincts, humans require more than basic needs, but why is that? Why do we feel like we need to work harder to create efficiency to avoid work later, just to find ourselves still working long after our bodies are capable? Why are we so obsessed with change? Locke's account is of the first supports of capitalism in modern political literature, which was revolutionary at the start of the Industrial Revolution, but what about the other side, where humans are meant to be in harmony with nature? 

Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto gives a little more insight into how humans should be more in-tune with nature to find happiness and fulfillment. While we all know that his ideals are only capable in theory, he makes a point to how humans should live, which contradicts how humans actually live, as Locke acknowledges. Humans should only take what they need, when they need it, not anymore and not any less, not to exploit resources as to avoid spoilage and overconsumption, and we will be fulfilled. I'm sure nature would appreciate it because we wouldn't feel the need to live lavishly, we would just love life the way it is. While Marx fails to separate human psychology from animals, he goes back to the word "love" that we keep talking about in class.  Love and responsibility don't extend to the highest standard as Marx would like, but only to what benefits and matters to humans as individuals, which is what Locke knows to be true. Humans innately live for themselves, which is Locke's Law of Nature theory. We aren't mindful of the ways we affect the surroundings outside of our immediate ones, so responsibility and love are a lot smaller in the context of our own little bubbles. While the land trusts living beings to take care of it, humans only trust themselves to preserve the race and will do so without even realizing that they're being counterproductive. I guess in this way Locke and Marx are saying the same things about humans' inner similarity to any other animal, but the difference is using nature to its foreseen "potential," or just existing beside it.