1. Humanity’s relationship with Nature
My translation of “menneskets forhold til naturen
AT-Dage 2017
Steven Breunig, PhD
Department of Language and Communication
Humanities, SDU

2. Humanity’s relationship with Nature
Social Scientific Thinking:
Examine and construct generalizations of various social structures from families, ethnic groups to organizations, as well as social identities, such as Asian-American, by investigating the variables involved in the social processes for the development and continuation of social phenomena in their “contexts” using different theories and methods
Thinking within the Natural Sciences:
Test theory of natural processes and formulate hypotheses to understand, predict and describe the causes of natural phenomena through observational and empirical work
Humanistic Thinking:
Create understanding of objects and events as single and unique products of the imagination, reasoning and actions of individual persons and cultures through interpretive approaches to describe the familiar and unfamiliar aspects of the cultural phenomena.
The unfamiliar is typically a result of the distance in time and space across history and culture.
If theory is used, theory emerges through the process of scholarship, and the theory becomes the meaning of the cultural artifact typically through “writing” about it.
The meaning of the object/event may or may not contain values, beliefs and attitudes like our own, normally not!

3. Understanding and the construction of meaning
A children’s joke: What is this?
The traditional answer has been a giraffe going by a window. In our current historical context, the meaning could be a giraffe taking a selfie! But in both cases, the meaning sticks to the phenomena. With Foucault and other humanistic philosophers, the humanities recognizes that the “object or event” understanding is no longer a single semantic unit, but meaning emerges through various forms of social practice, like going to school and learning the “correct” meaning of a book, for example, or painting by being written about and/or placed in a museum.

4. “One mind less, one world less”

5. “A Hanging (1931) by George Orwell”
“It is curious, but till that moment I had never realized what it means to destroy a healthy, conscious man. When I saw the prisoner step aside to avoid the puddle, I saw the mystery ... He and we were a party of men walking together, seeing, hearing, feeling, understanding the same world; and in two minutes, with a sudden snap, one of us would be gone - one mind less, one world less”

6. The individual and the perspective of the individual
Lars von Trier: “I understand Hitler”

7. World unlike our own On the Danish TV series 1864
En ko bliver af flere holdt nede, så den ikke kan bevæge sig, mens den bliver voldtaget bagfra. Det er hvad man i går kunne se i andet afsnit af Danmarks hidtil dyreste TV-serie “1864”.
Den omstridte scene har både forarget politikerne og den resterende danske befolkning.
Forståelse er et mål I sig selv!

8. Humanity’s relationship with Nature
Human intercourse with animals before world war II
Alfred Kinsey

9. Nature Boy (1947) by Eden Ahbez
There was a boy, a very strange enchanted boy
They say he'd wandered very far, very far
Over land and sea.
A little shy, and sad of eye; but very wise was he.
And then one day...one magic day he passed my way
And while we spoke of many things, fools and kings
This he said to me
The greatest thing you'll ever learn
Is just to love and be loved in return.
Is just to love and be loved in return

10. Scientific thinking and practice
“Our main task as philosophers is, I think, to enrich our picture of the world by helping to produce imaginative and at the same time argumentative and critical theories, preferably of methodological interest.”
Karl Popper 1972 In Objective Knowledge
Moral: How we know is more important than what we know
How we know something is more important than what we know: Vores faglige mål!

11. Humanity’s relationship with Nature
Problem statement:
Given the humanistic premise that “perception/conception” has a history, I intend to examine the conception of nature in the title of the text “Nature Boy” across several artistic contexts, specifically as an expression of the intentions of the author Eden Ahbez, as well as sung by Nat King Cole and David Bowie with Massive Attack.
In addition, the results of the analysis, namely that the conception of nature varies, will be placed in relation to the discourse of Climate change in order to shed light on how individuals make sense of our place in nature!

12. Methodological orientation
Object of analysis
Texts
“Data” collecting
From information to constructing ideas (conceptualization)
Approach
Music analysis (Music)
Visual analysis (Art History)
Text Analysis (English)
Theory
Theoretical constructs of Nature (Raymond Williams)

13. Approach from Music Formal analysis Melody Harmony Lyrics Form Texture
Tempo
Metre
Timbre
Dynamics
Mix
Analytical concepts based on the psychology of perception
I. A listener’s musical intuitions
-Metrical
-Grouping
-Time-Span
-Prolongational
II. Biologically “hard-wired, innate” mental processes
-Similarities and differences, such as descent or ascent for classifying consecutive notes
The formal analysis is based on categories that belong to the discourse, especially regarding how music is taught and talked about, not necessarily experienced. Recall that perception is selective!

14. Approach from Art History and Visual Analysis
Formal concepts
Composition
Shape of the image
Size
Materiality
Forms: Organic and/or geometric
Color: saturated, tone and hue
Space
Perspective
Light
Movement
Rhythm
Balance
Genre/Motif concepts
-Landscape
-Portrait
-Static
-Dynamic action
-Time and place
-Familiarity and otherness
-Objects and symbols

15. Approach from text analysis
Close reading strategy
Understanding is established by analyzing individual parts of a text.
At the same time, understanding of each individual part is informed by the text as a whole.
Furthermore, meaning is found within the historical, cultural and literary context of the text

16. Theory: Creating a context for understanding
Raymond Williams (1990) on “Ideas of Nature”
Personified Nature, as in Mother nature, or to know nature is to know God
Nature as physical object in which nature has an order including a place for humans in the whole
Nature as separate from humans, whereby humans figure how how nature works and how it was created
Unspoiled nature, a true wilderness, nature is innocent in contrast to humans, nature as a refuge
Alienated nature, humans are the naked-apes in a social jungle where competition rules, a rat race
Have a hand-out!

17. Nature Boy (1947) by Eden Ahbez

18. Nature Boy (1948) by Nat King Cole

19. Nature Boy (2001) by David Bowie and Massive Attack
Played during the closing credits

20. Analysis
What is humanity’s relationship with Nature like in the three “texts”? What does Nature mean in Nature Boy? Eden Ahbez Nat King Cole David Bowie with Massive Attack

21. Conservative ideology (Strict Father Morality)
Perspective: Concepts of nature are also psychological not only historical/analytical
Conservative ideology (Strict Father Morality)
Liberal ideology (Nurturant Parent Morality)
Example:
Hillary Clinton, Chocolate chip cookies, and the rights of children
George Lakoff’s Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think

22. Nature within Strict Father Morality
Nature is God’s Dominion (given to man to steward wisely).
Nature is a Resource (for immediate human use).
Nature is Property (for the use of the owner, and for sale and purchase).
Nature is a Work of Art (for human appreciation).
Nature is an Adversary (to be conquered and made to serve us).
Nature is a Wild Animal (to be tamed for our use).
Nature is a Mechanical System (to be figured out and put to use).
3. Current situation in Denmark with the sale and development of coastal areas

23. Nature within Nurturant Parent Morality
Nature is a Mother (who provides for us).
Nature is a Whole (of which we are inseparable parts).
Nature is a Divine Being (to be revered and respected).
Nature is a Living Organism (whose needs must be met if it is to survive).
Nature is a Home (to be maintained and kept clean).
Nature is a Victim of Injury (who has been harmed and needs to be healed).

24. A real environmental issue
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in USA
From the liberal view (nuturant parent morality), the EPA protects the citizenry from environmental dangers and to protect the environment itself. Part of its job is to regulate industries that produce pollution.
From the conservative view (strict father morality), the EPA should be eliminated! Solutions to the problems should come from industries operating in a free market, rather than out of government-imposed constraints that punish enterprising companies through regulation.

25. Humanities and Nature
Natural sciences: Describing the “Laws of Nature” alone won’t help solve the problem of acting on the issue of climate change.
Social sciences: The study and implementation of economic initiatives, for example, may change people’s behavior, but it won’t change their minds.
Humanities: Understanding the meaning construction of individuals, especially those different than ourselves, and then providing them with alternative frames for thinking about the issues may help us solve the challenges of Climate Change and connect with our environment.

26. Critique and reflection
Intentional fallacy (W.K. Wimsatt, Jr. and Monroe C. Beardsley): It is incorrect to assume that we can know what the author had in mind or intended with their text
Not a true representation of a text, but a construction of a text in order to act: “to determine the text’s proper bearing on our own values and our conduct in the world. (Robert Scholes 2011: 71)
Politics of interpretation (Hayden White 1982)
“History is a window to the past” vs. “history is a wall to be broken”
“Beauty” (order, progression, inherent meaning) vs. “Sublime” (chaos, meaninglessness)
For 2, there can be no meaning without an intention to mean, either our own or another’s Scholes p. 50

27. The End
Thank you
And good luck with your AT-projects!