The Environment

One of the major current political issues is 'The Environment'. In much of the discussion, The Environment is conceived as an object that needs special attention from humans at this time, primarily because of the way that we humans have lately been treating it--polluting it, using it up, etc. The very term itself encourages such a conceptualization--The Environment surrounds us, which entails that it is over against us, and, therefore separate from us. Doctrines in which a human is a spiritual entity deposited in a physical body are the basis of such a subject-object split, and those which designate the human race as guardians of the natural world more subtly reinforce that opposition. One significant exception to these positions is Spinoza's Pantheism, which embeds humans, mind and body, in the system of nature. The lesson from Spinoza is, therefore, that our treatment of the world around us is, at the same time, a treatment of ourselves, of our physical health. Whether or not current Environmentalism is more than a passing fad will depend on how seriously a doctrine like Spinozism is taken.