Advanced Culture - Subdued Nature

Advanced Culture - Subdued Nature

The hoards of advertisements on television, in newspapers, and magazines, use whatever means in order to catch the attention of the viewer. They have gone so far as to use animals and nature in any form they wish. This is far more than just a moneymaking scheme, it is a representation of the relationship between nature and the advancing and dominant culture. It almost seems that the more technologically advanced a culture becomes, the more distant the relationship there is to nature. It is because of this that we are left to view the images that are put before us by others. Buying that carton of orange juice in the grocery store looks more appetizing if the pictures depict the oranges on the tree, with the words "natural orange juice." We want to feel as though they are as fresh as if we went to the farm and hand picked and squeezed them ourselves. Yet we try to keep out of our minds the fact that culture has advanced so much that this is not possible. Nature has been lost to us, as Carolyn Merchant makes note of, and it is because we grow ever distant with more technological advance. Because we cannot be there in nature, we have recreated it as well as the images that represent it. The use or these representations for the selling of technological products has in many cases done nothing but further the nature-culture dichotomy.

The separation of the nature and culture has led consumers and viewers of advertisements to fall for the manufacturer's ploy of making one believe that their product is "natural." For example, the package of Sun Raisins contains a picture of a farm and a woman that looks like a farmhand picking many fruits. This image can be interpreted as the depiction of an all-na...

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...t of the industrial revolution. NASA follows this same pattern by linking what they study, the science in nature, with what they offer the viewer. This all leaves us with the problem that if we are to live in culture and separated from nature then we can not hold an accurate representation on our side of the dichotomy. Some people believe that you must either choose to live with the misrepresentations or live in nature. Yet William Cronon makes the point that nature and culture are tied together. Though the Sun Raisins are bought in a grocery store, they are still from the farm and nature. Cronon states that "every city is nature metropolis and every piece of countryside its rural hinterland. (Epilogue)." However we may misconceive our environment we are still a part of it and wherever we build our Technological cities and cultures, they still reside within nature.