What is harmony? Harmony is most commonly used in musical language to describe a pleasing combination of melodies. It refers to two entirely separate entities that manage to complement one another and create an agreeable outcome. Harmony is also used to refer to things outside of music and is popular in describing relationships; to live in harmony with something. Eustace Conway IV, a renaissance man of sorts, believes that mankind can live in harmony with nature, a bold conjecture. Conway also believes that he has figured out the way to live to accomplish said task. What does it mean for man to live in harmony with nature? The notion is hard to conceptualize in today’s industrialized landscape. Conway’s plan, although admirable and bold, lacks a great deal of rationale; it is not good enough for everyone to move to the woods and live off the land. For man to live in harmony with nature, there needs to be the absolute dissolution of industrialized capitalist society, and unfortunately, a great deal of human life would have to be sacrificed.
Conway has lived off the land for over 25 years of his life. Raised in a North Carolina suburb, Conway was at one point part of the system he chooses to reject. His woodsman skills are unsurpassed; he is able to live with relative ease with few or no material possessions. He hunts his own food, makes his own clothes, and builds his own shelter. For all intents and purposes, Conway does in fact live in harmony with nature. Conway also believes that every American could live the exact same way. He has made it his life’s work to change the modern man. “…He believed he knew of a better way of life for all Americans, one that people should judge with great care in order to see the truth of his vision… He wanted to reach out to them – to all of them.” The sheer enormity of Conway’s scheme indicates its first and most fatal flaw.
With the amount of destruction that humans have already wrought upon nature, there is no feasible way for the approximately 290 million inhabitants of America to comfortably live off of nature’s bounty. Surely there could be a mathematical statistic created that would explain the amount of land that an individual human would need to account for their life sustaining needs. It seems safe to say that this number multiplied by the current population would reach well beyond America’s usable forests and wild lands. Although this is only a technicality with no hard evidence, the truth that it indicates is undeniable. There are simply too many humans to live “in harmony” with nature. Conway is successful in his venture because he is one of few. It is foolish for him to believe that this success is simply a matter of one’s survival abilities. He would perish, just as many others would, when food and water resources became tapped. The overuse of resources would not cease entirely just because everyone lived in the woods.
Modern society is what makes it possible for the 6 and a half billion people of the world to survive at the expense of nature. Mankind has developed systems so that all things necessary to our own survival are only a monetary expenditure away. Resources are steadily being drained at an alarming pace. There is nothing harmonious about man’s current lifestyle. For mankind to even begin thinking about a harmonious relationship with nature, money must be eliminated as the central goal of civilization. I believe Conway would agree with my assertion on this subject. As long as the economies of governments are so closely tied to natural resources and their sale, nature will continue to be exploited and will eventually collapse under the rising rates of resource consumption. Society has established that money is survival. Without money, one cannot have shelter, cannot have food, cannot have any basic provisions necessary to live. And with nature at the root of nearly all economics (without oil and minerals there would be basically no Industry) man has backed himself into a corner. It is a catch-22 situation. Mankind can continue to exist as it does now; using up resources, increasing population, and further spiritual separation from nature to eventually reach an environmental catastrophe of epic proportions. It is clear that Earth cannot support that many life forms, and as nature crumbles, so too will modern society. As modern society crumbles, so too will the support structure for millions upon millions of humans dependent on it. The casualties would be devastating. The other option, which might be reached anyways because of this pending catastrophe, is the dissolution of modern society, and a return to a more communal lifestyle. This too will lead to a great number of human casualties though because that lifestyle cannot be achieved with more than 6 billion people. It seems as though humans are in a bind. Conway would say, “Everyone to the woods, and don’t forget your knife!” but this is irrational. It may have saved him, but it will not save the world.
It is impossible for all the humans that exist today to live in harmony with nature, that much has been said. There are ways however, to live closer to this ideal harmonious state, with the fewest sacrifices of life possible. As I said earlier, I think the first and most important step is the dissolution of industrialized society. Mankind must swallow his collective pride, take what we have learned, and put it to good use on protecting our own futures. Conway would agree that the elimination of all trivial material possessions would be a good first step for any human. To eliminate these goods would increase mankind’s ability to separate between desire and necessity; a difference that is vital if humans want to live in harmony with nature. Along with this concept of necessity versus desire, it seems to me that the elimination of meat as part of the human diet would also be a crucial step. To eliminate meat in our diets would increase the amount of food available for everyone because all the land that is used for food for the animals that humans consume could be used to grow crops directly for our own use. A third and possibly most crucial step would be to rely solely on alternative forms of energy such as wind, hydroelectric, or solar, and to put strict regulations on energy consumption, particularly fossil fuel consuming vehicle use. This will obviously change the modern lifestyle severely, but again, it is a change that is necessary if we wish to save as many lives as possible, and begin to live more harmoniously with nature. I think Conway would not disapprove of any of the aforementioned points. However, Conway might believe that it is too compromising, still allowing for ignorance among humans. I would have trouble disagreeing with him; I truly do believe that we must return to a hunter-gather communal lifestyle to assure a harmonious relationship, but I would also have trouble with acknowledging the sacrifice of millions of human lives to accomplish this.
Humans and nature have a most confusing relationship. Humans have gone so far in one direction that our entire basis of survival is engrained in the exploitation of nature and yet most modern humans fail to recognize our dependence on it. How can we change this? It is foolhardy to believe that one could live without effecting nature in any way; even the smallest of organisms effect their environment. But what is more dangerous is to live in an environment, like most modern humans do, where the forces of nature are rendered nearly powerless in effecting us on a day-to-day basis. In other words, humans need to be affected by the changes in nature, both positive and negative. Harmony can only be achieved when both entities affect one another, giving and taking away. Humans must find a way of life where they are still susceptible to nature’s wrath because if it is nature that sustains us and gives us life, it has to be nature that can take it away just as quickly. That is harmony.
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