In my reading of Joe Moran’s Interdisciplinarity, I was surprised to see so many connections between what I was reading and what I had learned in one of my other classes called “The Second Darwinian Revolution” taught by Dr. Paul McLaughlin. While the class and Moran’s work share many similar threads, I was struck by Moran’s discussion of the definitions that writers, scientists, and philosophers alike have assigned to describe the natural world.
In Dr. McLaughlin’s class, we discussed the consequences of such assignments at length, focusing particularly on how Francis Bacon’s notions on the essences of science, humankind, and nature created great distance between people and their environment. Dr. McLaughlin firmly believes that this sense of distance caused the ecological crisis we now face in the modern era.
Bacon generated this distance through his formulation of stipulative definitions regarding the qualities of humankind and of nature. Emma made a reference to stipulative definitions in a recent blog post and introduced me to the phrase. A stipulative definition assigns a new meaning to an existing word or term that already bears a prescribed meaning. Stipulative definitions represent the powerful, volatile nature of language.
Bacon, in many of his writings, employs heavily gendered metaphors to describe the relationship between man, the scientist, and nature. According to Evelyn Fox Keller, a renowned Biophysicist, and feminist, in her work Reflections on Gender and Science, Bacon believed that nature was meant to be domineered by men. Furthermore, Bacon viewed nature as something to be forcefully and aggressively seduced in order for man to understand and subjugate it.
Through Bacon’s use of metaphorical language, humankind earns the stipulative definition of a masculine dominator of nature and nature itself becomes defined as a feminine being meant to be coerced and conquered so that people could understand her phenomena and use this comprehension to their advantage.
Similar ideas are conveyed throughout Moran’s Interdisciplinarity. Moran maintains that Bacon believed that “science would allow people eventually to control the weather” (Moran, 156) and that people could come to acquire enough dominion over nature and subsequently alter the flow of seasons in order to bolster the productivity of agriculture. For Bacon, the point of science was to study nature enough to be able to control it. These assertions reflect Bacon’s stipulative definitions and served to spur the “patriarchal notion of ‘the concordance between the mind of man and the nature of things” (Moran, 156).
Moran goes on to discuss other instances in which stipulative definitions prescribed by philosophical writings and political measures impacted the way in which people perceived their environments. Moran cites The Enclosure Acts, which were themselves inspired by John Locke, to illustrate the influence stipulative definitions had upon both human thought and thus the environment, as well.
Locke, in his Two Treatises of Government, defined property as an enclosure of land. This notion stipulated that “people have the right to the products of their labour when they turn untilled soil into enclosed farmland”(Moran, 158). Locke’s definition inspired a mindset that promoted enclosed, agricultural spacial organizations, thereby stripping many of their livelihoods, all in the name of productivity.
In addressing John Clare’s poetry, Moran demonstrates the effect Locke’s stipulations had on nature. Clare’s poetry describes the grim consequences of The Enclosure Act, mourning the loss of once large meadows. Clare represents the perfect antidote to the stipulative definitions of both Bacon and Locke. Clare, in his poetry, rejects the idea that people are separate and superior to nature and instead views himself as being a part of his environment. This rebuttal is visible in Clare’s decision to narrate certain poems from the perspective of nature itself.
It is argued that Clare’s work has gone underappreciated by critics due to the lack of barriers it promotes between people and nature. This lack keeps Clare’s poetry from conforming to the typical conventions of the pastoral genre, which is itself defined by Google as “a work of literature portraying an idealized version of country life”. This genre, despite its attempts to glorify nature, arguably only further distances people from nature since pastoralism relies upon creating divisions between man and nature. In many pastoral works, nature is the vessel through which an abstracted author may have a “transcendent, interiorized, experience” (Moran, 159).
Genres, like pastoralism, are themselves examples of stipulative definitions that can heavily impact people’s mindsets, dictating what it is people should and shouldn’t read. For example, since John Clare’s poetry did not align itself with the conventions of pastoralism, his work has not earned the appreciation Moran argues it deserves. Modern day examples can be seen in the stigma centered around Young Adult, or YA, literature. A poignant coming-of-age story could be undervalued by critics and readers alike, due to the genre it falls under. Additionally, many may choose not to read such a story at all, simply because the name of the genre connotes immaturity and an element of baseness.
Furthermore, Percival Everett, the author I have come to have a deep appreciation for, is constantly defying and rejecting the idea of genre. Everett refuses to be pinned down to any particular genre, as seen in his interview with The Los Angelos Review of Books. In the interview, Everett refutes the idea that his works can be categorized into a particular genre, save for God’s Country (his one “western”).
However, Everett’s main grievance with genre fiction is that he finds it formulaic. This aspect of genre fiction is no doubt a byproduct of the constraints that define genres themselves. Therefore, genres and the definitions they stipulate, suffocate both the products within the genres, like Young Adult novels, and readers since readers, like Percival Everett, have largely grown tired with the conventions of genre and the lack-luster results these constraints tend to generate.